www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Hi, I'm Orthodox, and I believe in the IC.

Pomazansky accurately presents the mature Latin doctrine of original sin as a privation of supernatural grace, a privation that is overcome by grace, according to the IC dogma, in the person of the Virgin Mary. It's as simple as that.

Pomazansky is ignorant of the claim that the Immaculate Conception was made possible only by the pre-application of the merits of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross. That is a major plank of the dogma and I am surprised you have not picked up on its lack in Pomazansky's understanding.

Given Pomazansky's defective understanding, I think that I myself grasp it better then he did

Father Ambrose,

You could stop making fun of Rome's theology. Your desire to not understand so that you can needle others is clearly far greater then your desire to understand.

John

What a curious and silly corner into which you have painted yourself, Fr Ambrose. The simple fact that Fr Pomazansky omits the meritorious cause of the Immaculate Conception in his brief one paragraph presentation does not mean that he misunderstood the the doctrine.

It's a bit like presenting the meaning of redemption and failing to mention the Cross.

You leave out a step: the Orthodox do not read into "Full of Grace" what the IC has. As such, the greeting occuring before the Incarnation is not a problem. In John 1:14 Christ is full of grace, but the terms used are not the same as the greeting: in Acts 6:8 the terms are the same, but refering to St. Stephen. Are we to conclude too that St. Stephen was immaculate.

In Luke 1, the term is perfective, not aorist, as the IC would demand it.

It is easy to verify that the same two Greek words are used to refer to Christ (in John) and Stephen (in Acts). The two terms suggest the Latin "gratia plena" that is, the Vulgate has, respectively, "plenum gratiae" and "plenus gratia." The Greek is the same genitive construction in both instances. All very interesting but so what? "Are we to conclude too that St. Stephen was immaculate." Such a point/question just makes no sense.

Actually, it is the perfect tense that fits the best with the IC. The Greek here is not the genitive construction as in the other instances but a different single word, kecharitōmenē which the Vulgate renders as the well known "gratia plena." The Greek kecharitōmenē (κεχαριτωμένη) is a verb participle perfect passive vocative feminine singular. Mary is directly addressed by the term that comes from the verb that means high favor/grace is bestowed. Note that it is not aorist, a simple past action, but the perfect, a past action with a continuing effect that has a bearing on the present. That perfect-tense construction fits the IC exactly:

O-having-been-and-is(passive perfect participle)-highly-favored/graced-One(fem, sing).

What does it mean "preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin?" Certainly she lived a sinless life as she was presented in the Temple at a very young age and was espoused to the widower elder Joseph as soon as she reached puberty. But the Theotokos still worked with her hands to help provide for her family, suffered hardships during her pregnancy, was hurt deeply by the injustice done to her son and wept bitterly at the cross.
She died as a mortal being. Are not these things consequences of original sin?

The Immaculate Conception means that Mary possessed grace from the beginning. What does it signify, though, to say that someone has sanctifying grace? This dry technical term of theology makes it sound as though some thing were meant. Yet ultimately sanctifying grace and its possession do not signify any thing, not even merely some sublime, mysterious condition of our souls, lying beyond the world of our personal experience and only believed in a remote, theoretical way. Sanctifying grace, fundamentally, means God himself, his communications to created spirits, the gift which is God himself. Grace is light, love, receptive access of a human being’s life as a spiritual person to the infinite expenses of the Godhead. Grace means freedom, strength, a pledge of eternal life, the predominant influence of the Holy Spirit in the depths of the soul, adoptive sonship and an eternal inheritance.

That saying that calls no one sinless except God, even though he has lived only one day on earth, does not refer to those who sin personally, because how can a one-day-old child sin? But in this is expressed that mystery of our Faith, that human nature is sinful from its very conception. God did not create man sinful, but pure and holy. But since the first-created Adam lost this garment of sanctity, not from any other sin but from pride alone, and became corruptible and mortal, all people also who come from the seed of Adam are participants of the ancestral sin from their very conception and birth. He who has been born in this way, even though he has not yet performed any sin, is already sinful through this ancestral sin.

For this reason has come another birth, or rebirth, which regenerates man through Holy Baptism by the Holy Spirit, again unites him with the Divine nature as it was when he was created by the hands of God, restores all the powers of his soul, renews them and brings them to the condition in which they were before the transgression of first-created Adam; in this way it leads him into the Kingdom of God, into which no one unbaptized can enter, and enlightens him with its light and grants him to taste its joys. Thus each one who is baptized again becomes such as Adam was before the transgression, and is led into the noetic Paradise and receives the commandment to work it and keep it--to work it by fulfillment of the commandments of Jesus Christ, and to keep it by the keeping of the grace of the Holy Spirit which was given to him through Holy Baptism, confessing that the power of this grace which dwells in him fulfills together with him the commandments of Christ. (Homily 37)