Personally I think that Adam & Eve were immortal not only due to their nature, but also due to living in Eden, which was free from decay of the World. Virgin Mary lived in the World, moreover, she experienced severe suffering at the sight of her Son’s sufferings. That’s why she did not always stay young and healthy by her own nature.
Interesting question. It seems, though, that Mary’s “death” was different from other deaths. There is a reason why it’s called the “Dormition” of Mary instead of the “Death” of Mary, after all. The name seems to imply that instead of normal death (in which our souls are violently separated from our bodies), her soul remained with her body as her body remained in a coma-like sleep that merely resembled death. And that even though she was free of original sin, this was necessary due to the world being corrupted by original sin. Before the fall, God had designed to world and the universe to last forever. Other species could die (and become extinct), as they did, but simply because the entirety of creation up to the onset of humankind had been done to prepare the world for humanity’s existence. As such, since the Earth and universe had been originally created to last forever, Adam and Eve (and us, their offspring) would have been able to live forever in the non-corrupted world. But when they fell, the world and universe also became corrupted.
Are You sure about this point?
God’s Will and God’s Omniscience are not one and the same. To believe so would be to believe that nothing happens that is not God’s Will. God willed the immortality of the human race (and the world), but knew that humans would rebel against Him. God wills that all will live with Him forever in Heaven, but knows that some will reject Him and His Will and end up eternally damned.Are You sure about this point?
I tend to think that Incarnation and Second Coming were planned from the very Beginning. Because the Fall was expectable from human beings, not yet able to use their freedom of will properly.
I tend to believe that Our Blessed Lord God had the plan of the Coming of Jesus from before all times, but obviously did not ned to do it until the sin of Adam and Eve were perpetrated (which was always possible due to God’s gift to humans of free will).Are You sure about this point?
I tend to think that Incarnation and Second Coming were planned from the very Beginning. Because the Fall was expectable from human beings, not yet able to use their freedom of will properly.
I agree.I tend to believe that Our Blessed Lord God had the plan of the Coming of Jesus from before all times, but obviously did not ned to do it until the sin of Adam and Eve were perpetrated (which was always possible due to God’s gift to humans of free will).
May God bless you all abundantly and forever!
But living in Heaven with God is obviously much bigger and better than original Innocence. That’s why it is expedient to think, Kingdom of God was not only predicted, but planned in advance.
The Dormition simply means “falling asleep”, which is the term that Eastern Christians, to this day, use for the death of a Christian.
I think (though I don’t remember well enough to be certain) that several doctors of the Church (I’m thinking St. Augustine in City of God, in particular) suggested something about how Adam and Eve, without dying, would not have stayed in the perfect natural state forever, but at some point would have gained the beatific vision (if they’d passes the “test” of the fruit… Like the angels who did not fall).
Quite correct. The Greek word for Dormition is κοίμησις, which has the same root as the word κοιμητήριον (borrowed into Latin as coemeterium), a word which readers might recognize by its its Modern English descendant ‘cemetery’. In patristic Greek, the word κοίμησις is much more commonly used for its figurative meaning of “falling alseep in death” (and not uniquely in reference to the Virgin Mary either), rather than its more literal meaning of simply ‘falling asleep’, and accordingly the word κοιμητήριον came more commonly to signify a burial place—a place where people sleep in death—rather than place where people literally just sleep.