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I am reminded of my reaction of "so what?" to first reading Luther on justification.

Rome: Faith and works are necessary for salvation, but works flow only from faith, and those done for the purpose of salvation are "dead works" which do not justify.

Luther: No, that's WRONG! We are saved by faith alone, but faith will always lead to works!

Uh, great, Martin, but so what? There is no circumstance under which your reformulation makes a difference, but good for you . . .

hawk

I sorta thought that Our Lady said that she was the Immaculate Conception to Saint Bernadette?

Dear Theologos,

Orthodoxy does not accept, nor have to accept, the Lourdes devotion or any Western devotion to the Theotokos (neither do Eastern Catholics for that matter).

But in connection with Lourdes, it is interesting that Russian Orthodox emigres to France sometimes took on the devotions of their surroundings, including Lourdes. And they tended to understand the "Immaculate Conception" as pertaining to the Conception of Christ in the Holy Womb of the Theotokos and not the Conception of the Mother of God in the womb of St Anne!

Alex

Dear Hawk,

There was an RC movement some years back to rehabilitate and even promote the canonization of Martin Luther . . .

And I've heard at least one Jesuit refer to him during a sermon as "Brother Martin of Erfurt."

Perhaps this was one of your "progressive Jesuits?"

Alex

I am hoping that all the liberalism and foolishness of the last 30+ years is now sinking back into the slime pit from whence it came, now that H.H. Pope Benedict XVI is reigning...

Conscience by -ray kaliss

What the body experience of reality is really representations of
reality. So also the mind - our thoughts are merely representations of
reality. Therefore: sense experiences and thoughts are beliefs. Not true
reality - but rather we believe something or have faith in something.

"Only person is capable of a full and direct intuitive knowledge. Had,
not by way of sense experience nor by way of thoughts and reasoning ..
but realty direct union with reality".

how I understand this;
could with understanding of this last paragraph be the grounds for which the RC might have based their Dogma on E.C?
Mary was in direct union with reality, the reality was her faith "God centered" . Mary's thoughts was her reality that she would become the Mother of God, through her faith, she also believed her faith was true to her (she was made that way) Direct Union w her reality (GOD)

ps can we be sure that Mary died a physical death?

What do you think?
Dandelion

Dear Dandelion,

As far as the Christian East is concerned, she did and this is well noted in the liturgical services in her honour for the feast of the Dormition (whose very title means "falling asleep" or death).

Alex

Thanx Alex,

Dandelion

Ok, where are people getting the idea that "stain of sin" is "something present"? I've yet to see ANY Western theologian say that the stain of sin is the presence of something, and certainly no Council has said as much.

The Old Catholic Encyclopedia even says this about the term "stain of sin", citing St. Thomas Aquinas:


Would someone kindly show me where, anywhere really, that the "stain of sin" is defined as something positive, i.e. something real and not merely a privation of Grace?

This bothers me because I always hear this raised as an objection to the Latin theology on sin, but it seems entirely based on a misreading (or non-reading) of actual Latin theology. I've studied much Latin theology regarding sin, and I can honestly say that I've never, ever heard of the "stain of sin" refered to as something "real" existing in the soul. Perhaps Protestants have used the term that way, I have no idea, but it is certainly quite foreign to Latin theology all through history as far as I've seen.

I don't see how you could get more explicit about the "stain of sin" being a privation than the above quote, except perhaps in the article by St. Thomas Aquinas that it cites. So again I ask, could someone please show me where they've read, in any kind of authoritative or renowned theological source, that the "stain of sin" is a positive quality as opposed to a privation? Is this simply an objection based on erroneous impressions of Latin theology? I would hope not, because if we're going to discuss the potential errors of the Latin view, we should at least be discussing the actual view and not our own faulty impressions of it. :p

As a side note, using the Catholic Encyclopedia's definition of the "stain of sin", which is the same as Aquinas' and the Council of Trent's, all that the Immaculate Conception is actually teaching is that Mary was conceived in the same state that we are Baptised into, since Baptism fills us with Sanctifying Grace (i.e. erases the stain, or darkness, with the Light). It doesn't mean she couldn't have increased in Grace later (on the contrary, we can increase infinitely), nor does it mean she wasn't subject to temptation (though she certainly would have had a much more pleasant time turning down such temptations, just as Christ did, being as fully turned to God as she was).

Peace and God bless!

The statement of the dogma itself says this
I would assume the formal active essence of original sin going by this
means depraved emotions, passions and debilities, even if you say these are a side effect of privation. They are an active presence (a positive as you say), a stain. There is indeed a "there" there.

Eeks!

There are Jesuits all over the board; I spent 8 years in their schools. I recall referring to them as, "A partially owned subsidiary of the Roman Catholic Church."

They did a lot to shape my life, as much from praxis as theology. Were they not celibate, I probably would have joined them.

It was actually a baptist professor teaching the class in which I reacted poorly to Luther. Before letting me sign up for the course (my first quarter of college), the Honors Program adviser asked if my mother would have a heart attack over a Protestant theology course. As it turned out, he should have worried about the professor. As fate would have it, I had the same professor my final quarter. When I asked if he remembered me in that class, he laughed and said that it was hard to forget "a vocal, unrepentant Catholic"

hawk, still unrepentant about Catholicism [but more than willing to acknowledge that Jesuit hymns tend to be as bad as Franciscan religious art]

Such disordered passions are not a positive presence, but a description of what our natural passions are when removed from Grace. They are not a separate thing, or else the "stain of sin" would not be called a privation. Or, to put it a better way, "depraved passion" is simply the description of human passion without Grace; it is not something different in and of itself. We have the exact same "positives" with Grace or without it, but "depraved" describes our positive attributes when deprived of Grace.

Again, the defining element is that the "stain of sin" is simply the privation of Grace; nothing at all is added to us by sin, whether original or actual, but rather our natural system doesn't work right when deprived of Divine Life. Nothing at all is added to us by sin, only taken away, much as a car breaks down when the engine is deprived of oil.

The Latin theological system fundamentally rejects any kind of "positivisation" of evil or sin; any time that something "positive" is spoken of, it is something that is naturally good but deprived of Divine order (by Grace), not something that is added to a person.

So Mary was "Grace-ordered" from Conception, whereas we are not. There is nothing actual in us that was not in Mary, not even the passions, but the depravity (crookedness, a negative description rather than a quality) of the passions was not present in her.

Now this may or may not be acceptable to the Orthodox, but the fact remains that it is the Catholic understanding. There has never been any teachings that depravity is a "positive", or something added to our nature.

Peace and God bless!

Dear Ghosty,

Very good!

Alex

Ghosty, I don't know what to say except I find these distinctions highly confusing and needlessly complex.

I can only say what I believe. Children are born without sin, but with a human nature and mortal. Baptism does not erase sin or a stain of those who cannot sin or have no sin. It does bring children fully in to the church and to the kingdom of God. It does wash away the sins of those who have personal sin. Baptism does not fundamentally change our underlying human nature. All of the above applies to all people, including Mary. That is the best I can sum up my view.

I don't want to argue with anyone that they shouldn't accept the IC, but I don't.

Dear AMM,

I can see Ghosty's point and from a RC point of view his words represent a remarkable theological insight - if I may be allowed to say so.

Our human nature isn't wholly corrupt when we are conceived and are born. But we do inherit the "pull towards evil" of a damaged nature from Adam.

That the Theotokos and the Forerunner experienced a sanctification from their very beginning - without changing their nature other than strengthening it - that is a "no problem" and especially given that their Conceptions are liturgically celebrated.

The view that the conceptions of all the saints (or our own for that matter) could likewise be liturgically celebrated - that is contradictory from both a liturgical and a soteriological perspective.

The liturgical prayers themselves celebrate the two in that point in time i.e. their conceptions.

There can be no doubt but that the mind of the Church affirms their holiness at their conceptions in a way no one else may approximate.

Cheers,

Alex