Please read this article about the nature of sin and the meaning of this coming Sunday:
http://monachos.net/content/patristics/ ... sin-of-man
The Church’s image of sin, of sinful existence, is not chiefly an image of Adam and Eve expelled from paradise, but an image of a child far from his father, longing for his true home. It is not chiefly a paradigm of fall—though it is not always opposed to such imagery—but one of exile.
Some thoughts:
As we approach Great Lent, we begin the great struggle with sin in ourselves, and so we pray, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner" as we return home from a life of alienation and exile to our Father through Christ, His Son.
Throughout Great Lent we look forward to the Resurrection, so in this journey of bright sorrow, there is great hope in the Resurrection of Christ, our Joy, our Life and Light.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.
Actually, there is one passage in that article I'm not sure about:
‘Lo, there is not one righteous man left, no not even one.’ This scriptural proclamation has summarised human experience for centuries. All the world is mired in sin. Why is this so? Speculation has given birth to extreme varieties of explanations—some constituting major dividing blocks between Orthodoxy and other religious traditions. ‘Fallen nature’, taken as a kind of ‘changed nature’ after a ‘fall’, has long been one method of offering explanation for sin’s universal spread; yet the Fathers have resisted this explanation forcefully. The natures God creates, the human nature He has fashioned, cannot be altered by man. It is created good, in each and every person. Sin distorts the how, but not the what of human existence. But then, why its universal spread?
I was under the impression that the notion of "fallen nature" was a Patristic one. Thoughts, anyone?
jgress wrote:Actually, there is one passage in that article I'm not sure about:
‘Lo, there is not one righteous man left, no not even one.’ This scriptural proclamation has summarised human experience for centuries. All the world is mired in sin. Why is this so? Speculation has given birth to extreme varieties of explanations—some constituting major dividing blocks between Orthodoxy and other religious traditions. ‘Fallen nature’, taken as a kind of ‘changed nature’ after a ‘fall’, has long been one method of offering explanation for sin’s universal spread; yet the Fathers have resisted this explanation forcefully. The natures God creates, the human nature He has fashioned, cannot be altered by man. It is created good, in each and every person. Sin distorts the how, but not the what of human existence. But then, why its universal spread?
I was under the impression that the notion of "fallen nature" was a Patristic one. Thoughts, anyone?
This is what I have been taught, but please correct me if I am wrong:
Roman Catholicism teaches that with Original Sin we have a "fallen nature." And this fallen nature needed redemption by Christ. Furthermore, in order to impart a perfect human nature to Christ, the Virgin needed to be pre-redeemed by Christ by her Immaculate Conception so that she and Christ would not be "stained" with Original Sin.
In Orthodoxy, Ecumenists have wrecked havoc ever since 1920. Thus, I have heard several New Calendarists Orthodox Priests who seem to preach different doctrines. Some agree with Roman Catholicism and say that we have inherited Original Sin, but that the Virgin Mary was "cleansed" of her personal sin by the Angel at the Annunciation. Others, such as St. Siluan, say that the Virgin Mary had never committed any personal sins in her entire life, but accepted the grace of Christ. Thus, she was a pure Virgin when she entered the Temple and remained pure her entire life.
Other Orthodox priests today mention this "Ancestral Curse," which is apparently another name for "Original Sin." They say that we are all born pure without "Original Sin" but are affected by this "Ancestral Curse." Thus, the Virgin Theotokos did not need to be preserved from Original Sin through an "Immaculate Conception." Now, some Orthodox teach that the Virgin Theotokos remained free from Original Sin and did not commit any person sins, while other Orthodox priests teach that although the Virgin Theotokos remained free from Original Sin (as we all do), that she did commit minor personal sins until the Annunciation, but then remained free of sin due to the indwelling presence of Christ God within her womb.
I will not attempt to theologize here.
I simply venerate the Virgin Theotokos as one who remained without sin her entire life by the grace of God.
Her cousin Elizabeth also lived a very holy life and gave birth in her old age to St. John the Baptist.
St. Joseph, Christ's guardian was also related to Mary. That is why his geneology was used in the Gospel.
Of the 12 Apostles, many were related to Christ.
Apparently all the relatives of the Theotokos were good and holy people. Would that we would have had relatives like that!
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.
I've searched "fallen nature" in orthodoxinfo.com and found a lot of examples. So if the author is saying that the idea of a fallen nature is not patristic, he seems to be dead wrong. Or is he saying that our fallen nature is not the reason for sin's universality?
jgress wrote:I've searched "fallen nature" in orthodoxinfo.com and found a lot of examples. So if the author is saying that the idea of a fallen nature is not patristic, he seems to be dead wrong. Or is he saying that our fallen nature is not the reason for sin's universality?
Note: Monacho is a New Calendarist site. That said, it seems that a lot of modernists and ecumenists today with their degrees of higher education are rejecting some of the wisdom of the Early Church Fathers much like cafeteria Catholics have been doing. Thus, saying that we humans have a "fallen nature" is not popular today as modernistic man desires to be naturally good and incapable of sin. Since Jung said that modern man does not know the definition of sin, how can modern man be capable of committing sin? In addition, many psychiatrists believe that those who believe in God and sin are mentally sick and deluded. In fact, the MMPI is based on that assumption. On the other hand, True Orthodox Christians teach that sin makes us mentally ill and deluded because pride causes delusions of grandeur, etc.
Is it not surprising that U.S. laws cannot define pornography or sexual immorality? To make matters worse, many Protestants believe that Jesus took away the Ten Commandments by His Death on the Cross, and that we do not have to do any good works (including repentance) because we have been redeemed and saved by Christ.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.
Maybe he means a false understanding of fallen nature. Since evil is not a thing in itself but only a distortion of reality, so we have to think of our nature as obscured or distorted by sin. The idea I guess is that we can uncover our true nature through Christ. Maybe this is a criticism of Calvinistic total depravity?