Original Sin

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

By dying on the cross he appeased God’s wounded honour, and made the full and adequate atonement for original sin.

Could anyone possibly have a worse understanding of what Catholics understand about the atoning sacrifice? (I know I shouldn’t ask, because Myhrr might post her comments.)

Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus’ death on the cross did not just atone for the original sin of Adam! The Lamb that was slain (Rev. 18:8) is the expiation for every sin that has ever been committed or ever will be committed.

It is one thing to reject a particular way of interpreting the atoning sacrifice for sin, it is quite another thing to assert that the Orthodox have never understood that Jesus is Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. If the Orthodox do indeed deny that Jesus is the sacrificial Lamb that was offered as bloody sacrifice for sin, then the Orthodox have ceased to be Christians.

 

[Myhrr]

I call it Easter unless I’m with Orthodox, my reason for posting it was because I was replying to Matt’s:

How can the Orthodox not see that this verse from John’s epistle is speaking about the antitype of an OT type - e.g. the of the sacrifice for the remission of sin offered on the Day of Atonement?"

To which I answered that Christ is the Paschal Lamb and gave two examples to show that the Orthodox understanding of Christ’s sacrifice is from the Passover, not from Yom Kippur. I thought the extract I pulled out from Harper’s explanation was important to help explain the difference between Passover and Yom Kippur which Matt meant as the base since he quoted Paul and John on Christ’s sacrifice, but wasn’t himself referring back to the same event Paul and John had in mind.

By Fr. Michael Harper

Pascha is derived from the Jewish word Pesah which means “Passover”. And here there is a direct link with the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 5:7 we read, “for our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed”. According to St John, Christ was crucified at the very time that the paschal lambs were being killed. There is another link with the Old Testament because of the importance to the Jews of the Feast of the Passover. The verbal form means to protect and to have compassion as well as “passover”. The experience of the Israelites was literally a “passover”, but it was also an experience of both God’s compassion for his people, and a great act of protection, as for example, the passage through the Red Sea. The crucifixion and later Resurrection of Christ took place during the Passover Feast. So for Christians Christ was clearly the Paschal Lamb, the fulfilment of all that the Passover had foreshadowed since the first Passover which celebrated the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Let us remember that because the word “Pascha” is in its origin a Hebrew word, by using it we are a witness to the Jewish community, for whom the Passover is still one of the most important words in their religious faith.

orthodoxresearchinstitut…scha_easter.htm

orthodox.net/pascha/1999…-kyprianos.html

Yom Kippur:
myjewishlearning.com/holidays/YomKippur.htm

I think the Church started going wrong by forgetting Passover’s real and continuing connection to, and respect for, the Jews.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Originally Posted by Fr Ambrose

By dying on the cross he appeased God’s wounded honour, and made the full and adequate atonement for original sin.

Matt16_18:

Could anyone possibly have a worse understanding of what Catholics understand about the atoning sacrifice?

And yet this is the essence of the teaching of Anselm of Canterbury, the Catholic Father second to none as the authority on the Atonement. Read Cur Deus Homo and his Meditations on Redemption.

If the classic Catholic model of the Atonement a la Anselm can now be described as “could there be a worse understanding of what Catholics understand about the atoning sacrifice” - then the changes wrought since Vatican II are greater than I ever imagined. A rejection of Anselm makes me lightheaded with joy… you are moving in the right direction.

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

And yet this is the essence of the teaching of Anselm of Canterbury, the Catholic Father second to none as the authority on the Atonement.

You have grossly distorted Anselm’t theology by imagining that he taught that the atonement for sin was an atonement ONLY for original sin.

Anselm was a product of his age. Is it any surprise that a man raised in a culture steeped in the ideals of chivalry would explain the atoning sacrifice in terms of those ideals? Certainly the scriptures speak of kings, and Son of God is shown as sitting at the right hand of the throne of his Father. Anselm had some insights about the atoning sacrifice in terms of the ideals of chivalry, but that is far cry from saying that he exhausted all that can be said about the atoning sacrifice.

But I notice that you have evaded all my responses to you about Jesus being the expiation for sin. You even assert that atonement is a foreign concept to Orthodoxy! The Jews have no problem calling Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement, but you won’t acknowledge that at all. No one can read the scriptures and deny that Jesus is the Lamb offered as the sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Denying the sacrifice of Jesus as the atonement of sin is a hot button issue for many Catholics. While we have not experienced the assaults on our Churches that the Orthodox had to endure at the hands of the Communists, but we have seen our Churches invaded by an element hostile to the Cross. The same antichrist spirit is at work.

The “Liturgical Renewers” have come into our Churches with their wrecking bars and torn out the Crucifixes. They have remodeled our Churches with an insipidness that reflects the vacuity of their feel-good theology. We have had to endure an endless load of drivel from Modernist heretics explaining the Mass in terms of family meals, communal celebrations, anything, anything at all, except as representation to God the Father of the Holy Sacrifice of the Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world. But the orthodox among the Catholics are rising up and rebelling against those that deny that at the center of Christianity is the Cross. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was part of that reaction, and people responded, because people don’t want spiritual junk food.

It is truly sad to see the Orthodox falling away from the truth and also denying that Jesus is the Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world. Let’s all hold hands now an chant a round of Kumbayah!

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr:

I call it Easter unless I’m with Orthodox, my reason for posting it was because I was replying to Matt’s:

To which I answered that Christ is the Paschal Lamb and gave two examples to show that the Orthodox understanding of Christ’s sacrifice is from the Passover, not from Yom Kippur.

**All ** the Old Testament sacrifices are types that find their fulfillment in Christ’s sacrifice. The binding of Isaac by Abraham is a type that points to the Holy Sacrifice on the Cross.

Catholics are well aware of the connection between the Passover Meal and the Liturgy of the Mass. Get yourself a video of Scott Hahn’s The Fourth Cup if you want to learn what Catholics know about this.

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr:

Mostly, the discussion here has been to remind you of your dogmas…

Too bad you are don’t know anything about those dogmas except what has been presented to you by a bunch of misinformed bigots.

It would be far more productive if you would talk about what you know about Orthodoxy, instead of trying to tell Catholics what they believe. We know what we believe, and it isn’t the hooey that you present.

 

[Matt16_18]

Myhrr:

God is not capable of being described

Golly, that sure was profound! And here this Catholic thought that Jesus was the revelation of God to man. And that Jesus! Imagine him not understanding that God is not capable of being described. Why the fool told us to think of God as our Father, our our Abba! To bad Jesus wasn’t an apophatic mystic, because if he was, he would have told us not to imagine God at all - just like the Hindu gurus.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

You have grossly distorted Anselm’t theology by imagining that he taught that the atonement for sin was an atonement ONLY for original sin.

Read Anselm.

His theory is that the Atonement is for Adam’s sin. Adam’s sin offended the sense of divine justice so greatly that God was enraged with all mankind and His justice required an approriate atonement - the death of a person equal to Himself in dignity in order to appease His wrath. So He sacrificed His divine Son to placate Himself.

But I notice that you have evaded all my responses to you about Jesus being the expiation for sin. You even assert that atonement is a foreign concept to Orthodoxy! The Jews have no problem calling Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement, but you won’t acknowledge that at all.

OK! Let’s consider that the real scriptural term is in the plural “Yom Kippurim.” I don’t know why it is generally spoken of in English as “Yom Kippur” in the singular.

So it is the Day of Atonements, in the plural, and really the better translation is not atonements but “pardons” - the Day of Pardons or even the Day of Cleansings.

And of course the primary link for Christians is NOT with Yom Kippur of the Jews but with the Jewish Passover, Pesach, the crossing over from a land of capitivity to a land of freedom, a crossing from one state of existence to another.

The Passover is the passage for Christians from death to life, from the old way of being to the new way of existence. It’s an ontological change/passover which occurs in the human being. It is not a judicial justification or an external atonement. It’s much deeper, much more essential. This is what Christ accomplishes for us.

 

[Myhrr]

**All **the Old Testament sacrifices are types that find their fulfillment in Christ’s sacrifice. The binding of Isaac by Abraham is a type that points to the Holy Sacrifice on the Cross.

God’s teaching here is that He doesn’t require human sacrifice.

Jeremiah 7:22
For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

The Passover Lamb was for food.

Catholics are well aware of the connection between the Passover Meal and the Liturgy of the Mass. Get yourself a video of Scott Hahn’s The Fourth Cup if you want to learn what Catholics know about this.

Does this explain it in terms of cessation of sacrifice to appease a wrathful God?

 

[prodromos]

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?

In your post that I was responding to, you were saying that since God is not divisible into parts, essence and energy must essentially be the same thing. My poor analogy was simply to demonstrate that the sun (essence) and the sunbeam (energy) are indivisible and yet are not the same thing.

 

[prodromos]

Ostern/Easter is quite likely derived from “erstehen”, which is the old Teutonic form of “auferstehen/auferstehung” meaning “resurrection”.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

It is truly sad to see the Orthodox falling away from the truth and also denying that Jesus is the Lamb that was slain for the sins of the world. Let’s all hold hands now an chant a round of Kumbayah!

Matt, I am sorry to have upset you, I truly am. But please understand that it is only the idea of Substitutionary Atonement which is rejected.

The Orthodox do not deny that Jesus is the Lamb slain for the sins of the world. But they do deny the Anselmian Atonement theory that he was slain to placate the divine justice of His Father. For goodness sake, this theory was UNKNOWN when Christendon was united during the first millennium. Our ancestors in the faith had never heard of it! The East, by and large, except for thos who have contact with Western theologians, Catholic or Protestant, have *still *never heard of it.

Can we look at a few points? What does atonement really mean?

First off, the earliest idea was one of a Ransom - given to either the Devil or the Father (both theories are found among early Christians and the first could have a scriptural base) but this was repudiated in no uncertain terms by Gregory Nazianzen (4th century) who wrote:

“Was the ransom paid to the evil one? Monstrous thought!
The devil receives a ransom not only from God but of God …
To the Father? But we were not in bondage to him …
And could the Father delight in the death of his Son?”
(Orationes, 45.22)

Of course it *can *be thought of as a ransom. Following the Church Fathers, the East teaches that Christ, on the Cross, gave

“His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28, and Mark 10:45).

And this “ransom” is paid to the grave, as the Lord revealed to the Prophet Hosea (Hosea 13:14):

“I will ransom them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death.”

In a sense, He pays the ransom to the devil since it is the Devil who is the keeper of the grave and holds the power of death (Heb. 2:14):

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death–that is, the devil.”

continued in next post…

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

But despite Saint Gregory’s objections the idea became popular. Saint Gregory protested that the question of “Who received the payment?” should not be pressed hard. No matter what debt the Devil was owed it could not possibly have included God himself. On the other hand, the Father could not have been the recipient of the ransom, since he was not the one holding us captive. And if the blood of Isaac had not pleased him, why would he desire the blood of his beloved son?

Saint Gregory sums up: “the Father accepts Christ’s sacrifice without having demanded it; the Son offers it to honour him; and the result is the defeat of the Evil One. This is as much as we shall say of Christ; the greater portion shall be reverenced with silence.”

Anselm took aim at the exaggerated versions of the ransom theory, but unfortunately didn’t agree to “reverence the greater portion in silence.”

Instead he theorised that the payment was made to God the Father.

In Anselm’s formulation, our sins were like an offence against the honour of a mighty ruler. The ruler is not free to simply forgive the transgression; restitution must be made. (This is a crucial new element in the story; earlier Christians believed that God the Father did, in fact, freely forgive us, like the father of the Prodigal Son - that parable deserves serious thought in connection with this discussion.)

No human would be adequate to pay this debt, so God the Son volunteers to do so. “If the Son chose to make over the claim He had on God to man, could the Father justly forbid Him doing so, or refuse to man what the Son willed to give him?” Christ satisfies our debt in this, the “Satisfaction Theory.”

Western Christian theology marched on from that point, encountering controversies and developments and revisions, but locked on the idea that Christ’s death was directed toward the Father. When Western theologians look back at the centuries before Anselm they can’t find his theory anywhere (well, there are some premonitions in Tertullian and Cyprian, but it wasn’t the mainstream.) And Anselm’s ideas which developed when Christendom had been rent in two remain, still, essentially unknown to the ancient Churches of the East.

Matt, I want to apologise again for upsetting you. It is only Anselm I am taking a potshot at, and the awful teaching of Substituionary Atonement.

 

[Myhrr]

Matt16_18:

Golly, that sure was profound! And here this Catholic thought that Jesus was the revelation of God to man. And that Jesus! Imagine him not understanding that God is not capable of being described. Why the fool told us to think of God as our Father, our our Abba! To bad Jesus wasn’t an apophatic mystic, because if he was, he would have told us not to imagine God at all - just like the Hindu gurus.

Before Abraham was I am. The Gypsies say both they and the Jews came from India; in their tradition God first asked them to be the Chosen People and they said no, they decided they didn’t want the responsibility. Abraham’s father Terah came from the other side of the flood, which event if put around the Black Sea would bring them into the area from which comes the oldest living religion in the world, Dharma, meaning Righteousness, Religion, which itself came to India about 10,000 years ago from the north.

The linguistic connections between Abram and Serai to the brahmin, priestly caste, of the Hindus and their world which stretched into Afghanistan and Persia and by movement and influence further into Arabia and the Near East is being explored by some. The Hindus have an extremely well developed theology of imagining God, I am that I am, as man, which is epitomised for them in the incarnation of Krishna whose incarnation became necessary because of the unrighteousness of the time.

The Rig Veda says about itself:

In the Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad 4.5.11 it is said, asya mahato bhutasya nihsvasitam etad yad rg-vedo yajur vedah sama-vedo 'tharvangirasah. “The four Vedas - namely the Rg-Veda, Yajur-Veda, Sama-Veda, and Atharva-Veda - are all emanations from the breathing of the great Personality of Godhead.” In the Bhagavata Purana it is said, vedo narayana saksat svayambhur iti susruma. “The Vedas are directly the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Narayana, and are self-born.” (Bh.P. 6.1.40) The same reference also explains the purpose of the Vedas, veda-pranihito dharmo hy adharmas tad viparyayah. “That which is prescribed in the Vedas constitutes dharma, the religious principles, and the opposite of that is irreligion.”

veda.harekrsna.cz/encyclopedia/vedas-purpose-origin.htm

Melchisedek, it’s said by the Jews, is Noah’s son Shem. This is Abraham’s line and Melchisedek as you know was King and High Priest of Peace, of Jerusalem and as you also know Christ is our King and High Priest forever in the priesthood of Melchisedek.

Like Father Ambrose I’ve been concerned that I’ve been upsetting you and others here in this very sensitive subject, please forgive me, but, I do think it important that the RCC members become aware of the reasons for our rejection of your dogmas and doctrines - Unam Sanctam is still your infallible teaching and it is firmly and violently against us.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Fr Ambrose:

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!

Well, a pretty weak connection, that is. If Anselm is right, then even if there were not an Original Sin, so long as there is such thing as personal sin, a blood atonement would still need to be made. One could perfectly well insist on substitutionary atonement without a belief in Original Sin and vice versa. Save that they are both things in which Catholics believe, I still see little connection whatever.

Meanwhile, I am sure you will be glad to know that we Catholics can happily endorse everything in that Kelly quote you cited. The Catholic Church, like the Fathers, does not hold that any one account of salvation should be believed at the expense of all others (as should be plain to anyone who has worshipped in a Roman rite Mass). Subsitutionary atonement is one theory among many which is accorded worth among Catholics.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

[Matt, I want to apologise again for upsetting you. It is only Anselm I am taking a potshot at, and the awful teaching of Substituionary Atonement.

But it is not really Anselm at whom you aim your fire either. There is simply nothing in the Cur Deus Homo to support the idea that his atonement theory hinges on the Augustinian understanding of Original Sin. Indeed, it is quite clear from the Cur Deus Homo itself that everything Anselm said would be just as true if Adam never sinned but I did. Any offense against God’s honor by any element of His creation would have required the Sacrifice in Anselm’s view. The connection you try to draw between this idea and Original Sin lacks logical merit.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Matt16_18:

While we have not experienced the assaults on our Churches that the Orthodox had to endure at the hands of the Communists, but we have seen our Churches invaded by an element hostile to the Cross.

Huh? What about Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Romania, Ukraine, China, Cuba, and the USSR? In many parts of the old communist world, the Catholics suffered more than the Orthodox. I do not want to downplay the trials which our Orthodox brothers and sisters have endured, but neither can I bear to see the glorious martyrdoms and persecutions of our fellow Catholics ignored. I do not mean to take serious issue with you on this point, Matt, as it is not terribly germane to the matter at hand, but I feel a certain gut-level need to point out that the Communists did not give us a free pass.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

GrzeszDeL:

But it is not really Anselm at whom you aim your fire either. There is simply nothing in the Cur Deus Homo to support the idea that his atonement theory hinges on the Augustinian understanding of Original Sin. Indeed, it is quite clear from the Cur Deus Homo itself that everything Anselm said would be just as true if Adam never sinned but I did. Any offense against God’s honor by any element of His creation would have required the Sacrifice in Anselm’s view. The connection you try to draw between this idea and Original Sin lacks logical merit.

Yes, but it wasn’t just any offence against God’s honour. Adam did sin. It is not logical to offer a further suppostion when we already have a fact. Adam’s sin necessitated the Atonement.

 

[GrzeszDeL]

Just to reiterate, as there seems to be some lingering confusion among the Orthodox on this point - every Catholic in this discussion believes 100% in everything taught by Trent (and all of the other 20 ecumenical councils, while we are at it); every Catholic here believes the exegeses of Trent taught by (inter alia) Pius XII, John XXIII, and John Paul II. All of the Catholics here can happily endorse the description of Original Sin given in the new Catechism. It is less than needless to remind us that the Tridentine Faith is still in force, as we not only know this, but would not have it any other way.

Deo gratias agimus ut concilium Tridentinum nobis dederit.

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

The Orthodox do not deny that Jesus is the Lamb slain for the sins of the world. But they do deny the Anselmian Atonement theory that he was slain to placate the divine justice of His Father. For goodness sake, this theory was UNKNOWN when Christendon was united during the first millennium.

That makes no sense. Jesus was sinless, that is something that Chrisitans have ALWAYS believed. If Jesus is a sin offereing to the Father, i.e. the Lamb slain for the sins of the world, then he is a substitutionary sacrifice. Jesus isn’t offering himself as a sacrifice to God the Father to atone for the sins that HE committed! God’s justice cannot be pitted against his mercy, because God’s mercy has no meaning apart from his justice.

It was God that formed the Jews, God that taught them how to worship him, and God that gave the Jews their religion. The Jews offered untold millions of bloody animal sacrifices as sin offerings. How can anyone with a straight face possibly say that Christians had no concept of offering sacrifices for offenses against God’s justice until one thousand years after Jesus was slain for the sins of the world? Bah!

Can we look at a few points? What does atonement really mean?

First off, the earliest idea was one of a Ransom - given to either the Devil or the Father (both theories are found among early Christians …

What does atonement mean to JEWS? Why do they have no problem at all calling Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement? What were the rituals that the Jews were practicing on the Day of Atonement when Christ came into the world? That is the question that you are avoiding. Answer these questions and you will begin to understand the Catholic understanding of the atoning Sacrifice that makes satisfaction for sin.

• Western Christian theology marched on from that point, encountering controversies and developments and revisions, but locked on the idea that Christ’s death was directed toward the Father.*

Yeah, those western theologians such as the author of the Hebrews. He seemed to think that Jesus was a high priest offering a sacrifice to God the Father.