"Orthodoxy" and Original Sin

[Dilexisti]

Adam's (and Eve's) state prior to the Fall is known as "Original Righteousness": God's gift imparted to Adam of perfect uprightness, i.e., a sinless state, and as well as other gifts such as immortality (cannot experience death), happiness, freedom from sickness and concupiscence, impassiblility (incapable of experiencing pain), etc. Adam and Eve lost these gifts when they disobeyed.

The gift of original righteousness was imparted and bestowed on Our Lady because she was chosen from all eternity to be the Mother of the Son of God.  She thus did not undergo the pain and labor of giving birth.  One exclusion perhaps was bodily immortality:  she desired death because she wished to suffer death as her Son did.

Does this mean that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary did not experience any (physical) pain during her earthly life? Your response just made me curious about this point.

[/QUOTE]

If you mean did Our Lady experience headaches, toothaches, fever, and other physical maladies? I should say not, if we take literally what supernatural gifts she received and what perfect rectitude really means.

[lefebvre_fan]

Adam's (and Eve's) state prior to the Fall is known as "Original Righteousness": God's gift imparted to Adam of perfect uprightness, i.e., a sinless state, and as well as other gifts such as immortality (cannot experience death), happiness, freedom from sickness and concupiscence, impassiblility (incapable of experiencing pain), etc. Adam and Eve lost these gifts when they disobeyed.

The gift of original righteousness was imparted and bestowed on Our Lady because she was chosen from all eternity to be the Mother of the Son of God.  She thus did not undergo the pain and labor of giving birth.  One exclusion perhaps was bodily immortality:  she desired death because she wished to suffer death as her Son did.

Does this mean that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary did not experience any (physical) pain during her earthly life? Your response just made me curious about this point.

If you mean did Our Lady experience headaches, toothaches, fever, and other physical maladies? I should say not, if we take literally what supernatural gifts she received and what perfect rectitude really means.
[/QUOTE]

OK, thanks for your response. Like I said before in other threads, I still have a lot to learn. Besides, it should be no surprise that I was confused on this point, since all of the film depictions of Our Lady seem to show her as sharing in our physical pain (perhaps with the exception of "Passion of the Christ").

[Dilexisti]

OK, thanks for your response. Like I said before in other threads, I still have a lot to learn. Besides, it should be no surprise that I was confused on this point, since all of the film depictions of Our Lady seem to show her as sharing in our physical pain (perhaps with the exception of "Passion of the Christ").

The suffering (sorrows) she underwent was perhaps something beyond what we undergo, not meaning physical but more than that, such as loss of a loved one, as we recall the prophecy of Simeon as he beheld the Child Jesus and said to Mary, "Your heart will be pierced by a sword."  This kind of suffering is beyond anything we can imagine, beyond our comprehension, especially what she experienced during the Passion, Crucifixion and Death of her Son.

[Han]

Ok, there are several issues raised in this thread which seem to be getting confused with each other.

I.  Pains of Childbirth
I have not seen any exposition on the topic, but the iconography and hymnography of the Orthodox Church leads to the conclusion that the Theotokos did not suffer during childbirth.  However, this has nothing to do with Original Sin, but rather to Mary's being Ever-Virgin.  The consensus of the Church Fathers (as well as the Mediaeval Latin Scholastics) was that Christ was delivered in partu--that is without breach of the womb or the hymen, and hence the Theotokos was a vigin before, during and after the birth of Christ.  Inasmuch as Christ was born in this miraculous way, it makes sense that the Theotokos did not suffer in giving birth.

II.  Original Sin
The Orthodox are correct in condemning the idea of inherited guilt, but then, I am not sure that Latin theology teaches that we inherit the guilt of Adam, as if the culpability of his actual sin is attributable to us.  Scholastic theology defines Original Sin as the privation of sanctifying grace, and it is this absence of sanctifying grace that is transmitted through the generations (along with stuff like death and concupiscence).  I note that according to traditional Latin theology, death and physical suffering are natural evils and so are not, strictly speaking, punishments for the sin of Adam.  Furthermore, actual punishment is not visited upon those who die with Original Sin but no actual sin; the whole point of Limbo was that because babies who died unbaptized did not have sanctifying grace, they could not participate in the beatific vision of heaven, but at the same time, they suffered no torment in Limbo because they were guilty of no actual sin.

III.  Immaculate Conception and sufferings of the Theotokos
The Orthodox opposition to the Immaculate Conception is twofold.  First, beacuse Original Sin understood in Orthodox theology to mean death, the Immaculate Conception implies that Mary did not die.  However, because we know that she did (the Assumption was discovered because the Apostle Thomas was late to the funeral and wanted to venerate her relics), she must therefore have had Original Sin.  The second opposition is identical to St. Thomas Aquinas' oppostion to it, viz. it seems to separate Mary from humanity, and consequently calls into question the Incarnation.  The dogmatic definiton, however, incorporates Duns Scotus' solution that what the Immaculate Conception is is the pre-redemption of Mary "in view of the merits of Jesus Christ" at the moment of her conception--a sort of soteriological time warp.  What this means is that Mary had a fallen human nature (and so therefore Jesus assumed a fallen human nature to redeem).  The difference between Mary and the rest of us, then, is that whereas we need Baptism to be joined to Christ, Mary did not.  The other difference is that she had extraordinary virtue and never committed actual sin.  In light of Duns Scotus' solution, it would seem that Mary suffered the normal ailments of life just as baptized persons suffer the normal ailments of life.

IV.  Baptism
One of the confusing things about Latin theology is that its nomenclature is so negative and forensic.  This leads to problems when the analogy is confused with the essence.  Original Sin is the best example of this.  Nobody denies (or nobody should deny) that there is a forensic aspect to actual sin.  Atonement theology is not a heresy, although it does not exhaust the mystery of sin and Redemption.  Unfortunatly, Latin theology uses the terminology of actual sin (guilt, stain, &c.) to discuss Original Sin by way of analogy, thereby creating confusion as to what Latin theology teaches about Original Sin.  Baptism is not understood by the Orthodox as the washing away of Original Sin, because the metaphor of Original Sin as a stain is not used.  Rather, Baptism is the "putting on of Christ"--that is, being joined to His death and Resurrection.

[lefebvre_fan]

The difference between Mary and the rest of us, then, is that whereas we need Baptism to be joined to Christ, Mary did not.  The other difference is that she had extraordinary virtue and never committed actual sin.  In light of Duns Scotus' solution, it would seem that Mary suffered the normal ailments of life just as baptized persons suffer the normal ailments of life.

OK, now I'm confused. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way diminishing the supreme sorrows suffered by Our Lady. I'm simply terribly confused on this matter. Did Our Lady experience physical pain in the way most of us do, or did she not? To be blunt, if the Most BVM had stubbed her toe, would she have felt physical pain? This is all the more confusing since it is obvious that her Son did experience physical pain (quite extreme, in fact). Wasn't He like us in everything "except sin"? Why is it then that Our Lord experienced physical pain and not Our Lady? Please instruct the invincibly ignorant.

[Han]

The difference between Mary and the rest of us, then, is that whereas we need Baptism to be joined to Christ, Mary did not. The other difference is that she had extraordinary virtue and never committed actual sin. In light of Duns Scotus' solution, it would seem that Mary suffered the normal ailments of life just as baptized persons suffer the normal ailments of life.

OK, now I'm confused. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in any way diminishing the supreme sorrows suffered by Our Lady. I'm simply terribly confused on this matter. Did Our Lady experience physical pain in the way most of us do, or did she not? To be blunt, if the Most BVM had stubbed her toe, would she have felt physical pain? This is all the more confusing since it is obvious that her Son did experience physical pain (quite extreme, in fact). Wasn't He like us in everything "except sin"? Why is it then that Our Lord experienced physical pain and not Our Lady? Please instruct the invincibly ignorant.

I think I could have worded my last post better.  The short answer is "yes."  Mary must have suffered physical pain, disease, exhaustion, hunger, &c.  I say this because Mary was in need of a Savior just like the rest of us.  She had a fallen human nature.  Nothing about the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception contradicts this.  If it were otherwise, the Orthodox would be absolutely right in condemning it.

 

The analogy is to a holy person living today.  Such a person suffers pain, hunger, sickness and death even though such a person is baptised and in a state of grace.  Thus, being free from the "stain of sin," be it actual sin or Original Sin, does not exempt one from the unpleasantness of a fallen world.

[Dilexisti]

I think I could have worded my last post better.  The short answer is "yes."  Mary must have suffered physical pain, disease, exhaustion, hunger, &c.  I say this because Mary was in need of a Savior just like the rest of us.  She had a fallen human nature.      Nothing about the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception contradicts this.     If it were otherwise, the Orthodox would be absolutely right in condemning it.

Those three statements are formally heretical.

1.  You read Mary's Magnificat in the wrong context.  Luke 1:46. "And Mary said, My soul doth magnify our Lord.
47. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."

The dogma of the of the Immaculate Conception contradicts you. And if you deny this doctrine, you cannot call yourself Catholic, Russian or otherwise.  [What is Russian Catholic anyway?]

If Mary, like everyone of us had a fallen nature, she could not be conceived immaculately, i.e., without sin and thus not infused with Sanctifying Grace.

2. The Orthodox, like the Protestants, demonstrate that they don't have the true faith, handed down from the Apostles, as Christ brought Truth to the world.  Denial of the Immaculate Conception, like the denial of Purgatory, will not make things otherwise.  Purgatory will still be there when these heretics die, and if they don't make it to Heaven, the truth about what has been defined as The Immaculate Conception will never be explained to them.  They will be in total darkness just as they are now.

You really need to explain without much of the theological rigmarole of the Orthodoxes why you specifically deny the doctrine, which says Mary was saved from all eternity because she was chosen to be the mother of Our Lord.  Explain how the Second Person of the Trinity could dwell in a place (Mary's womb) tainted with sin?  "All generations shall call me blessed":  is meaningless because the state of blessedness implies sinlessness.

The analogy is to a holy person living today.  Such a person suffers pain, hunger, sickness and death even though such a person is baptised and in a state of grace.  Thus, being free from the "stain of sin," be it actual sin or Original Sin, does not exempt one from the unpleasantness of a fallen world.

Mary cannot be compared to a holy person living today.   Mary was created as Eve was, in a state of perfect rectitude.  Brought about into the world, Eve decided to disobey; Mary did not.  Your analogy is erroneous.

Four years after Ven. Pope Pius IX promulgated infallibly the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, God sanctioned it by having Mary declare to the world in 1858, "I am the Immaculate Conception."  Is there any other way to explain what it means to be conceived immaculately?  

[obscurus]

I don't think the proposition that "Mary was in need of a Saviour" is formally heretical.

From Dr. Ludwig Ott's Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 199:

e) The meritorious cause (cause meritoria) [of the Immaculate Conception] was the Redemption by Jesus Christ. It follows from this that even Mary was in need of redemption, and was in fact redeemed. By reason of her natural origin, she, like all other children of Adam, was subject to the necessity of contracting original sin (debitum contrahendi peccatum originale), but by a special intervention of God, she was preserved from stain of original sin; debuit contrahere peccatum, sed no contraxit. Thus Mary also was redeemed "by the grace of Christ" but in a more perfect manner than other human beings. While these are freed from original sin present in their souls (redemptio reparativa), Mary the Mother of the Redeemer, was preserved from the contagion of original sin (redemptio praeservativa or praeredemptio). Thus the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in no way contradicts the dogma that all children of Adam are subject to Original Sin and need redemption.

[Quo_Vadis_Petre]

I think I could have worded my last post better.  The short answer is "yes."  Mary must have suffered physical pain, disease, exhaustion, hunger, &c.  I say this because Mary was in need of a Savior just like the rest of us.  She had a fallen human nature.      Nothing about the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception contradicts this.     If it were otherwise, the Orthodox would be absolutely right in condemning it.

Those three statements are formally heretical.

1.  You read Mary's Magnificat in the wrong context.  Luke 1:46. "And Mary said, My soul doth magnify our Lord.
47. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."

The dogma of the of the Immaculate Conception contradicts you. And if you deny this doctrine, you cannot call yourself Catholic, Russian or otherwise.  [What is Russian Catholic anyway?]

If Mary, like everyone of us had a fallen nature, she could not be conceived immaculately, i.e., without sin and thus not infused with Sanctifying Grace.

What Han means is that Mary had a perfect human body, but subject to certain effects of Original Sin: sorrow, pain (from the outside; no illnesses, etc.), distress, etc. Death is where people disagree with, but it certainly doesn't contradict the Immaculate Conception, since Our Lord died, and according to certain traditions, Our Lady died and was in the tomb for 3 days, albeit with no corruption of the body, and then assumed into Heaven.

From the CE article on the Immaculate Conception:

In the thirteenth century the opposition was largely due to a want of clear insight into the subject in dispute. The word "conception" was used in different senses, which had not been separated by careful definition. If St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, and other theologians had known the doctrine in the sense of the definition of 1854, they would have been its strongest defenders instead of being its opponents. We may formulate the question discussed by them in two propositions, both of which are against the sense of the dogma of 1854:

1. the sanctification of Mary took place before the infusion of the soul into the fiesh, so that the immunity of the soul was a consequence of the sanctification of the flesh and there was no liability on the part of the soul to contract original sin. This would approach the opinion of the Damascene concerning the holiness of the active conception.
2. The sanctification took place after the infusion of the soul by redemption from the servitude of sin, into which the soul had been drawn by its union with the unsanctified flesh. This form of the thesis excluded an immaculate conception.

The theologians forgot that between sanctification before infusion, and sanctification after infusion, there was a medium: sanctification of the soul at the moment of its infusion. To them the idea seemed strange that what was subsequent in the order of nature could be simultaneous in point of time. Speculatively taken, the soul must be created before it can be infused and sanctified but in reality, the soul is created snd sanctified at the very moment of its infusion into the body. Their principal difficulty was the declaration of St. Paul (Romans 5:12) that all men have sinned in Adam. The purpose of this Pauline declaration, however, is to insist on the need which all men have of redemption by Christ. Our Lady was no exception to this rule. A second difficulty was the silence of the earlier Fathers. But the divines of those times were distinguished not so much for their knowledge of the Fathers or of history, as for their exercise of the power of reasoning. They read the Western Fathers more than those of the Eastern Church, who exhibit in far greater completeness the tradition of the Immaculate Conception. And many works of the Fathers which had then been lost sight of have since been brought to light. The famous Duns Scotus (d. 1308) at last (in III Sent., dist. iii, in both commentaries) laid the foundations of the true doctrine so solidly and dispelled the objections in a manner so satisfactory, that from that time onward the doctrine prevailed. He showed that the sanctification after animation -- sanctificatio post animationem -- demanded that it should follow in the order of nature (naturae) not of time (temporis); he removed the great difficulty of St. Thomas showing that, so far from being excluded from redemption, the Blessed Virgin obtained of her Divine Son the greatest of redemptions through the mystery of her preservation from all sin. He also brought forward, by way of illustration, the somewhat dangerous and doubtful argument of Eadmer (S. Anselm) "decuit, potuit, ergo fecit."

[Dilexisti]

I don't think the proposition that "Mary was in need of a Saviour" is formally heretical

My implication (my fault if it has been misunderstood) was that Mary's declaration "in God my Savior" has been explained as not a need for but that she acknowledged and was thankful that God saved her and her salvation was from all eternity, a phrase which we have come to understand that Mary was already prefigured in God's Plan of Redemption.   This Knowledge was revealed to the Angels before the creation of the world and this was the cause of Lucifer's rebellion after being informed that the Second Person of the Trinity was going to be the Redeemer and not he, Lucifer, as he was confident that he was the one chosen.   And thus he uttered, "I will not serve!"

If the theological statement that Mary was in need of salvation because hers was a fallen nature, then it is a heretical statement.  Mary's existence cannot be reduced or subsumed into ontological or metaphysical propositions.

What Han means is that Mary had a perfect human body, but subject to certain effects of Original Sin: sorrow, pain (from the outside; no illnesses, etc.), distress, etc. Death is where people disagree with, but it certainly doesn't contradict the Immaculate Conception, since Our Lord died, and according to certain traditions, Our Lady died and was in the tomb for 3 days, albeit with no corruption of the body, and then assumed into Heaven.

I disagree. If Mary was immaculately conceived -- i.e., in the state of Sanctifying Grace -- how can she be subjected to certain effects of Original Sin, since she was conceived without Original Sin? Does not make sense. "Death" of Our Lord and Our Lady cannot be equated with the death fallen nature experiences. Our Lord had to die  because death is what was exacted to pay the ransom of sin.  Mary did not have to die but she chose to.

"What God revealed to the Blessed Virgin Mary spiritually, without words or concepts, at her Immaculate Conception, is unimaginable. Mary advanced in grace from the moment of her conception through gifts lavishly bestowed upon her by her Creator. Mary herself testifies, He Who is mighty has done great things for me (Lk.1:49).  --Fr. Louis Campbell

"Our tainted nature's solitary boast"  said William Wordsworth.  

What we need to discuss is -- what if Eve did not disobey and thus sin did not enter the world.