/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>807325

Total Depravity seems like its only used by Calvinists, so I assume it's just heresy. It implies that we have no faculty with which to choose God over sin and death, which is heresy.

Ancestral or Original sin seems like whether you believe Traducianism or not (with ancestral sin being the traducian position) so both would seem to be legitimate positions. I'm not sure it's worth worrying too much about; it's really a question that involves the genealogy of the soul, something we haven't been informed about. I'm inclined to give Occam's razor credit to Traducianism for saying that the soul comes from our parents, but creationism of the soul seems more theologically consistent.

Overall, I'd probably say ancestral sin to "get around" the problem posed by God being unable to create anything with a sinful nature. (i.e. even with the soul being created by God, our sin-nature must be transmitted through material bodies, although I don't know if this is the right terminology).

>>807396

naw luther had it too, it's just not popular anymore.

Original Sin obviously. Original sin makes total sense, it's logical. If your parents are alcoholics and smokers, and you are raised by them, you have much higher chance of turning out the same. Is it your fault for being born in those circumstances? No it's not, but the fact remains you have a higher proclivity to those vices now. That's the way the world is. You still have free will and if you decide to get drunk and stuff you're still at fault. Wait, why is this fair? Because where sin abounds, grace abounds more. God doesn't give people temptations more than they can handle. So yes actually those people have more grace than other people. It's always their fault if they sin. But this is the way the world is, no one can deny that some people are born in more challenging situations because of the actions of their parents. Well I can say that I was raised with issues because of my parents, and they had issues because of their upbringing of their parents, and so on, all the way back to Adam and Eve.

Now note, this is not actually how original sin is transmitted - it is supernatural and transmitted by birth, not by upbringing. But this is just a real world analogy of something that works very similar to original sin and no one can deny because it's obvious and true. Hence what happens materially visible also happens immaterially, through the soul, and this is original sin. You are not guilty of a sin, but you suffer separation from God and you have a higher proclivity towards sin. Hope this helps, God bless.

That feel when no totally depraved Calvinist gf

>Total depravity (also called radical corruption or pervasive depravity) is a Christian theological doctrine derived from the concept of original sin. It is the teaching that, as a consequence of the Fall of Man, every person born into the world is enslaved to the service of sin as a result of their fallen nature and, apart from the efficacious or prevenient grace of God, is utterly unable to choose to follow God, refrain from evil, or accept the gift of salvation as it is offered.

What's wrong with this? It's not any different from what the Lord says:

>I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. (John 15;5)

>You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. (John 15:16)

The idea that we can be saved without the grace of God is Pelagian, and the idea that accepting Christ is entirely up to us but the rest is up to the grace of God is Semipelagian.

Also, as far as I can tell, "Ancestral Sin" and "Original Sin" are one and the same thing. Because of Adam's sin, we are enslaved to the devil from the beginning of our existence. Our nature is fallen and we live in a fallen world. We have sin, as in, we are in a state of separation from God and we don't fulfill the will of God perfectly. It's not a personal responsibility but it's something we inherit from Adam - we inherit a corruption from him.

The distinction is very artificial and polemical, done by the Orthodox because Catholics call "guilt" the consequences of original sin, which to Orthodox ears might sound like personal responsibility. But anyone who bothers to look into what Catholics believe, beyond the words they use, can clearly see that they don't believe differently from the Orthodox on this subject.

>>807494

>unable to choose to follow God

That's what's wrong with it. Calvinism teaches that we don't have free will and God arbitrarily chooses who is going to be saved.

>>807507

I know that they have an incorrect definition of "predestination" (they interpret it as "choosing in advance" when the Greek term bette means "foreknowing") but I don't see a problem with the definition itself of total depravity. It means nothing more than "we are saved by the grace of God alone". Of course, the issue is with the incorrect conclusion they make out of it, though (but it's based on a mistranslation, so it's not difficult to fix).

>>807396

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Orthodox got it right. Or rather, it's the same thing Jews taught.. and still teach.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yetzer_hara

You can still call it original sin, but only in the sense that Adam's original sin brought death. It's Death and Mortality that lends to further sins (and conversely, it's Life through Christ which leads to righteousness.. this is where we depart from Judaism obviously. They're still trying to be free from death, without a rebirth. Makes no sense).

http://www.stmaryorthodoxchurch.org/orthodoxy/articles/ancestral_versus_original_sin

>Adam and Eve failed to obey the commandment not to eat from the forbidden tree thus rejecting God and their vocation to manifest the fullness of human existence (Yannaras, 1984). Death and corruption began to reign over the creation. "Sin reigned through death." (Romans 5:21) In this view death and corruption do not originate with God; he neither created nor intended them. God cannot be the Author of evil. Death is the natural result of turning aside from God.

>According to the Orthodox fathers sin is not a violation of an impersonal law or code of behavior, but a rejection of the life offered by God (Yannaras, 1984).

>Fallen human life is above all else the failure to realize the God-given potential of human existence, which is, as St. Peter writes, to "become partakers of the divine nature" (II Peter 1:4).

>In Orthodox thought God did not threaten Adam and Eve with punishment nor was He angered or offended by their sin; He was moved to compassion.[3] The expulsion from the Garden and from the Tree of Life was an act of love and not vengeance so that humanity would not "become immortal in sin" (Romanides, 2002, p. 32). Thus began the preparation for the Incarnation of the Son of God and the solution that alone could rectify the situation: the destruction of the enemies of humanity and God, death (I Corinthians 15:26, 56), sin, corruption and the devil (Romanides, 2002).

It's the only interpretation that's actually consistent with Jesus's message of love and good news.

>>807609

This doesn't seem right, especially as I asked the Jews I know and they all strongly denied that Judaism believes in anything like original/ancestral sin. Most are taught that Adam was born mortal to begin with, and that the consequence of Adam's sin is nothing more than what the text says - that men must work for food and childbirth is painful for women.

>>807636

>In this view death and corruption do not originate with God; he neither created nor intended them. God cannot be the Author of evil. Death is the natural result of turning aside from God.

Not different from the Catholic teaching on original sin.

>According to the Orthodox fathers sin is not a violation of an impersonal law or code of behavior, but a rejection of the life offered by God

Not true. Or rather, there is no contradiction, and these are two complementary aspects of sin. Sin is both the refusal to fulfill our natural pupose, and the infraction of God's commandments.

>Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. (1 John 3:4)

>Fallen human life is above all else the failure to realize the God-given potential of human existence, which is, as St. Peter writes, to "become partakers of the divine nature" (II Peter 1:4).

Not different from the Catholic teaching.

>In Orthodox thought God did not threaten Adam and Eve with punishment nor was He angered or offended by their sin; He was moved to compassion.

Again, this isn't true - these are two complementary aspects of the same truth. God hates sin, and hated the sin Adam and Eve committed, therefore He cursed them. God's punishment is therapeutic and His wrath is for the sake of our repentance, but it does not mean God was not angered by Adam and Eve's lawlessness.

I mean, it is literally God Who declares that from now on Adam and Eve will suffer in the world and will die. He punishes the serpent, He punishes Eve, and He punishes Adam.

>The expulsion from the Garden and from the Tree of Life was an act of love and not vengeance so that humanity would not "become immortal in sin"

It was vengeance so that man may not continue to desegrate God's good world. To say that the intoduction of death is purely an act of love implies that God had no reason to save us from it through Christ.

Permit me to translate from my Orthodox catechism on these subjects.

<Q: What is the curse and what are the consequences of the fall of man?

A: The consequences of the fall are the divine curse. It is the accusation of evil by the righteous judgement of God, and the punishment of man who does not wish to reject evil. We must not understand the curse to be the revenge of God in response to the infringement of His will. Sin is self-destructive. As a free being, man has done an unnatural choice by imposing a deficient mode of existence onto his own nature. The purpose of the curse is to heal man through humility and repentance, it is to put man into a situation that corresponds to his fallen state so that he may not burn under the rays of divine love.

The consequences of the fall are manifested in the change of:

- the relationship between God and man;

Having sinned, man pushed God away from himself. St. Philaret of Moscow says that "man has stopped the influx of divine grace within himself". As a result, he cuts himself off from the intimate union with his Creator, Whose grace becomes external to man. He ceases to feel love and joy in the presence of God, but rather he feels fear. (Genesis 3:10) Man cannot see the face of God anymore (Exodus 33:20) and becomes hostile to God. (Romans 5:10) God's attitude toward man becomes one of wrath, because there is no fellowship between righteousness and lawlessness, between light and darkness. (2 Corinthians 6:14) Because of their covenant with the devil, men have become sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 5:6)

- the nature of man;

Originally, the spirit was directed toward God, the soul was subjected to the spirit and the body was the obedient weapon of the soul. Sin has destroyed the rightful hierarchy between spirit, soul, and body. After the end of the influx of divine grace, the spirit became like an reversed mirror. Rather than reflecting God and drawing from His power, it began to draw from the power of the soul. The spirit is darkened and man decides to hide from an omnipresent God! (Genesis 3:8) He cannot distinguish good from evil anymore. The soul becomes parasitic to the body. It tries in vain to fulfill its needs through corporeal ways. (If we become sad, we start eating or drinking.) The passions appear. The body begins to depend on its environment. Man is plunged into inner disaccord. The flesh has desires contrary to the spirit, and the spirit has desires contrary to the flesh; they have become contrary to one another. (Galatians 5:17) Because man was not created self-sufficient and has cut himself off from the source of grace, his life force begins to run out so that he begins to know corruption. His essence begins to suffer from illness, sorrow, exhaustion, thirst, hunger… Work loses its creative joy. The woman gives birth in pain. The corruption of the essence and the disintegration of the life force of the soul ultimately lead man to death. It is the most heavy consequence of sin.

- the relationship between men;

Sin also cuts off the intimate union between Adam and Eve. Each withdraws within themself. They begin to feel shame, something they had not know before. (Genesis 3:7) The shame of nudity signifies the severance of personal relationships, the negation of love, the necessity to protect oneself from the danger that is the other person. As such, the fall leads to alienation, mutual isolation, mistrust, and hostility between men.

- the relationship between man and the world.

God has created the universe for man and man was created for Him. Adam was introduced to the newly created world as a king to his palace. (Genesis 1:28) Due to man's central position in the world, his fall was a worldwide catastrophe. Adam was the mediator of the divine actions for all creatures. His spiritual state defined the state of all things. The whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together. (Romans 8:22) Man has lost the power over the world, which runs away from obeying its master just as he runs away from obeying his own. Creatures begin to take revenge on man. The earth brings forth thorns and thistles. (Genesis 3:18)

<Q: What is original sin?

A: It is the hereditary damage to the human essence. The descendants of Adam are not personally responsiblee for his sin, but they carry all its consequences, including mortality. Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned. (Romans 5:12) All those who are born of Adam, who is contaminated by sin, commit sin, just as a contaminated spring can only produce a contaminated river. St Macarius the Egyptian speaks of the "leaven of sin" and "the hidden defilement and thick darkness that the passions are full of", which have intoduced themselves into the being of man in spite of his original purity. Sin has taken such deep roots into his nature that not a single descendant of Adam is protected against this inherited predisposition to sin. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. (Psalm 51:5) Since the fall, every man was born with this inherited "leaven of sin", so much that after death the weakened soul can only go down into hell (Sheol or the abode of the dead, see Genesis 37:35; 42:38; Ezekiel 31:15; Ecclesiastes 9:10).

And on the status of children toward God, since this is relevant:

<Q: Must we baptize children?

A: It is particularly children who should be baptized first of all, because every man is already brought forth in iniquity (Psalm 51:5) and enters the wold with a nature that is already damaged by original sin. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one. (Job 14:4).

<Q: Ae unbaptized children innocent?

A: No. The apostle calls them unclean. (1 Corinthians 7:14)

See also canon 110 of the Council of Carthage of 419 (given ecumenical authority by the Quinisext Council):

>Likewise it seemed good that whosoever denies that infants newly from their mother's wombs should be baptized, or says that baptism is for remission of sins, but that they derive from Adam no original sin, which needs to be removed by the laver of regeneration, from whence the conclusion follows, that in them the form of baptism for the remission of sins, is to be understood as false and not true, let him be anathema. For no otherwise can be understood what the Apostle says, "By one man sin has come into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed upon all men in that all have sinned", than the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has always understood it. For on account of this rule of faith (regulam fidei) even infants, who could have committed as yet no sin themselves, therefore are truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that what in them is the result of generation may be cleansed by regeneration.

>>807640

>>807641

>>807642

>>807643

>Catechism

I began to distrust different editions of catechisms, since basically everyone writes what they want, with some Russian ones being outright atrocious.

Which catechism do you use?

>>807325

its all different sides of the same coin. literally has NO importance, only the end state of salvation and surrender to Christ is important. theology is good, but the millisecond it gets in the way of true, simple faith in Christ it needs to be tossed aside. forget the pedantic arguments of those types and focus on Christ, and the wisdom will come later and naturally so.

>>807966

It's from a catechism written by Fr Roman Biliavskyi, of ROCOR. But that is beside the point. Nowhere does it say in holy scripture that one can be saved without being baptized, or at least sincerely seeking to be with Christ. Infants cannot do this, because they are not reasonable enough yet, so only baptism can save them.

If children can be saved without baptism, why shouldn't this be true of everyone? Everyone has original sin, including infants.

What makes the God of Calvinism unjust is the combination of Limited Atonement and Total Depravity. God not only made them essentially evil, but He also has no intention of letting them accept the Gospel. How do Calvinists defend this?

>>807641

>The consequences of the fall are the divine curse. It is the accusation of evil by the righteous judgement of God, and the punishment of man who does not wish to reject evil.

This seems to imply that God created death as a "curse" for the sake of punishment, but that contradicts the scriptures:

http://oca.org/orthodoxy/the-orthodox-faith/spirituality/sickness-suffering-and-death/death

>God did not make death, and takes no pleasure in the destruction of any living thing; He created all things that they might have being (Wisdom of Solomon 1.13).

>For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God; so turn and live (Ezek 18.32).

>God's attitude toward man becomes one of wrath, because there is no fellowship between righteousness and lawlessness, between light and darkness. (2 Corinthians 6:14)

2 Corinthians 6 doesn't say anything about God's attitude becoming vengeful. We cannot conflate God's acts of judgement with his attitude towards man. The Gospels are held in higher regard than the Epistles in the Orthodox Church for a reason. Only God can adequately express his sentiments towards man, and he did so by preaching a message of love and forgiveness during his incarnation.

>Because of their covenant with the devil, men have become sons of disobedience. (Ephesians 5:6)

Ephesians 5 isn't referring to the fallen state of man in general, it's referring to already confirmed Christians falling away from the church.

Whatever catechism you got this stuff from seems questionable to say the least.

>>808007

>ROCOR

Well that explains it, I guess.

>Nowhere does it say in holy scripture that one can be saved without being baptized, or at least sincerely seeking to be with Christ.

This stance is nothing more than legalism. You're trying to turn something that was left as a mystery, into a false sense of certainty. Not to mention It's also trivially false:

>For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”

>So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

<Romans 9:15‭-‬16

You can't conflate references to the conscious rejection of belief (e.g. Mark 16:16), with damning of the unaware. If you want a more thorough treatment of this, see:

http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/status.aspx

http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/metphil_heterodox.aspx

http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/pomaz_status.aspx

>Infants cannot do this

See vid related.

>>807325

Original and Ancestral sin is the same thing, it's a false dialectic put up by misinformed orthodox.

>>810043

If they were actually the same, the RCC wouldn't have needed to create a doctrine of immaculate conception.

>>810042

It's not our "nature" to sin per se. Rather since we are born tainted with original sin, it means we have this inclination towards sin. Just like after you use drugs a lot, you have a tendency towards drugs, but this is not your true nature. An example would be like if you grew up in a house where there were lots of drugs around, you are more likely to be drawn towards them. But the nature of a human being is not to do drugs really, but because of the fault of your parents raising you in a bad environment, now you're "pre disposed" towards it. Thats like original sin, our parents caused us to have this affliction of tendency towards sin, but it is not our true nature. Our true nature is to follow God, and that's the only thing that makes us happy or satisfies us.

>>810046

Read this article by a Western Rite Orthodox:

http://journal.orthodoxwestblogs.com/2019/01/24/original-and-ancestral-sin-a-church-dividing-issue/

>>810063

>Western Rite

Figures. Is this Eric Lozano character ROCOR? Is he a priest? Never heard of him. It would be quite bold for a layman to just blatantly assert that nearly the entire church is currently wrong in its understanding of this matter. Not even Jay Dyer makes such bold proclamations like that. Seems risky (and borderline protestant) to stake any of your understandings purely on the opinionated research of a single layman like this.

Regardless, that essay still fails to adequately address the point about immaculate conception. It's basically saying that the doctrine of immaculate conception was redundant and only necessary to address a misconception that supposedly doesn't exist anymore, yet I highly doubt you'll find many catholics that agree with that characterization, much less any that think such a view of original sin is a "misconception". I know this because I was a former Catholic. So either Rome is right in its clarification saying Mary is a unique case, or the "ancestral sin" proponents are right in clarifying that it's a non-issue because "everyone is already immaculate". Whether or not "ancestral sin" is actually Orthodox, is a different discussion that could be had, but at the very least, this difference about the uniqueness of Mary's circumstances does exist:

https://www.catholic.com/tract/immaculate-conception-and-assumption

>The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that she was “redeemed in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son” (CCC 492). She has more reason to call God her Savior than we do, because he saved her in an even more glorious manner!

At that point it's no longer a matter of patristics, but rather basic logic. Saying the Roman and Orthodox interpretations are the same, is subtly implying the East might be risking heresy for ignoring the the uniqueness of Mary's birth. Either we acknowledge the problematic consequences of the fall that Rome identified (and consequently, Mary's extraordinary birth), or we don't.

It also should've already been obvious to everybody that neither of the current forms of "ancestral" nor "original" sin are particularly ancient, because it wasn't until relatively recently that each church decided some clarification was required in order to ensure they weren't accidentally teaching heresy. As such, arguing that it was never discussed in the early church is hardly relevant either.

Every orthodox also already knows we only adopted the term "ancestral sin" recently to emphasize this clarification, and that it is still the same original sin that we're talking about just with a more refined understanding, so the author of this essay is completely making up this idea that somehow the phrase "original sin" is interpreted as having been "always western". The fact that he also cites the council of Jerusalem without even once giving the context that it was entirely about refuting calvinism, is also extremely fishy. Not to mention he's practically arguing for some form of purgatory at one point:

>It should be pointed out that the terms about infants who die without baptism being damned, not saved, and such as employed by the Council needs to be understood in the way they were understood by the Latin and Greek theologians of the time. For them infants who die without baptism, not attaining to the Kingdom did not mean damnation and hell as is understood in popular culture today. They did not mean that infants who die without baptism are in the same place or state as those who commit personal sins, but rather it denotes more of a state where the person could experience even the highest natural happiness but not in the direct presence of God, so to speak.

Like wtf man. If this is what the western rite is about (Catholic apologetics), then I'm not surprised many orthodox are skeptical of it.

>>810115

>It would be quite bold for a layman to just blatantly assert that nearly the entire church is currently wrong in its understanding of this matter.

Would you prefer it to come from a orthodox priest (Fr Aidan Kimel)? https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2015/09/03/the-ecumenical-stain-of-original-sin/

>Just blatantly assert that nearly the entire church is currently wrong in its understanding of this matter.

neither church is wrong about anything on this matter, just mislead to what catholics actually believe, particularly due to Romanides who concocted this 'heresy' in the 20th century unknown to the Church, never brought up at the council of florence as a contention or 400yrs after Trent where Original Sin was defined.

>might be risking heresy for ignoring the the uniqueness of Mary's birth. Either we acknowledge the problematic consequences of the fall that Rome identified (and consequently, Mary's extraordinary birth), or we don't.

its not risking heresy since, for you it is still a theologumen that has been part of the tradition, even in the west Aquinas argued against the Immaculate conception and and it was up to Duns Scotus to champion it, Pius IX simply put a end to speculation.

We already have the problems of the filioque, papal supremacy, etc. No need to add another thing to the list.

>>810243

>https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2015/09/03/the-ecumenical-stain-of-original-sin/

<Western rite again… I'm sensing a pattern here

This is a better essay, if only because it doesn't make the same careless mistakes as the first one. However, the same problem of uniqueness still remains unaddressed. The author only touches on it in a response to a comment there:

>So why Mary’s “exception”? I think it has to be because she of her vocation to be the Mother of God. Only she was chosen to be Theotokos–not simply at the Annunciation, as if God got lucky to have found a willing maiden–but from all eternity. Her identity, from the beginning of her conception, is conditioned by this calling.

This is a risky line of reasoning, because it not only diminishes Mary's human nature, but also implicitly Jesus's, which would put us dangerously close to monophysitism, more so than even the Orientals possibly. Mary is sacred to us precisely because she is the fully human mother of God. How could Jesus bless every aspect of our human life by virtue of his experience during his incarnation, if unlike us, he was born to a mother of exceptional nature? This puts the entire orthodox understanding of salvation on shaky ground. Not to mention that it's still not a widely accepted teaching of the church anyway, which would imply we're in heresy for not acknowledging it.

Also, this guy's bio says he's not ministering anymore, and it sounds like he prides himself on being controversial:

https://afkimel.wordpress.com/about/

>One thing for sure. I do not speak for the Orthodox Church. Hence the title of my blog, “Eclectic Orthodoxy.” Not only has my comprehension of the Orthodox faith been strongly influenced by Eastern theologians regarded as suspect by traditional Orthodox, but it continues to be influenced by the Western theologians who decisively formed my theological understanding of the catholic faith over the past thirty-five years

So clearly, this is all still very much fringe territory. Find somebody that's actually "eastern rite" (like 99% of the rest of Orthodoxy) advocating this position and you might have a slightly stronger case, but right now all this is doing is making the western rite look questionable. Especially when it's being presented as if 99% of the church doesn't know what it's talking about, but some small sect that's only been revived in the last century does.

>>810382 (cont)

>neither church is wrong about anything on this matter, just mislead to what catholics actually believe

You say this despite the fact that the issue of the uniqueness of Mary's birth (which is most certainly something catholics widely believe) wasn't even mentioned in the first essay at all. How is that not misleading? Even if it were really a non-issue as you suggest, it's still shady to pretend such a prominent catholic teaching doesn't exist and just shove it under the rug like that. If anyone is misunderstanding anything here, my money is on the guy who also (misleadingly) over-generalized and misapplied a council on calvinism, and then casually argued for an orthodox purgatory.

It's one thing to like and celebrate western traditions, but a whole other thing to let those traditions interfere with teachings. Quite frankly, this all sounds more like a misguided attempt at ecuminism that misses the forest for the trees, than a genuine attempt at clarifying any Orthodox understandings. The misrepresentation of Eastern beliefs to make points also doesn't help, as it just makes things more confused and less nuanced than they were before. And to top it off, this is all presented here with the hubris to suggest it's actually just everyone else that misunderstands Catholics – including Catholics themselves!

>its not risking heresy since, for you it is still a theologumen that has been part of the tradition

What do you mean it's not risking heresy "for you"? Are you not even Orthodox? Regardless, a heresy is a heresy, it doesn't matter who believes it, or why they believe it is/isn't heretical. And to claim something isn't heretical just because there's no official stance on it yet, is equally ridiculous (especially when the implications of a teaching are something as blatant as suggesting that it's ok that we've ignored the possibility that Mary and Jesus could've both been born sinful). Any cursory look at church history would quickly reveal that heresies have pretty much always come before any official statements from the church formally recognizing them as heretical. The Nicene Creed for example, was only developed in response to the Arian controversy, and even that happened after Arius was already excommunicated. If something is ever determined to be heretical, that means it has always been heretical, not that it just suddenly transformed into a heresy overnight once a statement was made about it.

>even in the west Aquinas argued against the Immaculate conception and and it was up to Duns Scotus to champion it, Pius IX simply put a end to speculation.

Ok, so Aquinas favored some variant of "ancestral sin" maybe, great… and that changes the current circumstances between the churches how? Pius IX still asserted the uniqueness of Mary's birth (which the Orthodox have never taught):

>in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07674d.htm

>>810383 (cont)

>We already have the problems of the filioque, papal supremacy, etc. No need to add another thing to the list.

Do you really think Orthodox church officials view our differences with Rome as some kind of petty score sheet? It doesn't matter how many differences there are, what matters is outlining which differences we have, so that we can better clarify our own teachings in a world disproportionately populated by catholics and protestants. Saying that "we don't need this one extra difference" is utterly besides the point, because simply ignoring the differences with popular understandings of original sin among the laity doesn't help illuminate people about the Orthodox church's teachings at all, and is begging for misunderstandings to ensue, thus making this whole endeavor rather counter productive. Unless of course, your main goal in promoting this view is actually some misguided desire for ecumenism instead. Because only from that kind of vantage point could muddying the waters like this be seen as some kind of positive. But ecuminism is a very different beast from evangelism, because it often adds uncertainty and distortion to our message in order to be inclusive, instead helping people understand our message by clarifying it, which can only hurt us in the long run, as unity under confusion is no goal to strive for. Or as St. Theophan the Recluse said about the heterodox:

>Why do you worry about them? They have a Saviour Who desires the salvation of every human being. He will take care of them. You and I should not be burdened with such a concern. Study yourself and your own sins.

Which makes one ask: why is union between "ancestral sin" and "original sin" even an issue in the western rite then? The Orthodox message has never been about its similarities with other religions, but rather on helping people reach salvation through its own teachings alone.

Bump.