www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Immaculate Conception

The Church does not teach that original sin implies an inherited personal "guilt". From Pope John Paul II's catechesis on original sin:

The "stain" of original sin is that we have lost our original perfection and blessedness before God, and do not possess his divine life from birth. Adam ate the apple, but we have to share the stomach-ache. God sees in our souls from conception the reminder that Adam lost for all mankind his original blessedness, and we exist before God as purely natural beings. It's like a child born with defects because the mother was an alcoholic; the child didn't do anything wrong, but her defects are a constant reminder of the mother's sin, of what the child could have been but is not because of the mother's sin. God sees us from conception in comparison to how he created our first parents, and this is a blight on his creation, a "stain". Sin is essentially a deprivation of good, and that is why we say we are born "with" original sin, because are born within a state of deprivation of God's divine life. It is a "defect" in our humanity that we are not perfect supernatural beings. This is entirely consonant with the language of Scripture:

The Immaculate Conception is not a taking away of personal guilt, but an endowment of divine life and supernatural favor in Our Lady's soul from the moment of her conception; God did not see in her soul the same blight that we all bear, that is, he didn't see her deprived of his life in comparison with Adam and Eve, because she was "full of grace" from the moment of her conception. She did bear the external consequences of original sin, just as her Son did, but spiritually she was full of grace and supernatural life, which we are granted through Baptism.

Era Might,

East and West not only have different views on the nature of the "fall" and its consequences, but they also differ on what man was like in the Garden of Eden before the ancestral sin. For the Eastern Fathers man was not perfect in the Garden; instead, he was like an infant, who was only in potency to perfection through the acquisition of the divine likeness (i.e., the process of theosis). Thus, Adam's sin does not really involve a fall, as much as it involves a failure to rise to his proper end, which -- of course -- was to grow forever into God through the process of theosis. Moreover, the two traditions understand grace itself differently, because for the East grace is the uncreated divine energy, and no created being, not even Satan, can be devoid of the divine energy. Thus, the idea that the sin of Adam brings about a privation of grace is not acceptable to the East, because if man were truly deprived of grace he would cease to exist. The divine energy pervades all of created reality, and in the process it keeps it in being from moment to moment.

God bless,
Todd

I reject the idea that the ancestral sin causes a "state of being" that can be described as a "sin of nature" analogous to "personal sin." The ancestral sin causes a condition of mortality (i.e., a principle of annihilation), which can be passed on through natural generation, but it does not cause anything analogous to sin.

Sin requires a personal enactment of the natural will.

God bless,
Todd

Sin is not only a positive act of the will, but also a negative deprivation of the good that could have been achieved; adultery, for example, lacks the good of conjugal relations between husband and wife. This is why original sin is analogous to personal sin, because original sin is a deprivation of divine life, the original good which belonged to man, but which was lost through Adam's sin. As a human race, we are in a sense an "icon" of Adam; we did not commit the sin anymore than an icon commits the scene which it depicts. Rather, we are the perpetual reflection of Adam's failure and loss; we are an icon before God of the lack of good with which he first endowed man.

You are missing the point. Sin is centered in the gnomie, i.e., in the hypostatic enactment of the will, not in the natural will itself, or worse, in nature qua nature. There is no such thing as original sin; instead, there are effects of the original sin in Adam's descendants.

The immaculate conception makes absolutely no sense within the Eastern doctrinal tradition. It only makes sense if you follow Augustine's erroneous anthropology.

God bless,
Todd

We agree. "Original sin" is not a something, but a lack of something, that is, a lack of the divine life and blessedness which were lost through Adam's sin; it is because we lack this something that we bear the consequences of original sin, death and concupiscence. The "Immaculate Conception" was a singular privelege whereby Our Lady was conceived "full of grace", and did not lack the divine life and blessedness within her soul which were also possessed by Adam and Eve. Everyone else is restored to this divine life and blessedness through Baptism.

Augustine's error was based upon his misreading of Romans 5:12, but of course Augustine did not know how to read Greek. The Eastern Fathers always taught that the term eph'ho (i.e., because of which) modifies the word death in the preceding clause; and as a consequence, the text should be read in the following way: ". . . and so death passed upon all men, because of which (i.e., death) all have sinned." Thus, Adam's sin brings mortality and corruption to his descendants, and not sin itself, which is always a personal reality -- not a natural reality -- that is dependent upon the enactment of the will.

Era Might,

We will have to agree to disagree, because I reject the theory of the immaculate conception as incompatible with the teaching of the Eastern Fathers. Moreover, it has no place in the doctrinal tradition of the Byzantine Church, and for a Byzantine to accept it involves a type of Latinization.

God bless,
Todd

Of course sin is a personal decision. What Adam's sin did was produce a disorder in human nature, so that we our passions are INCLINED toward sin and not perfectly harmonized with our spiritual soul and with the supernatural life of God, which we are deprived of from conception.

Pope Pius IX notes this:

Only in personal sin do we bear a guilt before God. However, while God doesn't permit us to suffer eternal punishment for someone else's sin, he does permit us to suffer the temporal punishment for someone else's sin, and this is what we call "Original Sin". Because Adam sinned, he lost for his children the original divine life and blessedness given to him, and without that divine life and harmony, man's nature is inclined toward sin and corruption and death; inclined, not forced.

All I will say is that I believe you are making a grave mistake in rejecting a divinely revealed dogma, and I suggest that you reconsider your rejection of this teaching of the Church.

God bless.

What Adam introduced into human nature was death (i.e., a principle of decay and annihilation), not sin or guilt. The immaculate conception is theologically unnecessary in the Byzantine tradition, because the Byzantine Church has never accepted the Augustinian viewpoint. In fact, the theory of the immaculate conception only makes sense if you follow Augustine's opinion on the nature of the ancestral sin.

God bless,
Todd

Todd,

You might help us to understand what Byzantine Theology does teach about the Holy Theotokos. I bet that there are some Latin Catholics who think that you are positing that the Holy Theotokos committed sins like everybody else.

Dr. Eric

Todd,

Glad to see you are engaged again - seems you've been gone for a while! (or maybe I have...)

I guess I will only say you seem pretty confident that Orthodoxy as a whole has rejected the Catholic understanding of the Immaculate Conception and its Augustinian underpinnings. As we know, however, the only authoritative magisterial body that can definitively accept or reject doctrine as heretical is an ecumenical council. So my question is...how are you able to speak with such confidence about what Orthodoxy accepts and rejects since no council has judged it (or the Augustinian framework) one way or another? Is it not far better (and far more accurate) to say that within Orthodoxy, the Catholic position, while not held to be dogmatic, is regarded in the very least as theologumena?

To be sure, not every Orthodox integrates fully ALL aspects of the theological systems and soteriological categories of the Cappadocians (The Syrians - along with their rich tradition regarding Mary-Eve typology - come to mind).

My own inclination at this point (quite contrary to my normal bent, but I am growing tired of this argument year after year) would be to follow Father Serge's advice...let the liturgy speak for itself, fold the wings of the intellect and bow down to the mystery!

God bless and Happy Feast Day!

Gordo

Father,

I'm not sure what I said that involves judgement. I know Apotheoun from another forum; I don't know if that changes the matter in your mind, but I'm just letting you know that we have discussed before.

I'm not sure that I can retract what I said. Apotheoun is Catholic. I respectfully asked him to reconsider his stated rejection of a teaching of the Catholic Church which is regarded in the Catechism as a "dogma". I don't believe it is out of line to respectfully ask a Catholic to reconsider a position in light of Church teaching.

I respect your decision if you decide to suspend me. But I honestly don't see anything wrong with what I asked of him, as a brother and as a fellow Catholic. You are the moderator, so I understand if you do what you feel is best.


God bless.