Original Sin

[GrzeszDeL]

Just a few brief points before I return to my main point - the Paschal lamb is, really by definition, a substitutionary atonement. As the author of the letter to the Hebrews is rather at pains to point out (5:1, 5:3, 7:27, 9:7, etc), the priest offers the victim for the sake of those who have sinned. Christ, in becoming both the priest and the victim, has made an eternal sacrifice which cleanses us from our sin, but this cleansing would have been impossible except by the bloody sacrifice of the God-Man (9:22).

In other words, if we are to make any sense out of Hebrews, we must posit something very much like substitutionary atonement. Indeed, to the extent that the Orthodox acclaim Christ as our Paschal lamb (as when the priest prays in the liturgy “Broken and distributed is the Lamb of God, broken yet not divided, ever eaten yet never consumed, but sanctifying the communicants”), they as much as admit this point. One need not take this theory as the only account of how we are saved (indeed, despite all the Orthodox ballyhoo to that effect, we in the west have never looked on atonement theory as the end-all-be-all of soteriology), but it is necessarily at least part of the story. Any attempt to do soteriology with no reference to atoning sacrifice just cannot make sense of the Scriptures. Fortunately, despite all the protests to the contrary, the Orthodox plainly do admit this principle as part of their soteriology, as evidenced by the fact that they read Isaiah 52:13-54:1 in their Good Friday vespers.

Meanwhile, regarding the word choice Pascha instead of Easter - apparently there are more than a few western Christians (I would guess a frank majority, in fact) who agree that the word is “Pascha,” as evidenced by the Italians (who say “Pasquale”), the French (“Pasques”), etc. If you find the word “Easter” distasteful, all I can say is that my people had nothing to do with it, and you can kindly lodge your complaints with the Saxons (although you will have to get in line, as there are already more than a few folks with gripes waiting to talk to them).

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Sessio quinta sacri œcumenici et generalis
concilii Tridentini sub Paulo III Pont. Max.

Decretum publicatum in quinta sessione super peccato originali

Ut fides nostra catholica, sine qua impossiblie est placere Deo, purgatis erroribus in sua sinceritate integra et illibata permaneat, et ne populus Christianus omni vento doctrinæ circumferatur, cum serpens ille antiquus, humani generis perpetuus hostis inter plurima mala, quibus ecclesia Dei his nostris temporibus perturbatur, etiam de peccato originali eiusque remedio non solum nova, sed etiam vetera dissidia excitaverit: sacrosancta œcumenica et generalis Tridentina synodus in Spiritu Sancto legitime congregata, præsidentibus in ea eisdem tribus Apostolicæ Sedis legatis, iam ad revocandos errantes, et nutantes confirmandos accedere volens, sacrarum scripturarum et sanctorum patrum ac probatissimorum conciliorum testimonia et ipsius ecclesiæ iudicium et consensum secuta hæc de ipso peccato originali stauit, fatetur ac declarat:

I) Si quis non confitetur, primum hominem Adam, cum mandatum Dei in paradiso fuisset transgressus, statim sanctitatem et iustitiam, in qua constitutus fuerat, amisisse incurrisseque per offensam prævaricationis huisumodi iram et indignationem Dei atque ideo mortem, quam antea illi comminatus fuerat Deus, et cum morte captivatitatem sub eius potestate, qui mortis deinde habuit imperium, hoc est diaboli, totumque Adam per illam prævaricationis offensam secundum corpus et animam in deterius commutatum fuisse: anathema sit.

II) Si quis Adæ prævaricationem sibi soli et non eius propagini asserit nocuisse, acceptam a Deo sanctitatem et iustitiam, quam perdidi, sibi soli et non nobis etiam eum perdidisse; aut inquinatum illum per inobedientiæ peccatum mortem et pœnas corporis tantum in omne genus humanum transfudisse, non autem et peccatum, quod mors est animæ: anathema sit, cum contradicat Apostolo dicenti, “Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, et per peccatum mors, et ita in omnes homines mors pertransiit, in quo omnes peccaverunt.”

III) Si quis hoc Adæ peccatum, quod origine unum est et propagatione, non imitatione transfusum omnibus inest unicuique proprium, vel per humanæ naturæ vires, vel per aliud remediu asserit tolli, quam meritum unius mediatris Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, qui nos Deo reconciliavit in sanguine suo, factus nobis iustitia, sanctificatio et redemptio; aut negat, ipsum Christi Jesu meritum per baptismi sacramentum, in forma ecclesiæ rite collatum, tam adultis quam parvulis applicari: anathema sit. Quia non est aliud nomen sub cœlo datum hominibus, in quo oporteat nos salvos fieri. Unde illa vox: Ecce agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi. Et illa: Quicunque baptizati estis, Christum induistis.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

IV) Si quis parvulos recentes ab uteris matrum baptizandos negat, etiam si fuerint a baptizatis parentibus orti, aut dicit, in remissionem quidem peccatorum eos baptizari, sed nihil ex Adam trahere originalis peccati, quod regenerationis lavacro necesse sit expiari ad vitam æternam consequendam, unde fit consequens, ut in eis forma baptismatis in remissionem peccatorum non vera, sed falsa intelligatur: anathema sit. Quoniam non aliter intelligendum est id, quod dicit Apostolus: Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum, et per peccatum mors, et ita in omnes homines mors pertransiit, in quo omnes peccaverunt, nisi quemadmodum ecclesia catholica ubique diffusa semper intellexit. Propter hanc enim regulam fidei ex traditione apostolorum etiam parvuli, qui nihil peccatorum in semetipsis adhuc committere poterunt, ideo in remissionem peccatorum veraciter baptizantur, ut in eis regeneratione mundetur, quod generatione contraxerunt. Nisi enim quis renatus fuerit ex aqua et Spiritu Sancto, non potest introire in regnum Dei.

V) Si quis per Jesu Christi Domini Nostri gratiam, quæ in baptismate confertur, reatum originalis peccati remitti negat, aut etiam asserit, non tolli totum id, quod veram et propriam peccati rationem habet, sed illus dicit tantam radi aut non imputari: anathema sit. In renatis enim nihil odit Deus, quia nihil est damnationis iis, qui vere consepulti sunt cum Christo per baptisma in mortem, qui non secundum carnem ambulant, sed veterm hominem exuentes et novum, qui secundum Deum, creatus est, induentes, innocentes, immaculati, puri, innoxii ac Deo dilecti filii effecti sunt, heredes quidem Dei, coheredes autem Christi, ita ut nihil prorsus eos ab ingressu cœli remoretur. Manere autem in baptizatis concupiscentiam vel fomitem, hæc sancta synodus fatetur et sentit; quæ cum ad agonem relicta sit, nocere non consentientibus et viriliter per Christ Jesu gratiam repugnatntibus non valet. Quinimmo qui legitime ceraverit, coronabitur. Hanc concupiscentiam, quam aliquando Apostulus peccatum appelat, sancta synodus declarat, ecclesiam catholicam nunquam intellexisse, peccatum appellari, quod vere et proprie in renatis peccatum sit, sed quia ex peccato est et ad peccatum inclinat. Si quis autem contrarium senserit: anthema sit.

VI) Declarat tamen hæc ipsa sancta synodus, non esse suæ intentionis, comprehendere in hoc decreto, ubi de peccato orignial agitur, beatam et immaculatam Virginem Mariam Dei genitricem, sed observadas esse constituiones felicis recordationis Sixti Papæ Quarit, sub pœnis in eis constitutionibus contentis, quas innovat.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

As you can see, the library finally came through with the books I requested. I have posted the entire text of the decrees concerning original sin in the Latin so that we might all work from the same source texts without worry of meanings being lost in translation. One caveat, however, is that I typed all of this text myself, and despite my efforts to double check and proof-read, I make no guarantees about the impeccability of the work. There may be typos, and I apologize in advance for any confusion that they may cause.

I will cut right to the meat of the matter and consider the subject of “guilt” being inherited from Adam. The text claims that “per Jesu Christi Domini Nostri gratiam reatus originalis peccati remittitur.” The word given as “guilt” in English is not “culpa” or “scelere” or “noxia” or “vitium” or any of the other words classically used as equivalents to the English “guilt”: instead, the Tridentine fathers used the word “reatus,” which is a late Latin word which gives us the Italian “reato.” This word itself comes from the word “reus,” which means a party in a lawsuit, especially the defendant. In other words, the sense of the term used is largely forensic. “Guilt” is almost too strong a word to use as a translation. “Accusation” would be too weak, but the real sense of the word is somewhere between those two. In any case, there is nothing there, as you can see, that cannot be accounted for by the explanation which Matt and I (to say nothing of John Paul II) have been laboring to make clear. Adam lost the innocence in which he was created, and because he no longer possessed that innocence he could not bequeath it to us. We are born, as such, deprived of that innocence, and thus need baptism to restore that innocence to us (“induentes, innocentes, immaculati, puri, innoxii ac Deo dilecti filii effecti sunt… qui vere consepulti sunt cum Christo per baptisma in mortem”). As John Paul II makes clear, however, this lack of innocence is not to be understood as a possessing the character of a personal fault.

Once this understanding of Trent is made clear, the error of Myhrr’s later misinterpretations becomes equally plain. Ven. Pius XII is not talking about a personal fault of infants, because he is simply recalling the teaching of Trent (which is also not talking about personal fault in infants). No one is speaking of the “culpa peccati originalis” or the “vitium peccati originalis.” Of course, when viewed through an Augustinian lens, guilt is a privation of innocence and sin is a privation of holiness, so there is perfectly valid (Augustinian) sense in which one can speak of baptism as remitting a “sin” or dissolving the “guilt” of even new-born infants, but this is not the sense of the words as they are used by Fr. Ambrose or Myhrr on this thread. The whole fracas arises merely from an equivocation occasioned by Augustine’s insightful but somewhat unusual terminology. There is nothing, therefore, in the Tridentine canons which might require us to believe that anyone inherits Adam’s “guilt” or “sin” in the ordinary sense that most of us (like Fr. A or Myhrr) might use the words.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Incidentally, returning to the subject of atonement, while I have no aversion to the topic, I am still hard-pressed to see what it has to do with original sin. Myhrr’s bizzare non-sequitur notwithstanding, none of the Orthodox participants here have bothered to draw the line connecting the two ideas. What is the link that makes the two ideas part of a package deal in the minds of the Orthodox participants here (other than the bald fact that both claims are plainly present in sacred scripture)?

 

[Matt16_18]

prodromos:

Ever tried to seperate a sunbeam from the sun? “Hey what happened to the sunbeam? Where did it go?”

Just as a sunbeam cannot be separated from the sun, neither can God’s energies be separated from His essence. That doesn’t make the energy of the sun the same as the essence of the sun though.

Bad analogy. The Sun is a created thing, and because it is created, it is divisible into parts. God is pure act, God is simple, and God is not divisible into parts.

The more that I see how the Orthodox use the phrase “divine Energies”, the more that I realize that in many cases this phrase can be substituted with “Love”.

God is Love. The essence of God is love.

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

God’s Essence is not His Energies. The first remains forever unknowable to us. But His Energies, which include Uncreated Grace, is how He touches us, reacts with us and divinises us.

So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
1John 4:16Note that John does not say that God is loving, he says God IS love. The essence of God is Love, and John disagrees with the Orthodox that we can never know anything about Divine Love.

It is created Grace which makes no sense at all. Now that the Catholics have adopted some Orthodox theology and terminology such as “theosis” - becoming by grace what God is by nature, (as Saint Peter explains it succinctly) you will be obliged to adopt the Orthodox understanding of God as Essence/Energies and of Grace as being God Himself.

Otherwise there is no other way to explain how we may become by grace what God is by nature.

God is Love because Love is God’s nature. The transforming union for purifies us from inordinate self-love, and allows us to love with God’s love. Grace perfects nature. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.
1John 4:8

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Matt16_18:

Bad analogy. The Sun is a created thing, and because it is created, it is divisible into parts. God is pure act, God is simple, and God is not divisible into parts.

The more that I see how the Orthodox use the phrase “divine Energies”, the more that I realize that in many cases this phrase can be substituted with “Love”.

God is Love. The essence of God is love.

Come now, Matt, be fair. To be sure, Prodromos’ analogy is, like all analogies, imperfect, but for all that it is still intelligible and (I think) reasonably sound. After all, while the sun is a created thing, as Christians we believe that the created world reflects truths about the Creator, and this goes doubly so for the Sun, whose numerous comparisons to God in the Christian tradition are too many to list here.

Meanwhile, without wishing to sound like a scold, I would remind you that the terminology of “energies” and “essence” is of eastern (specifically Palamite) origin, and it seems rather odd to me that we westerners should begin to correct the easterners about what they mean by the terms. If we continue down that road we will quickly end up sounding just as silly as they do when they presume to inform us of what we mean by words like “guilt” or “contagion.”

 

[RBushlow]

Fr Ambrose:

… continued
Western theological development stressed salvation from an angry God, whereas Orthodox theology stressed, as it always had, salvation from sin, evil, death and the devil.

Since salvation is one of the fundamentals of the Christian faith, this difference means that Eastern and Western Christians have moved quite far apart. . . .So Orthodoxy is neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant. QUOTE]

Thank you Father.

I believe I see what you believe are the errors in our view. If I understand you correctly, you are saying that Our Lord did not become flesh, suffer and die to atone for our sins. Forgive me Father; it is difficult for me to see this clearly. What is the “general view of the early church” of why Christ went through His passion and suffering?

On another subject, it is my understanding that the Byzantine Catholic Church is closer to the Orthodox view on many of these matters. What is the Orthodox view of Byzantine Catholics?

Thank you again for your patience with me.

 

[Matt16_18]

The Blessing of the Oil and Anointing – Once the blessing of the water is complete, the Godparent will offer a small bottle of olive oil over which a prayer for the banishment of evil is read to make it “an anointing of incorruption, a weapon of justice, a renewal of soul and body, a defense against every influence of the Devil and a release from evil

Fr Ambrose:

I agree, it is a prayer for the release from sin in general, from the evil which threatens creation, from death, and from the devil.

Right! And the fact that the devil can even have a hold on us is connected to original sin, the atoning sacrifice for sin, and Jesus as our Redeemer.

To redeem means to buy back (a when a coupon is redeemed, the store buys back the coupon). But how did it come to be that Jesus is our Redeemer? From whom did God purchase us? What was the price of that purchase? And how did mankind ever get into the position that we needed to be bought back from the devil? God certainly didn’t create Adam and Eve as subjects of Satan. You are not your own; you were bought with a price.
1Cor. 6:19-20

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Oooh, good point!

 

[Matt16_18]

GrzeszDeL:

To be sure, Prodromos’ analogy is, like all analogies, imperfect, but for all that it is still intelligible and (I think) reasonably sound.

So what does his analogy tell you about Divine Energy? Fr Ambrose says that the Divine Energies ARE God. Is the sunbeam God or not God? What is the point of this analogy?

Meanwhile, without wishing to sound like a scold, I would remind you that the terminology of “energies” and “essence” is of eastern (specifically Palamite) origin, and it seems rather odd to me that we westerners should begin to correct the easterners about what they mean by the terms. If we continue down that road we will quickly end up sounding just as silly as they do when they presume to inform us of what we mean by words like “guilt” or “contagion.”

Neither “essence” nor “energy” are Christian terms. They are terms borrowed from Greek physics and metaphysics that were used long before Christians were around. The Greek Christians quite naturally used these existing terms in their theology of grace.

The doctrine of Original Sin is all about the loss of sanctifying grace through the sin of Adam. If we can’t talk clearly about grace, we will never be able to talk clearly about the dogmas concerning Original Sin.

 

[Myhrr]

GrzeszDeL:

I will cut right to the meat of the matter and consider the subject of “guilt” being inherited from Adam. The text claims that “per Jesu Christi Domini Nostri gratiam reatus originalis peccati remittitur.” The word given as “guilt” in English is not “culpa” or “scelere” or “noxia” or “vitium” or any of the other words classically used as equivalents to the English “guilt”: instead, the Tridentine fathers used the word “reatus,” which is a late Latin word which gives us the Italian “reato.” This word itself comes from the word “reus,” which means a party in a lawsuit, especially the defendant. In other words, the sense of the term used is largely forensic. “Guilt” is almost too strong a word to use as a translation. “Accusation” would be too weak, but the real sense of the word is somewhere between those two. In any case, there is nothing there, as you can see, that cannot be accounted for by the explanation which Matt and I (to say nothing of John Paul II) have been laboring to make clear. Adam lost the innocence in which he was created, and because he no longer possessed that innocence he could not bequeath it to us. We are born, as such, deprived of that innocence, and thus need baptism to restore that innocence to us (“induentes, innocentes, immaculati, puri, innoxii ac Deo dilecti filii effecti sunt… qui vere consepulti sunt cum Christo per baptisma in mortem”). As John Paul II makes clear, however, this lack of innocence is not to be understood as a possessing the character of a personal fault.

Once this understanding of Trent is made clear, the error of Myhrr’s later misinterpretations becomes equally plain. Ven. Pius XII is not talking about a personal fault of infants, because he is simply recalling the teaching of Trent (which is also not talking about personal fault in infants). No one is speaking of the “culpa peccati originalis” or the “vitium peccati originalis.” Of course, when viewed through an Augustinian lens, guilt is a privation of innocence and sin is a privation of holiness, so there is perfectly valid (Augustinian) sense in which one can speak of baptism as remitting a “sin” or dissolving the “guilt” of even new-born infants, but this is not the sense of the words as they are used by Fr. Ambrose or Myhrr on this thread. The whole fracas arises merely from an equivocation occasioned by Augustine’s insightful but somewhat unusual terminology. There is nothing, therefore, in the Tridentine canons which might require us to believe that anyone inherits Adam’s “guilt” or “sin” in the ordinary sense that most of us (like Fr. A or Myhrr) might use the words.

Adam’s sin wasn’t loss of innocence, it was disobedience, the penalty for which is death**,** which is passed on by generation and each child is thus born guilty, as in juridical, of Adam’s sin, without grace and destined to eternal damnation for it. Disobedience was a wilful act into the state of sin, we are not mixing up personal and original sin.

Disobedience as a personal sin by rejecting dogmas is still a mortal sin for which an RCC is damned to eternal hell as, and let’s not muddy the waters here by any tangential discussion of degrees, it means an immediate loss of grace putting the person back into the orginal state of sin, deliberate entry back into the sinful state.

The Council of Trent is acknowledged as authority in the introduction to the CCC, it’s referred to throughout the Catechism which is endorsed by the magesterium and Pope John Paul II. It’s in the small print and if you go back and read JPII or Pius with that in mind you’ll see they’re not teaching anything different from Trent, both Pius and JPII stress the importance of adherence to RCC dogmas of Trent.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

GrzeszDeL:

Meanwhile, regarding the word choice Pascha instead of Easter -

Most of the Orthodox do prefer to use the word Pascha for the Feast of the Lord’s Resurrection but, please, let us not disparage the venerable word Easter which is a part of our Orthodox heritage and a genuine survival from the days when Britain was Orthodox in her faith. For those who are Irish - the word is Caisc. Derived from Pascha by way of the Old Irish P to K(C) permutation.

This was written by Caedmon Parsons, an Orthodox man in CA.

There is absolutely no evidence for a Germanic goddess with a name in any way resembling the word “Easter”. Rather than the term being derived from a goddess, the supposed goddess is herself derived from the term. She was postulated by certain 19th century Germanic scholars in an attempt to explain the etymology of the word. These same scholars (foremost among them the Grimm brothers, famous for their folk-tale collections and less well-known as the discoverers of the “Indo-European” linguistic family) had a very definite nationalist/ethnic agenda in which they were trying to rediscover the “real” roots of German culture. Thus the folk-tale collection’s avowed purpose was to search for “survivals” of pre-Christian Germanic religion and culture.

The later connection of this invented figure to Astarte was sheer
fundamentalist propaganda based on a coincidental similarity in sound. Having dismissed Nativity/Christmas because it’s timing coincides with a number of pagan solar festivals, those fundamentalist groups which criticise all celebration of “holy days” thereby sought to discredit “Easter” whose general timing is well laid out in the Bible. If there was a connection, it would be the only case of a Sumerian/Canaanite word coming into the Germanic languages without first passing through Hebrew and/or Greek into Latin and then into Germanic via the medium of Christianity.

There is some by no means conclusive evidence of a festival or holy day connected to the spring solstice. However, every recorded instance of the word’s usage has clear Christian connotations (i.e., if it ever was a pagan festival, it had effectively disappeared by the time people wrote using the term “Easter”). As to why this word is used in English and German: It is used in Germany for the simple reason that the pagans of modern-day Germany were missionised by Anglo-Saxon Christians such as St. Willibrord or the two St. Hewalds. The Germans thus got “Easter” the same way the Russians got “Pascha” - from those who evangelized them.

Although the Grimm Brothers probably did conflate the issue, the goddess Eostre may be a valid concept. However, the only mention of a goddess Eostre is recorded in Bede’s 8th century 'De tempore Ratione"('On the Reckoning of Time) - the book which helped popularise BC/AD dating. Since there is no other corroborating evidence Bede may be mistaken. However the term for Pascha was not named from this doubtful Goddess. Instead it is most likely that Easter (Pascha) comes from the Saxon month of Eostre (April) which was used for the spring period.

In other words, the term ‘Easter’ no more honours Eostre than a ‘Wednesday Night Service’ at your local Protestant church honours Odin (Wednesday=Woden’s Day).

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

…continued

In England itself, this issue of the type of theoretical issue Anglo-Saxonists enjoy arguing. There appears to have been a very strong cultural bias among the Anglo-Saxons against other languages. While their Latin missionaries and then their own churchmen obviously knew and used Latin, there was remarkably little borrowing from Latin into English at this time. In almost every instance, the English Church took existing English words to express ecclesiastical terms (thus “sanctus” was translated by “haelig” [holy, healthy, whole] and Old English uses haelige John not St. John, “haeliged” [hallowed] rather than sanctified, etc) rather than simply borrowing the Latin (the modern preponderance of Latin loan words for ecclesiastical terms is a product of the post 1066 Norman invasion) In addition to Latin books, Old English had the most active vernacular literature (primarily Christian) of any Western area prior to the millennium. There is an extant translation of the gospel of John which is the oldest translation of the Bible into a western vernacular with the exception of Bishop Wulfilas Arian translations into Gothic (itself another Germanic language).

IOW, the presence of the word “Easter” is actually a product of the vibrant “Orthodoxy” of the Anglo-Saxon Church which unlike later periods did not suppress the resident culture in favour of an all-embracing Latinism but rather transformed (in accord with the guidelines given to St. Augustine of Canterbury by St. Gregory the Great) the entire language and culture. Although I myself generally use “Pascha” because it is the common usage among Orthodox now, I find attempts to dismiss as “pagan” a true survival of English Orthodoxy very problematic.

Furthermore, there does not seem to be any English form of the word “Pascha”; Orthodox England never called the feast anything but Easter.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

RBushlow:

What is the “general view of the early church” of why Christ went through His passion and suffering?

Thank you again for your patience with me.

About the patience ? I know that sometimes I am sitting here tearing my hair out, “Lord, why don’t they get it?”!! And I am sure that some of you are doing it with me

There is an interesting essay “Salvation By Christ: A Response to Credenda / Agenda on Orthodoxy’s Teaching of Theosis and the Doctrine of Salvation,” by Carmen Fragapane.

orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/frag_salv.aspx

"…In EH Jones writes that in Orthodoxy "discussions of substitutionary
atonement and propitiation are virtually absent from their published
explanations of salvation.

"… the notion that redemption should be rigidly interpreted in one
particular way is itself foreign to early Christian thought: “The seven
ecumenical councils avoided defining salvation through any [one model] alone. No universal Christian consensus demands that one view of salvation includes or excludes all others” [41]. J.N.D. Kelly further explains:

“Scholars have often despaired of discovering any single unifying thought in the Patristic teaching about the redemption. These various theories, however, despite appearances, should not be regarded as in fact mutually incompatible. They were all of them attempts to elucidate the same great truth from different angles; their superficial divergences are often due to the different Biblical images from which they started, and there is no logical reason why, carefully stated, they should not be regarded as complimentary”.

And this is precisely what we find in Orthodoxy: “While insisting in this way upon the unity of Christ’s saving economy, the Orthodox Church has never formally endorsed any particular theory of atonement. The Greek Fathers, following the New Testament, employ a rich variety of images to describe what the Savior has done for us. These models are not mutually exclusive; on the contrary, each needs to be balanced by the others. Five models stand out in particular: teacher, sacrifice, ransom, victory and participation” …"

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

GrzeszDeL:

Incidentally, returning to the subject of atonement, while I have no aversion to the topic, I am still hard-pressed to see what it has to do with original sin. Myhrr’s bizzare non-sequitur notwithstanding, none of the Orthodox participants here have bothered to draw the line connecting the two ideas. What is the link that makes the two ideas part of a package deal in the minds of the Orthodox participants here (other than the bald fact that both claims are plainly present in sacred scripture)?

OK, just pasting in what I wrote earlier in the thread…

Anselm developed what has been called the “judicial” theory of the
atonement. In his book he sought to answer the question “Why did God become man?”

He found the answer in a concept in the mediaeval law of his time - the concept of satisfaction/atonement

If one person wronged another, in this case by original sin, it harmed the other person’s honour, and so the wronged person demanded compensation, or “satisfaction” or atonement. Man’s sin had offended God, and because God is infinite, and God’s honour is infinite, the insult man’s sin causes to God’s honour demands infinite satisfaction. But man is in no position to provide this satisfaction, so God sent his Son to offer the satisfaction on behalf of man, the Atonement. By dying on the cross he appeased God’s wounded honour, and made the full and adequate atonement for original sin.
Voila, there’e the connecting line!

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

RBushlow[color=black:
[QUOTE]
On another subject, it is my understanding that the Byzantine Catholic Church is closer to the Orthodox view on many of these matters. What is the Orthodox view of Byzantine Catholics?
[/QUOTE]
See
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=177059&postcount=63

 

[Myhrr]

Matt16_18:

So what does his analogy tell you about Divine Energy? Fr Ambrose says that the Divine Energies ARE God. Is the sunbeam God or not God? What is the point of this analogy?

God. But not ‘God in Sunbeam’ apart from ‘God in Essence’, as Prodromos described, if you take away God in Essence there is no God in Sunbeam; the physical sun is an analogy, we’re talking about uncreated Sunbeam. The uncreated energies of God such as uncreated grace, uncreated love, uncreated light.

Neither “essence” nor “energy” are Christian terms. They are terms borrowed from Greek physics and metaphysics that were used long before Christians were around. The Greek Christians quite naturally used these existing terms in their theology of grace.

God is not capable of being described, often pointed to by use of the negative, "not this, not this’’. Similarly, as in Vedanta when pointing to the non-dual Brahman, the one God without a second, it’s said ‘not this, not this’. …and as in Vedanta it’s taught not to get distracted by concentrating on the finger, I think we shouldn’t get too hung up about using a created sun as an anaology. We cannot know God by analysis, we can however know God by experience, through the uncreated energies.

The doctrine of Original Sin is all about the loss of sanctifying grace through the sin of Adam. If we can’t talk clearly about grace, we will never be able to talk clearly about the dogmas concerning Original Sin.

But we keep coming back to this, Orthodoxy talks about the uncreated energies of God while you talk about created grace, i.e. sanctifying grace, which is an RCC creation to explain the connection between an authoritarian God and his creation man. That’s not the Orthodox God. That wasn’t easy to say. It’s correct in describing the difference in perception, I hope you limit the statement to this aspect of our discussion.

Your dogmas of original sin are meaningless to someone who doesn’t accept your definition of God. Mostly, the discussion here has been to remind you of your dogmas…

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

So what does his analogy tell you about Divine Energy? Fr Ambrose says that the Divine Energies ARE God. Is the sunbeam God or not God? What is the point of this analogy?

Seems a good analogy.

By means of the sunbeam we have contact with the sun’s energies. They are part of the sun. If we were to try and step into the sun itself we would be extinguished in a nanosecond. That’s like God’s Essence.

But if anyone wants to get a grip on this then it is a bit beyond an e-Forum. What’s needed is some serious reading.