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joe370
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:sad_yes:
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Vico
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The Theotokos is as human in nature as Adam and Eve and us. Adam and Eve were given gifts and lost them for all. The Theotokos was given some gifts, but not all that Adam and Eve were given. Some gifts are indwelling of the Holy Spirit, freedom from the propensity to sin, bodily immortality, and infused knowledge.
St. John of Damascus: In very deed, she who was worthy of grace had found it. She found [158] grace who had done the deeds of race, and had reaped its fulness. She found grace who brought forth the source of grace, and was a rich harvest of grace. She found an abyss of grace who kept undefiled her double virginity, her virginal soul no less spotless than her body; hence her perfect virginity.
…O how does the source of life pass through death to life? O how can she obey the law of nature, who, in conceiving, surpasses the boundaries of nature? How is her spotless body made subject to death? In order to be clothed with immortality she must first put off mortality, since the Lord of nature did not reject the penalty of death. She dies according to the flesh, destroys death by death, and through corruption gains incorruption (fqora [164] thn afqarsin carizetai), and makes her death the source of resurrection. O how does Almighty God receive with His own hands the holy disembodied soul of our Lord’s Mother! He honours her truly, whom being His servant by nature, He made His Mother, in His inscrutable abyss of mercy, when He became incarnate in very truth. We may well believe that the angelic choirs waited to receive thy departing soul. O what a blessed departure this going to God of thine. If God vouchsafes it to all His servants–and we know that He does–what an immense difference there is between His servants and His Mother. What, then, shall we call this mystery of thine? Death? Thy blessed soul is naturally parted from thy blissful and undefiled body, and the body is delivered to the grave, yet it does not endure in death, nor is it the prey of corruption. The body of her, whose virginity remained unspotted in child-birth, was preserved in its incorruption, and was taken to a better, diviner place, where death is not, but eternal life. Just as the glorious sun may be hidden momentarily by the opaque moon, it shows still though covered, and its rays illumine the darkness [165] since light belongs to its essence. It has in itself a perpetual source of light, or rather it is the source of light as God created it. So art thou the perennial source of true light, the treasury of life itself, the richness of grace, the cause and medium of all our goods. And if for a time thou art hidden by the death of the body, without speaking, thou art our light, life-giving ambrosia, true happiness, a sea of grace, a fountain of healing and of perpetual blessing. Thou art as a fruitful tree in the forest, and thy fruit is sweet in the mouth of the faithful. Therefore I will not call thy sacred transformation death, but rest or going home, and it is more truly a going home. Putting off corporeal things, thou dwellest in a happier state.
full-of-grace-and-truth.blogspot.com/2009/08/on-dormition-of-theotokos-by-st-john-of.html
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jwinch2
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This is indeed a frustrating practice, but one that is not without merit. First, we recognize that even though something has been defined, our understanding of it may be incomplete. This is one or the limitations of language, our own intellect, and the relation of specific dogmas to other aspects of doctrine which may or may not be fully understood.
Mysterium Ecclesiae:
Put another way:
Blessed Cardinal Newman:
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joe370
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Blessed Cardinal Newman was key to my conversion once I started reading catholic stuff…Nice quote…
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dzheremi
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brb3: Original sin is genetic? What? Is that what the RC teaches?
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dzheremi
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I was making an allusion to an earlier thread in which I phrased things this way, since Mardukm consistently understood me as saying something more like “You don’t have to read RC documents to know what the RCC believes”, which is ridiculous, and I’ve never written that or meant anything like that.
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brb3
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Probably … thats what Sacred Scripture suggests to me.
Probably not by RCC …but, I haven’t done a full study of matter.
You tell me what u think, & what Eastern Church teaches.
How else could OS be conveyed to sons/daughters of Adam, if not by heritable genetic traits we get from parents ? Do you think its ONLY a spiritually conveyed sin, that God ACTIVELY puts into each human conceptus ?
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Vico
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Well in general we are each a unique combination of body, soul, and gifts (supernatural and preternatural), but I have not seen any claim that her body was an extraordinary creation. The belief is that at the birth of Our Savior she retained her physical integrity, and of course the conception was extraordinary. So both were miraculous.
In the west there was slow development of the theology of the supernatural from the time of St. Anslem. The inherited original sin is analogical sin. It developed over time that original sin is a privation of sanctifying grace, which is materially found in concupiscentia. Since Trent excluded the Theotokos from the dogma on original sin, it remained open to definition. I read that it was believed at the time of the Immaculate Conception dogma that the definition was needed to combat Semi-Pelagianism (which maintains that the first steps towards the Christian life are ordinarily taken by the human will and that Grace supervenes only later).
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MorEphrem
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If it was genetic, a human fetus could be genetically altered to extract or silence this hypothetical OS gene. OS in itself is a metaphysical concept. Plus if Mary was without this apparently inherent gene, that would make her not fully human which would diminish why she is so venerated.
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dzheremi
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I don’t understand your questions. Original sin, such that we can speak of it, is a term we’ve borrowed from the West (probably not wisely). As far as I know, it first appears in Augustine (hence my referencing him a few times in this thread), but we don’t really mean what we means when we use it. He wrote a lot about guilt (read City of God sometime), which it seems like both of our communions now emphasize is the wrong way to look at the fall. The West, heavily influenced by Augustine’s writings, has tended to look at the fall in ways that might not be too far off from how you’re phrasing it above (though I’ve never actually heard any Western Christian say that sin is genetic, which is why your post made me go ‘hmm’), essentially saying that everything that comes into being by natural birth/the normal process (sex) is affected by original sin. I think Augustine says as much in De Bono Cunjagli (On the Good of Marriage), though it has been a while since I’ve read that particular work (I don’t make a point of reading Augustine). That idea essentially can be read as saying ‘sin is genetic’, and the idea of passing on OS from parent to child is one of the things criticized by Fr. Athanasius in the work I cited for Mardukm in another post. We do not believe such a thing can happen or does happen. It is rather more like the reality of being born into a world of schism: None of us caused it personally, none of us are guilty of it, but we all suffer from its effects.
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dzheremi
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Correction (wrote too fast): “we don’t really mean what he (not ‘we’) means…” (obvious, I know, but that still bothers me).
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Vico
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The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that we do not know how the transmission occurs: “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.”
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.
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.
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brb3
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Bingo !
Genetic, heritable traits, in our DNA, are the BEST explanation for how we acquired from Adam…thats why THE ONLY REMEDY, is our Rebirth In THE NEW ADAM !
Am I wrong ?
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dzheremi
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So…sin changes our DNA, and then Christ’s defeat of death changes our DNA again? I don’t get how this works at all. Did the RCC canonize Francis Crick recently?
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Vico
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Because the loss is composite (supernatural gifts and preternatural gifts), and Christ restores the supernatural, the question would need to be answered: Are preternatural gifts that were lost controlled through powers of the soul or something physical or involving both?
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GaryTaylor
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Augustine is not the Magesterium so I see no point in distracting with City of God. The end conclusion of that is concupiscentia is no different east/west. In fact when one reads the definition we will find the easts thinking in one word…desire.
God is not a mechanic, He Creates, just as He created everything from nothing, just as Adam and Eve were created out of what He already created. That being Dirt. Man is created above the rest of creation, yet “incapable of independent preservation”. The gift is Gods image, with the promise of bliss conditionally upon His preservation in grace.
Daniels DNA isn’t what made him unable to obtain Heaven, it was Gods presupposed curse. He created the obstacle and removed the obstacle. Man fell victim to the obstacle. the obstacle is what we call evil. The issue is “supernatural” a withdrawal of a once freely given but not earned Grace
Never was man unable to seek God and climb Jacobs Ladder. One only need reflect on Daniel, Moses, Noah to see Gods predestined will through cooperation, thus grace at work. Thus it follows man was also always able to reject his own incorrect human desire to seek God. We don’t have a DNA problem, we have the remains of the curse, that being just as Daniel, Moses and Noah had to contend with…incorrect desire of the physical world.
Jesus frees man by re-establishing Heaven, and instituting the Sacraments, along with giving man a maternal mother for eternity. Yet the inclination to sin is real and contended with by Grace and our will to seek God.
God did not come to Marys mother to fix a problem He imposed on man. For one this subjects God to His own curse. And more important it places God in the mechanic mode, not the creator reality. This is why preservation is more fitting than some ridiculous idea the God must have came back to fix what he created but not completely as He desired from the on-set.
In other words, He didn’t forget the motor in the car as suggested.
Marys parents, if we are to follow tradition could not conceive. God did not come fix their age or whatever the physical issue was, He created and He didn’t create a mistake and then come back and repair it as a mechanic.
God is not a mechanic, He Creates, just as He created everything from nothing, just as Adam and Eve were created out of what He already created. That being Dirt. Man is created above the rest of creation, yet “incapable of independent preservation”. The gift is Gods image, with the promise of bliss conditionally upon His preservation in grace.
Daniels DNA isn’t what made him unable to obtain Heaven, it was Gods presupposed curse. He created the obstacle and removed the obstacle. Man fell victim to the obstacle. the obstacle is what we call evil. The issue is “supernatural” a withdrawal of a once freely given but not earned Grace
Never was man unable to seek God and climb Jacobs Ladder. One only need reflect on Daniel, Moses, Noah to see Gods predestined will through cooperation, thus grace at work. Thus it follows man was also always able to reject his own incorrect human desire to seek God. We don’t have a DNA problem, we have the remains of the curse, that being just as Daniel, Moses and Noah had to contend with…incorrect desire of the physical world.
Jesus frees man by re-establishing Heaven, and instituting the Sacraments, along with giving man a maternal mother for eternity. Yet the inclination to sin is real and contended with by Grace and our will to seek God.
God did not come to Marys mother to fix a problem He imposed on man. For one this subjects God to His own curse. And more important it places God in the mechanic mode, not the creator reality. This is why preservation is more fitting than some ridiculous idea the God must have came back to fix what he created but not completely as He desired from the on-set.
In other words, He didn’t forget the motor in the car as suggested.
Marys parents, if we are to follow tradition could not conceive. God did not come fix their age or whatever the physical issue was, He created and He didn’t create a mistake and then come back and repair it as a mechanic.
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GaryTaylor
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Good post, Thanks.
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GaryTaylor
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Amen
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GaryTaylor
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btw, Adam and Eve were in fact “immortal” by Gods Grace, be it a human nature by Gods creation, they were set for eternity. When Eve states in the Garden: God said we shall not eat the fruit lest you will die [Genesis 3:3] God could not tell a lie.
So too was Mary immortal by Gods Grace, that’s why She is resurrected though preservation.
Or if someone has another understanding of what in fact is stated in Genesis, Wisdom and Romans. I’d be interested in hearing this understanding.
So too was Mary immortal by Gods Grace, that’s why She is resurrected though preservation.
Or if someone has another understanding of what in fact is stated in Genesis, Wisdom and Romans. I’d be interested in hearing this understanding.
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Apotheoun
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No, I do not believe in the Western theory of the Immaculate Conception, and in fact I view it as quite unnecessary, because I do not believe in the idea of a “stain of original sin” in Adam’s descendants. No one is conceived or born sinful or guilty - either personally or collectively guilty.Apotheoun;10175396:
Oh, I’ll bet you do.
I really do not see the moment of the Theotokos’ sanctification as a dogmatic issue, but if I were pressed to state a specific moment for her sanctification I would hold that she was sanctified at the moment of the Incarnation of the Logos. But again, the idea that the Theotokos was sanctified is not a dogmatic issue for me, and so if a man rejected the notion entirely I would say that he was within his rights, and that he would in no way jeopardize his eternal salvation.
Related to this point another question could be asked: Did the Theotokos live a sinless life? To me that question is not of any great dogmatic importance. I am fine with the idea of her personally living a sinless life as a pious opinion, but that is all it is, an opinion and nothing more. After all, certain Church Fathers held that the Theotokos committed minor sins, and no one would (or should) question their right to hold that opinion.
That is a beautiful hymn to the Virgin Theotokos, but I do not read that hymn with Western spectacles, which is why I do not see it as supporting the irrelevant Western theory of the Immaculate Conception.
Well, although you may wish to think that I believe in the Immaculate Conception, I can assure you that I do not. Moreover, I reject the entire Augustinian framework upon which that unnecessary theory is built. The Theotokos is conceived and born mortal (i.e., subject to death - both physical and spiritual) like us all, and to posit anything else is simply contrary to the Orthodox faith of the Fathers.
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