Orthodox View of the Immaculate Conception

[cena]

WhoaHoho! Is this your personal opinion or Catholic Church teaching that any person or place or state, once created, can continue to exist withOUT God’s Grace to sustain him/her/it?

The longer I’ve been in this forum, the more & more I come to realize Catholic Christianity has less & less & less in common with Orthodox Christianity than I’d imagined. With this comment, I’m even wondering if it’s even in the religion category. God’s grace isn’t necessary to sustain creation - the very idea is Semi-Atheistic!!!

God is still keeping the person in existence but I don’t think grace is the right word because we lose sanctifying grace through mortal sin and people in mortal sin and hell still exist.

 

[cena]

You’re putting a spin on what your fellow Catholic posted.

Before I had the chance to block you, you decide to further sin against me. In addition to lying about me earlier, now you’ve chosen to question my ability to understand - my intelligence. You’re on a role today for destroying positive Orthodox/Catholic relations on an individual level. Great job, Randy. Give yourself a pat on the back, your really good at it!

Your blocked, but you should be reported.

We are not lying. I don’t know what the Orthodox understanding of grace is, but it is a supernatural thing, you won’t cease to exist without it
catholic.com/tracts/grace-what-it-is-and-what-it-does

Edit: I’m not saying you are stupid, but I think you either don’t understand exactly what grace is or the Orthodox have a very different definition of what they think grace is

 

[Randy_Carson]

Which, I believe, is EXACTLY what I said. You believe that there are consequences of the fall, but if I understand past posts, you do not believe that we actually have a fallen nature.

Is this incorrect? If so, please clarify the distinctions you make between having a fallen nature and living with the consequences of Adam’s fall.

Before I had the chance to block you, you decide to further sin against me. In addition to lying about me earlier, now you’ve chosen to question my ability to understand - my intelligence. You’re on a role today for destroying positive Orthodox/Catholic relations on an individual level. Great job, Randy. Give yourself a pat on the back, your really good at it!

Your blocked, but you should be reported.

I do not question your ABILITY to understand, which would be offensive, but I have wondered if you fully understand the theology of Catholicism or Orthodoxy. Maybe you do, but I’m uncertain of this based on my reading of Orthodox websites on this subject in comparison with what you’re saying.

As is evident from my post above, I was trying to interact with your actual position - not to misrepresent it. If I did misrepresent your beliefs, it was unintentional. That’s why I asked for clarification.

As for being reported, don’t worry…I have brought this exchange to the attention of the mods myself in the event that I have done something that violates forum rules.

 

[Nektarios_Lady]

God is still keeping the person in existence but I don’t think grace is the right word because we lose sanctifying grace through mortal sin and people in mortal sin and hell still exist.

Orthodox understand Grace to be the Divine Energies of God. Nothing can come into existence nor remain in existence without God’s Grace. Man, because of Jesus, can become partakers of the Divine Nature through the Divine Energies and even while still on earth, Man can see & experience the Uncreated Light of God.

~ 9th Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople over several sessions in 1,341, 1,347 & 1,351 which condemned the heresy of Barlaamism.

Does the Catholic Church believe Barlaamism is truth or do they accept the 9th Ecumenical Council?

 

[Nektarios_Lady]

We are not lying. I don’t know what the Orthodox understanding of grace is, but it is a supernatural thing, you won’t cease to exist without it
catholic.com/tracts/grace-what-it-is-and-what-it-does

Edit: I’m not saying you are stupid, but I think you either don’t understand exactly what grace is or the Orthodox have a very different definition of what they think grace is

There is no “we” Randy alone is responsible for what he posted. You aren’t responsible.

 

[cena]

Orthodox understand Grace to be the Divine Energies of God. Nothing can come into existence nor remain in existence without God’s Grace. Man, because of Jesus, can become partakers of the Divine Nature through the Divine Energies and even while still on earth, Man can see & experience the Uncreated Light of God.

~ 9th Ecumenical Council held in Constantinople over several sessions in 1,341, 1,347 & 1,351 which condemned the heresy of Barlaamism.

Does the Catholic Church believe Barlaamism is truth or do they accept the 9th Ecumenical Council?

I am confused as to what that has to do with this?
pravoslav.de/imiaslavie/english/dialogue/d1b.htm
Correct me if I am wrong but is it saying thinking God’s energy is God…where does it say that God’s grace is putting everything into existence?

 

[Nektarios_Lady]

I am confused as to what that has to do with this?
pravoslav.de/imiaslavie/english/dialogue/d1b.htm
Correct me if I am wrong but is it saying thinking God’s energy is God…where does it say that God’s grace is putting everything into existence?

From the link you provided: “Such a teaching about God’s energy – as if it were not God – stands under the anathema of the Orthodox Council of Constantinople, 1351, and under the anathema against the Barlaamites from the Synodikon of the Sunday of Orthodoxy.”

Genesis 1 & 2 go into detail about how God is the Creator of evening seen & unseen.

Until your posts, I really thought the Catholic Church still taught this Truth.

 

[cena]

From the link you provided: “Such a teaching about God’s energy – as if it were not God – stands under the anathema of the Orthodox Council of Constantinople, 1351, and under the anathema against the Barlaamites from the Synodikon of the Sunday of Orthodoxy.”

Genesis 1 & 2 go into detail about how God is the Creator of evening seen & unseen.

Until your posts, I really thought the Catholic Church still taught this Truth.

Yes, God is the creator of everything and puts and keeps everything in existence…are you sure grace is the right word?
catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=33791
Grace-
In biblical language the condescension or benevolence (Greek charis) shown by God toward the human race; it is also the unmerited gift proceeding from this benevolent disposition. Grace, therefore, is a totally gratuitous gift on which man has absolutely no claim. Where on occasion the Scriptures speak of grace as pleasing charm or thanks for favors received, this is a derived and not primary use of the term.

As the Church has come to explain the meaning of grace, it refers to something more than the gifts of nature, such as creation or the blessings of bodily health. Grace is the supernatural gift that God, of his free benevolence, bestows on rational creatures for their eternal salvation. The gifts of grace are essentially supernatural. They surpass the being, powers, and claims of created nature, namely sanctifying grace, the infused virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and actual grace. They are the indispensable means necessary to reach the beatific vision. In a secondary sense, grace also includes such blessings as the miraculous gifts of prophecy or healing, or the preternatural gifts of freedom from concupiscence.

The essence of grace, properly so called, is its gratuity, since no creature has a right to the beatific vision, and its finality or purpose is to lead one to eternal life. (Etym. Latin gratia, favor; a gift freely given.)

 

[Vico]

Orthodox believe that every human being conceived is 100% innocent of all sin. Humans are not born guilty of their parent’s or their ancestor’s sins.

Adam & Eve’s personal sin resulted in the rest of humanity to be conceived into a world in which sorrow, sickness, suffering & physical death are the results of Ancestral Sin. Scripture is clear that Mary, the Theotokos, personal experienced these results of Ancestral Sin.

Why is it that Catholics need Mary to have been conceived with special graces in order for her to have never sinned?

No one, not Adam, not Mary, not Jesus, not you, not me, not any child conceived today, was conceived guilty of another’s sin.

Mary was not conceived any differently than the rest of us, but she was, like Jesus Who alone was conceived differently - no human father, completely sinless her entire life Because she, given the same choices we all are, never ever sinned.

Catholics also believe that “Humans are not born guilty of their parent’s or their ancestor’s sins.” The confusion arises due to translation of the word reatus. Some misunderstand this.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has: “original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.” (See the complete reference below.)

When the Council of Trent defined the dogma of original sin, it did not decide on the birth state of the Theotokos but that came much later in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Catholic teaching that it is just the birth state of the Theotokos was exceptional. Therefore she experienced the other consequences of the sin of Adam as all mankind does.

Catechism of the Catholic Church:The consequences of Adam’s sin for humanity
402 All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: “By one man’s disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners”: "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned."289 The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. "Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men."290
403 Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the “death of the soul”.291 Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.292
404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”.293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.
405 Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called “concupiscence”. Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.
406 The Church’s teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine’s reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God’s grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)296 and at the Council of Trent (1546).297

 

[KathleenGee]

If Mary is like all others…we were all born good and without sin…I look at the condition of the human race…and we all turned out bad except Mary. She did say she was blessed among all women and her soul…not ours…magnifies the Lord.

How I understand it…yes, Mary was born of Joachim and Anna, and she inherited Original Sin from them, but God through the Holy Spirit chose Mary to become the Mother of God…but to be in this exalted and most blessed mission, and the fact she was a descendant of the fallen human race, Mary needed to be that much more saved and redeemed by Jesus to become His mother.

Subsequently…as her womb was made for Jesus…her very conception was the assent to Him and His saving and redeeming grace…and thus Mary was conceived full of grace.

 

[Efnouti_Nai_Nan]

What do you mean by “more saved”, KathleenGee? Aren’t all saved by the one savior of us all, our Lord Jesus Christ?

I don’t understand your last sentence, either. The part about “her very conception was the assent to Him”. What do you mean?

 

[dvdjs]

In Bulgakov’s “The Burning Bush” Chapter II he states …

I am not sure if the suggestion to read this was made to point to similarities or differences between Orthodox and Catholic views, but this is passage is very well aligned to the Catholic teaching.

It is necessary to understand what Catholics mean by the “stain of original sin” Here is a post from an earlier thread on this recurrent subject.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=4655003&postcount=93
Key point: the dogma of the IC does not say that Mary was not subject to any of the consequences of the sin of our ancestors, but that that her unique personal sinlessness from birth to death, is, as Bulgakov wrote, "realized by the grace of God.

It is also helpful to stop the quibbling over “guilty” and think more deeply about sin - which should not be reduced to transgressions (symptoms) but focus on the underlying pathology - the dynamic state of our moral orientation. It is in that sense that " the absence of sanctifying grace in a child is a real privation… its privation may be called a sin. … The privation of this grace, even without any other act, would be a stain, a moral deformity, a turning away from God, aversio a Deo , and this character is not found in any other effect of the fault of Adam. This privation, therefore, is the hereditary stain." From the linked post. This perspective resonates with this by an Orthodox priest:
blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2014/12/17/un-moral-christian/

A number of Orthodox clergy have written positively of the IC. Among those who dispute it, there is often the misapprehension that it does away with all consequences of the ancestral sin. But that is not the Catholic teaching.

 

[Randy_Carson]

Perhaps some of our Eastern friends will explain the difference between Ancestral Sin and Original Sin.

 

[twf]

From the link you provided: “Such a teaching about God’s energy – as if it were not God – stands under the anathema of the Orthodox Council of Constantinople, 1351, and under the anathema against the Barlaamites from the Synodikon of the Sunday of Orthodoxy.”

Genesis 1 & 2 go into detail about how God is the Creator of evening seen & unseen.

Until your posts, I really thought the Catholic Church still taught this Truth.

We do. In Latin theology we would say all souls are surrounded by “prevenient grace”… But sanctifying grace, the indwelling of the divine life of the Trinity, is granted to us only with baptism. The soul is a gift from God which we all receive from the moments of our conceptions, but sanctifying grace is to be made a “saint” - to put on Christ. Our Lady, however, was always full of sanctifying grace.

Earlier I said that Eastern liturgy implies that Our Lady and St John the Forerunner were both conceived as saints, and thus were in some way set apart. You asked what my basis for this was. Orthodox and Eastern Catholics have stated such… You disagree? How do you interpret the texts for the feasts of their conceptions (both of which you do celebrate).

 

[dvdjs]

This essay by Fr Lev Gillet is often brought up in these discussions:

eirenikon.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/the-immaculate-conception-and-the-orthodox-church-1/
eirenikon.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/the-immaculate-conception-and-the-orthodox-church-2/
eirenikon.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/the-immaculate-conception-and-the-orthodox-church-3/
eirenikon.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/the-immaculate-conception-and-the-orthodox-church-4/

But this new study by Fr. Christiaan Kappes - The Immaculate Conception: Why Thomas Aquinas Denied, While John Duns Scotus, Gregory Palamas, and Mark Eugenicus Professed the Absolute Immaculate Existence of Mary - is also garnering considerable attention:
academia.edu/4375213/The_Immaculate_Conception_Why_Thomas_Aquinas_Denied_While_John_Duns_Scotus_Gregory_Palamas_and_Mark_Eugenicus_Professed_the_Absolute_Immaculate_Existence_of_Mary

 

[cena]

What do you mean by “more saved”, KathleenGee? Aren’t all saved by the one savior of us all, our Lord Jesus Christ?

I don’t understand your last sentence, either. The part about “her very conception was the assent to Him”. What do you mean?

God saved her in a different way. He prevented her from sinning (even venially) and having original sin. He saved her in a very special way.

 

[Efnouti_Nai_Nan]

But other people who are saved are saved without being kept from these things, right? Like all the other saints besides St. Mary? So why did that happen? For other exceptions to the way things generally work, like the right-hand thief being saved without baptism, there is some reason for it (there could not be baptism for him before he died) and some larger way that it fits into the way things work (he literally died with Christ, while we die with Christ and rise with him through our baptism). How does this Catholic doctrine about St. Mary fit in either of these ways?

 

[Brendan]

Catholics also believe that “Humans are not born guilty of their parent’s or their ancestor’s sins.” The confusion arises due to translation of the word reatus. Some misunderstand this.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has: “original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.” (See the complete reference below.)]

A common analogy is that of spilling coffee on a stack of napkins. The napkins each are thus stained, but are not themselves the cause of the stain.

Likewise we receive the stain of Orginal Sin, but that is distinct from being the cause of the stain in ourselves. We received the stain of sin from Adam, but we ourselves have not culpability of the stain.

When the Catholic Church speaks of the ‘stain of Original Sin’, it is very much similar to the Orthdox understanding of the state of fallen man.

 

[Randy_Carson]

But other people who are saved are saved without being kept from these things, right? Like all the other saints besides St. Mary? So why did that happen? For other exceptions to the way things generally work, like the right-hand thief being saved without baptism, there is some reason for it (there could not be baptism for him before he died) and some larger way that it fits into the way things work (he literally died with Christ, while we die with Christ and rise with him through our baptism). How does this Catholic doctrine about St. Mary fit in either of these ways?

Mary was preserved from all sin including the stain of original sin because it was fitting that God should dwell within a perfect ark for nine months. As the pope said in Ineffabilis Deus:

And indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent. To her did the Father will to give his only-begotten Son – the Son whom, equal to the Father and begotten by him, the Father loves from his heart – and to give this Son in such a way that he would be the one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was she whom the Son himself chose to make his Mother and it was from her that the Holy Spirit willed and brought it about that he should be conceived and born from whom he himself proceeds.

Early Church Fathers on the Immaculate Conception

Justin Martyr

[Jesus] became man by the Virgin so that the course that was taken by disobedience in the beginning through the agency of the serpent might be also the very course by which it would be put down. Eve, a virgin and undefiled, conceived the word of the serpent and bore disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy when the angel Gabriel announced to her the glad tidings that the Spirit of the Lord would come upon her and the power of the Most High would overshadow her, for which reason the Holy One being born of her is the Son of God. And she replied, “Be it done unto me according to your word” (Luke 1:38) (Dialogue with Trypho 100 [A.D. 155]).

St. Irenaeus (180 AD)

“Consequently, then, Mary the Virgin is found to be obedient, saying: ‘Behold, O Lord, your handmaid; be it done to me according to your word.’ Eve, however, was disobedient; and when yet a virgin, she did not obey… having become disobedient, was made the cause of death for herself and for the whole human race; so also Mary, betrothed to a man but nevertheless a virgin, being obedient, was made the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race… Thus, the knot of Eve’s disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the virgin Mary loosed through faith.” (Against the Heresies, Book III [A.D. 180]).

St. Irenaeus uses “virginity” as a sign of sinlessness (i.e. Mary was sinless just as Eve was sinless before the Fall).

Hippolytus

He [Jesus] was the ark formed of incorruptible wood. For by this is signified that His tabernacle [Mary] was exempt from defilement and corruption (Orat. In Illud, Dominus pascit me, in Gallandi, Bibl. Patrum, II, 496 ante [A.D. 235]).

Origen

This Virgin Mother of the Only-begotten of God is called Mary, worthy of God, immaculate of the immaculate, one of the one (Homily 1 [A.D. 244]).

St. Ambrose of Milan (340-397)

Come, then, and search out Your sheep, not through Your servants or hired men, but do it Yourself. Lift me up bodily and in the flesh, which is fallen in Adam. Lift me up not from Sara but from Mary, a Virgin not only undefiled but a Virgin whom grace has made inviolate, free from every stain of sin (ut incorrupta sit virgo, sed virgo per gratium ab omni integra labe peccati)." (Commentary on Psalm 118, 22-30, 387 A.D.)

St. Ephraim the Syrian (ca. 350)

**You alone and your Mother are more beautiful than any others, for there is neither blemish in you nor any stains upon your Mother. Who of my children can compare in beauty to these? (Nisibene Hymns 27:8 [A. D. 361]).

“My Lady Most Holy, All-Pure, All-Immaculate, All-Stainless, All-Undefiled, All-Incorrupt, All-Inviolate …Spotless Robe of Him Who clothes Himself with light as with a garment …Flower unfading, purple woven by God, alone Most Immaculate.” (ibid.)**

Gregory Nazianzen

He was conceived by the virgin, who had been first purified by the Spirit in soul and body; for, as it was fitting that childbearing should receive its share of honor, so it was necessary that virginity should receive even greater honor (Sermon 38 [d. A.D. 390]).

St. Augustine (ca. AD 390)

Having excepted the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, on account of the honor of the Lord, I wish to have absolutely no question when treating of sins,—for how do we know what abundance of grace for the total overcoming of sin was conferred upon her, who merited to conceive and bear Him in whom there was no sin?—so, I say again, with the exception of the Virgin, if we could have gathered together all those holy men and women, when they were living here, and had asked them whether they were without sin, what do we suppose would have been their answer? …if they had been so questioned, would they not have declared with a single voice: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us!”? (Nature and Grace 36:42 [A.D. 415]).

 

[Brendan]

But other people who are saved are saved without being kept from these things, right? Like all the other saints besides St. Mary? So why did that happen? For other exceptions to the way things generally work, like the right-hand thief being saved without baptism, there is some reason for it (there could not be baptism for him before he died) and some larger way that it fits into the way things work (he literally died with Christ, while we die with Christ and rise with him through our baptism). How does this Catholic doctrine about St. Mary fit in either of these ways?

That Catholic Church teaches that no one is Saved without the Grace of Baptism. But that is not the same thing as stating that a water Baptism is required, only the conferral of Grace.

We have the Sacramental promise of God that such Grace is inherent in Baptism, but a Sacrament only is a positive binging, it does not limit God’s ability to confer that Grace in other ways. No more so that an understanding that Christ is present, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist would mean that He was not equally, in everyway, present on the Cross or in the manager in the Nativity.

And as far as the specific example of St Dismas, you will note that he died before the Great Commission. He died before Baptism was established, and thus was saved under the Old Covenant.