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Huh? Is the idea that God is not able to do such a thing?

It has already been pointed out the the IC makes no claim at all of "state of being unable to sin". But here again, what is the flip side? Pelagianism?

Andrew, what are you assuming about that manner in which God experiences time, or the limits His ability to do His will?

Dear DJS,

Not at all. God can do whatever he wishes, as we know, but God is consistently shown as loving and compassionate in the New Testament.

The thought process of such an event happening can seem to negate the effects of Redemption by Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I would logically conclude, based on what I have learned, that if God chooses to grant full sanctity and purity of a human at conception, thereby erasing all traces of Original Sin, than why did we, as in mankind, need a blood ransom to atone for all our sins? What is the point for it? Forgive me Lord, for even thinking this.

I do not know, but if God chooses at will to allow humans to be born without Original Sin, as expressed above, and is His right, then this does lead credence to the some of the teachings of Caelestius, who was very much influenced by Pelagius.

I believe that Jesus Christ redeemed all of mankind on the cross through His sacrifice of true love and blood, to grant us eternal life. His resurrection and teachings are the key to Theosis.

I confirm that Mary, The Theotokos, and ever virgin, is Our Queen of Heaven, and of all the Saints and Angels. I believe She is truly all deserving of that title and role, by Her holiness, or Theosis, but also believe that Her Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, also included Her with us when He died on the cross for all mankind.

What am I missing? Please help.

Oh, my head hurts!

Michael

I can accept the Latin IC dogma as long as it simply means that the Theotokos was free from any stain of sin. There is no problem with that. However, every Roman Catholic I've ever known has always said that it also means that Mary had no fallen nature (thus causing her no natural struggle against sin), some even saying that it is heresy to say she could get sick. This is all absurd. Of course, God could have done such a thing, but He didn't.

The Theotokos was human. Is she glorious? Yes. All-holy? Certainly. Humanity's "Great Exception"? Nope. She was human. Humans have a fallen nature, they have disordered desires, they have to fight against their fallen nature. Humans don't get free passes where God violates their free will and basically says, "I know you will choose me, so I'll sanctify you beforehand, and you'll just go through the motions of life like the rest of under-privileged humanity." No, God calls all of us and we choose to cooperate with Him.

Am I saying that the Theotokos was horribly depraved? Of course not. She was given special graces from the onset, but she wasn't given all the graces at once. No, she was the humble maiden of Nazereth who, in cooperating with this grace, kept saying "yes" to God's love and saw her fallen (read: normal) nature transfigured by her Savior. This is the Mary I read about in the Gospel. This is the Mary who was the "handmaiden of the Lord" (Luke 1:38) "rejoices in God her Savior", (Luke 1:47) and "ponders these things in her heart" (Luke 2:19). Do these quotes sound like a retroactively sanctified woman or a woman who knowing she needs redemption for her nature, seeks after God, not to delight in a past event, but to attain something yet needed? It is clearly the latter.

As St. John Maximovitch said, making the Blessed Theotokos not have a fallen nature is to cheapen her fight against sin. There is no real fight against the adversary if God has created you in such a way that you are assumed to never choose against Him. And there can be no true seeking after God, if you do it only to maintain something that is already present. We seek God to grow in grace, not only to maintain it. Any other type of seeking God is not human, and the Blessed Theotokos was human.

Adam

Adam,

Once again I find these types of arguments problematic. Are we then to say that Our Lord was somehow less than human because he did not suffer from the effects of the ancestral sin? Was His priesthood somehow compromised because He was like us in all things but sin? Absolutely not. I fail to see why it is so important to you that Mary's nature suffered from the stain of sin and corruption. Clearly there is reason to believe that it was God's will that she not suffer from these things to be the pure vessel and "soil" which would recieve the seed of the Word. As I indicated earlier that is not to say that she did not suffer, but this suffering was not the result of any intrinic woundedness or brokeness of her own nature.

It is almost as if you see sin as the natural state of man, when it is really more of a broken condition of his nature. Man's true natural state - as created by God - is sinless.

As for the quote from St. John, again, you risk diminishing the struggle Our Lord faced with temptation based on that argument. Not to mention that I think you make more of the "struggle" than you should - almost as if it were an end unto itself. But let's be clear - Our Lord and the Theotokos did suffer, but not because of their own sinfulness or due to any sinful or disordered inclination on THEIR part.

Why you see it as somehow critically important that Mary should have sinned or inherited the wounds of original sin is beyond me.

Gordo

Ok.

1. The fact that Mary was not "subjected, even for an instant, to the power of evil and sin" is not the same thing as saying that she was "placed in the state of being unable to sin". A human being can be made a "subject" of the power of sin and death by two means: conception (subsequent to Adam's fall) and by free choice. The privelege mentioned by Scotus refers principally to the first means of subjection (conception in the broken line of Adam). The Catholic belief is also that Mary never willfully became a subject of the power of sin and death, and that, while it was certainly connected to the privilege given to her by God at her conception, it was the distinct result of her free cooperation with the will of God...in other words, her free and perfect obedience throughout her life.

2. The follow-up quote that you give from St. John regarding the injustice of the privelege given to Mary is absurd. The whole unfolding of the history of salvation was not a necessity for God - all He had to do after the fall was to will the redemption, and it would be done. God's power to effect instant redemption on the whole human race should not be in question. And should he choose to select one of His daughters, a chosen vessel for the Messiah to receive the privilege (and the burden) of a nature that is not broken by sin and corruption inherited through the ancestral sin of our forefather Adam, who are we to call God unjust because such privileges are not extended to the whole human race? God could make all men like St. John the Forerunner and sanctify them in the womb, yet He chooses to have us undergo the Mystery of Holy Baptism. God could make us all like the Prophet Elijah and be taken up in a fiery chariot, never experiencing death, and yet all of us will eventually be taken by a hearse to a cemetery and put in a grave. Or He could invite us all to the tops of mountains to communion with God and see his manifest glory and speak to us personally...but most of us have to struggle with discerning God's will and presence in our lives daily. Is He unjust because these privileges were not extended to us but only to a select few? Absolutely not!

The reasoning of St. John here is simply beyond me.

As to the articles on EWTN, I'll read them when I get a chance and respond to your question.

Your desire to be "Orthodox in Communion with Rome" is a noble one that I share. But who speaks for Orthodoxy? How are we to discern what is "Orthodox" and what is not? Which bishop or theologian speaks authoritatively on this issue? Is there not disagreement on a variety of issues? these questions are difficult and troubling ones, and there is rarely a clear answer. Also, to be fully "Eastern" means more than just the Greek tradition. The Syrian tradition has its own unique perspective on these issues.

Anyway, just a few things to ponder...

Peace,

Gordo

Hmmm. Despite all the "Jesus and Mary" vocabulary prevalent in Roman Catholicism, Jesus and Mary are not entirely the same. Our Blessed Lord was fully man, but he was also fully God, and he was a divine person. This is basic Christology. Christ's mission and work must be seen in this light. I don't expect Christ to be seen as "less human" since He didn't have the spiritual effects of original sin. He was also God, not just human. The Panagia, on the other hand, is entirely human. Therefore, I do expect her to be seen as human (albeit, one who perfectly cooperated with grace). If you want Jesus and Mary to be seen as the same, spiritually, then you need to advocate a Hypostatic Union for the Theotokos; if not, accept the fact that she had a fallen (normal) human nature.

It's important for me to see the Theotokos as having a normal fallen nature because she is not a goddess; she is human. Of course, being fallen isn�t the original state of man. However, the way the original state is restored to man in the New Covenant isn't through God passing out replicas of Jesus' nature, it is through fallen humans cooperating with God's love and grace, thus reaching theosis - the restoration of our original nature. And this is exactly what the Blessed Theotokos did - no more, no less.

Btw, it is not proper to refer to our fallen nature as a "stain." In an objective sense, it does reckon us "sinners" (cf. Romans 3:23), but it doesn't make us partakers in sin. Adam's sin was his alone. We receive the effects, of course, but not the guilt/stain of it.

Remember that Our Lord was not just a human, he was also God. His reward for overcoming temptation must be seen in a different light than the rewards of the saints in overcoming the Adversary. For example, the saints receive rewards for overcoming their sinful nature. Christ obviously wasn't exalted for this, for he didn't have a sinful nature. You need to make this distinction.

You are correct, I do place much emphasis on the "struggle." But what else should I do with human beings? Jesus Christ stands alone, as Holy Orthodoxy has always affirmed. I cannot "exalt" Mary to the level of being equal with the God-Man, Jesus Christ, in her nature. Orthodoxy will never do such a thing for it is wrong and robs our Theotokos of all her merits. Rethink your position, Gordo.

Adam

No one is saying anything like this. The assimilation being made, in broad terms, is of Mary and Eve. So consider: was Eve, pre-fall, human or not? Was she - or for that matter Adam - hypostatically united to God or not? And finally did Eve and Adam, pre-fall, face "struggle" or not?

The tinge of Pelagianism is the suggestion that Mary by own virtue alone could be immaculate. And the idea that God's favor diminshes her - I cannot fathom.

This is Catholic belief, with the IC; it is the opposition to the Pelagian taint, and to the odd idea that through Mary's own virtue and her own struggle she somehow merited becomiing the Theotokos.

Paradosis,

I do agree with your statement

"Adam's sin was his alone. We receive the effects, of course, but not the guilt/stain of it."

However, being a older cradle Latin it has taken a few years of exposure to Eastern theology...

james

Andrew, how did you miss this from the the very same article in New Advent?

The dispute about the Immaculate Conception is founded upon the fact that East and West have different views on the nature of the ancestral sin of Adam. The Western view of original sin posits the idea of a type of hereditary guilt or what is sometimes called a "state of sin" in Adam's descendants, while the Eastern position does not admit these ideas, because as Fr. Meyendorff explains, original sin is ". . . a natural mortality transmitted from generation to generation, as a consequence of the separation between God and man after the sin of Adam. It is not itself a state of sin, but a 'condition' of the human nature that the Word, by His incarnation, came to assume and, by His resurrection, re-establish into the grace of immortality." [Fr. John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, page 66] In other words, men are not born sinful, because sin is a personal (hypostatic) reality, not a natural one; instead, they are born mortal, and the purpose of the incarnation is primarily to conquer death by death, and give immortality to man.

Unfortunately, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was formulated along Augustinian lines and really does not work within the Eastern theological tradition. Nevertheless, it does not follow from this that the Theotokos was sinful, because clearly she is held to be immaculate by all the Eastern Churches. That being said, within the Byzantine tradition there is no need for Mary to be preserved from some kind of "stain" of sin, because there is no such thing as a hereditary stain of sin.

Sadly both sides in this dispute tend to talk past each other, with Easterners calling the Western position a form of Manichaeanism, while Westerners normally call the Eastern focus on the necessity of ascesis in deification as a type of Pelagianism.

The difficulty in all of this is that the West, by dogmatizing a theologoumenon founded upon the Augustinian understanding of original sin, has promoted a doctrinal formulation that is hard to reconcile to the teaching of the Eastern Fathers (e.g., St. John Chrysostom, the Cappadocians, St. Athanasios, St. Maximos, et al.), who saw original sin as the condition of mortality, and not as a moral defect in human nature itself.

Apotheoun, et al,

I believe that this position (if it reflects the whole of his position on the question) inaccurately reduces the effects of the ancestral fall to death/the loss of immortality and physical corruption.

Do you have some quotations from the Fathers you mentioned (e.g., St. John Chrysostom, the Cappadocians, St. Athanasios, St. Maximos, et al.) which exclude the spiritual effects of the fall? To me, the exclusion of the inclination to sin and the "curse" of our nature's separation from covenant communion with God seems to run contrary to reason, revelation and experience. I do appreciate, however, the perspective the East provides as a corrective to the West's obsession with the moral/spiritual effects. Without that corrective, the Resurrection makes no sense whatsoever. So to me, the authentic catholic position would be a synthesis - a "both/and" rather than an "either/or" situation.

Returning to the dogma of the IC, can it be said that there is a clear unity among the Fathers of the East vs. the Fathers of the West on the Immaculate Conception?

In the light (or heat) of some of the conversations above, consider some of the quotes from those of the Syrian tradition.

St. Ephrem the Syrian

St. John of Damascus

Some further quotes (some of which are more explicit on this issue) that I ran across from the fathers and early Christian writers:

Can she who was alone made in her "entirety the home of all the graces of the Most Holy Spirit" and of "pure, immaculate clay" be anything but conceived immaculately? When "the shame of sin had darkened the splendor and attraction of human nature", should we not honor her "immaculate nobility" which received its "ancient beauty", fashioned as it was "according to a perfect model truly worthy of God"? For "there is no flaw" in Christ and "no stain" in His Mother!

Gotta love that Eastern "Jesus and Mary" vocabulary!

Again, building upon what djs said very well, the Catholic understanding of the dogma of the IC hinges specifically on a typological approach to Mary and her role within the history of salvation.

Mary is truly the "New Eve" in the "New Creation". It is not in our nature to sin, but rather it is the inherited condition of our nature which was mortally wounded by the "curse" of Adam. The nature we inherit from Eve "the mother of the living" is wounded by sin and death. Through the "regeneration" of our nature (being born from above) in the spiritual womb of the New Eve (Mary as icon of the Church who baptizes us, joining us to her Son's "body"), the process of healing begins. We are immersed in the covenant ordeal of the Death and Resurrection of Christ, with the seed of its filial power and energy being planted within us, ultimately coming to its full fruition in the parousia - our own Resurrection at the end of time. Mary's human nature at conception, which, by God's grace and election was to become the "good soil" of Christ the New Adam's human nature that through Hypostatic Union became the principle and source of our regeneration (the reversal of the curse), is the same nature that our mother Eve received in her creation - prior to the fall and removal from paradise.

So tell me why is this so hard a teaching to accept?

Gordo

East and West have different views on the nature of original sin.

The loss of immortality involves man's death, and not just the death of his body, but of the whole man -- body and soul.

St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly (SVTQ) has had some excellent articles contrasting the Eastern and Western position on original sin, focusing primarily upon the views of St. Augustine and St. John Chrysostom. St. Augustine's take on original sin is novel, and he clearly misunderstood the teaching of St. John Chrysostom -- even when he quoted St. John's writings. The East holds that sin is a personal reality; and so, it is not possible for sin itself to be passed on from one generation to the next. Mortality on the other hand can be passed on, but this is not a defect of human nature; instead, it is the inevitable outcome of Adam's withdrawal from God's fellowship.

As a former Latin, I find it intriguing that Westerners will always read and interpret the texts of the Fathers in an Augustinian manner. That being said, once I removed the Augustinian spectacles from my eyes, I was finally able to see the Eastern viewpoint on this issue, and after a period of long reflection I accepted it, because it involves far fewer problems than the position advocated by St. Augustine.

St. John explained the Eastern position in his Tenth Homily on Romans, when he said, "As the best physicians always take great pains to discover the source of diseases, and go to the very fountain of the mischief, so does the blessed Paul also. Hence after having said that we were justified, and having shown it from the Patriarch, and from the Spirit, and from the dying of Christ (for He would not have died unless He intended to justify), he next confirms from other sources also what he had at such length demonstrated. And he confirms his proposition from things opposite, that is, from death and sin. How, and in what way? He enquires whence death came in, and how it prevailed. How then did death come in and prevail? 'Through the sin of one.' But what means, 'for that all have sinned?' This; he having once fallen, even they that had not eaten of the tree did from him, all of them, become mortal." In the Eastern tradition, the sin of Adam brought hereditary mortality, and it is man's mortality, i.e., the fact that his nature tends towards the dissolution of its very existence, that makes man vulnerable to his passions and this leads to sin.

In other words, the Eastern Fathers see the sin of Adam as the cause of mortality, and mortality is the condition that makes man (hypostatically) vulnerable to sinful activity, because he often acts rashly in a futile attempt to prolong his existence, mainly by seeking pleasure and by avoiding pain. Nevertheless, there is no hereditary sin, nor can there be, because sin is by definition personal (hypostatic) and not natural. Moreover, if sin were natural, i.e., if human nature was altered essentially, it follows that sin would be natural to man, and God would have to be its cause, because He is the creator of nature.

Gordo,

All of the Patristical texts that you quoted in connection with the Holy Theotokos are quite beautiful, and our Eastern Orthodox brothers no doubt would assent to all that was said, but they would not interpret all of the quotations given in an Augustinian fashion as Westerners do. None of those texts imply that there is a "stain" of original sin. Mary is free from all stain, and no member of an Eastern Orthodox Church would have a problem with that, but what they would reject is the Augustinian notion that nature has been corrupted by some kind of ontological or essential stain. Mary is of course free from every stain of personal sin, but for the Eastern Orthodox there is no "stain" of original sin in the Augustinian sense of that term. Moreover, the insistence upon this idea of a "stain" of original sin by Westerners is one of the things that makes Eastern Orthodox theologians think that the West is Manichaean. Now clearly the West is not Manichaean, but many of the Augustinian teachings in connection with original sin are fraught with theological dangers tending in that direction, including -- but not limited to -- St. Augustine's traducian leanings in connection with his various explanations for the transmission of original sin.

I think that the Immaculate Conception dogma is meant to honor the Holy Theotokos, but within the Byzantine tradition it is an unnecessary theologoumenon.

Blessings to you,
Todd

Todd,

I always appreciate your thoughtful posts. I will do a search at the local seminary library for the articles in SVS Quarterly.

I agree with your analysis of St. John Chrysostom's exegesis except insofar as you interpret "mortality" exclusively in physical terms.

And as a father who is raising three children (two of whom are teenagers), I can tell you that very early on there is evidence of the inclination to sin apart from any awareness of their "mortality"! :p

As for the patristic quotations, what are we to make of phrases such as Mary's "pure, immaculate clay", the restoration of "ancient privileges" and her being "fashioned according to a perfect model truly worthy of God"?

The power of sin/death certainly encompasses the "hypostatic" dimension you mentioned that is associated with each individual's personal choice in favor of disobedience. This should not be regarded as "heriditary", since to say so would be to compromise our freedom and make God unjust.

But there is an operative principle at work within our members, apart from any conscious awareness of mortality on our part, that defines the wounded condition (not the essence) of our nature experienced as an inclination towards sin - the fruit of which is death. The sickness of separation from communion with God exists at the Adamic root of our ancestry...in a way, this defines a certain spiritual trajectory of our race away from God (coupled with a simultaneous aspiration to return to paradise) that is only fully corrected by the Incarnation of the Eternal Word (New Adam) and, by extension, the immaculate conception of the Theotokos (New Eve). This "mortal inclination" of humanity is one of the manifetations of the "curse" God spoke upon Adam, Eve and their seed after the Fall in Genesis. The promise of deliverance soon followed, of course, and that promise is repeated and partially fulfilled across many generations until it is brought to completion in Christ.

So why not say that the mortal inclination of the soul as a condition of our nature is also "the inevitable outcome of Adam's withdrawal from God's fellowship"? Why reduce it to physical mortality only, especially when Scripture (especially St. Paul) makes an explicit - even causal - connection between the two?

Peace,

Gordo

I would simply reiterate what I said in my previous post: "The loss of immortality involves man's death, and not just the death of his body, but of the whole man -- body and soul."

Blessings to you,
Todd