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Mister Jargon
Starting Member
2 Posts |
 Posted - 02/26/2006 : 21:59:56
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| Was she? Was Mary without sin and her free-will left intact? |
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Lover of Monasticism
Average Member
USA
919 Posts |
Posted - 02/26/2006 : 23:20:03
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She was "sinless," but not in the same sense that our Lord was sinless. Our Lord, being God and being born without the fallen nature (which is another discussion entirely) did not have the ability to sin. Mary, just like all of us, was born with the fallen nature. (Yes, the fallen nature is what we call it. We do not believe in "original sin": the idea that we are all born with sin.) However, according to Tradition Mary was trained in ceasless prayer from the time she could talk by her parents. That was then intensified when she entered into the temple and lived there from three years of age until she was betrothed to Joseph at thirteen (a beautiful story). While she had the ability to sin, she managed to avoid it completely. Tradition tells us that she never sinned at all, not even in thought. We also believe that she became holier than all of the angels, Heaven itself, and indeed all of creation even before she concieved Christ. Apocryphal writings tell us of her being ministered to by the angels while she was seated upon the altar inside the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant used to be.
Having become the highest form of creation, she was deemed worthy to concieve God the Word and become the intrument of our salvation, whereby God and Man were joined together.
So to answer your question: Yes. But, as Obi-Wan would say, "From a certain point of view."
Kyrie Iesou Christe eleison me. |
Edited by - Lover of Monasticism on 02/27/2006 12:17:59 |
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Mister Jargon
Starting Member
2 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 10:22:15
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quote:
While she had the ability to sin, she managed to avoid it completely. Tradition tells us that she never sinned at all, not even in thought.
Thank you for your reply, this seems to be the only teaching on Mary I am having trouble with because the apocryphal writings which constitute much of the support for it do not seem very reliable to me. With the perpetual virginity and dormition I see in history acceptance by the early Church and her Fathers, on this point I have not (though this may be due to my lack of research).
However, I do not believe it is necessarily wrong to believe in her sinlesses, but the claim just seems so bold to me. Even it if was "merely" asserted that sometime before and all the time after Jesus birth she was without sin I would be fine. But to say that throughout her entire life she was without sin in thought and in action strikes me as somewhat outlandish.
quote:
Apocryphal writings tell us of her being ministered to the angels while she was seated upon the altar inside the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant used to be.
I don't know........... |
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Lover of Monasticism
Average Member
USA
919 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 12:17:09
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I meant to say "...ministered to by the angels." Sorry.
Kyrie Iesou Christe eleison me. |
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Drifter
Junior Member
Canada
172 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 15:49:11
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quote:
Originally posted by Lover of Monasticism
I meant to say "...ministered to by the angels." Sorry.
Kyrie Iesou Christe eleison me.
are you saying that she ministered to the angels? cause you said the same thing twice. Tanks. |
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macacic
Moderator
USA
1968 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 15:54:09
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quote:
Originally posted by Drifter
quote:
Originally posted by Lover of Monasticism
I meant to say "...ministered to by the angels." Sorry.
are you saying that she ministered to the angels? cause you said the same thing twice. Tanks.
Looking at the quoted post, it's clear he means the exact opposite of that. |
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sigyn
Junior Member
USA
112 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 16:30:28
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If Mary could live a sinless life, then why did Jesus have to be born and die?
Why did Paul say, "All" have sinned and fallen short" if Mary didn't? |
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Lover of Monasticism
Average Member
USA
919 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 18:46:41
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Even the Theotokos needed a Savior, for she was still under the curse of the fallen nature as we all are. Even a sinless human being needed to be saved, along with the rest of humanity.
Kyrie Iesou Christe eleison me. |
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A Clever Disguise
Starting Member
USA
6 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 19:14:17
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Lover of Monasticism:
You said that Our Lord did not inherit the fallen nature. I think it is important to make two distinctions here which you seem to ignore.
First, Christ had both the human and the divine nature. While His divinity was not, nor could it ever be, fallen, I believe that His humanity must have been initially fallen. My reasons for believing this will become clear in a moment, but let me begin by distinguishing fallen nature from the idea of a "sinful nature." The latter is the product of believing in original sin a la Augustine and the Reformers, and it asserts that we are naturally evil and cannot help but sin; the former is the Scriptural and Patristic view of man, that because of the first of Adam's disobedience, we all inherit death and corruption, but we are not ourselves judged for his sin. It is my understanding that Christ must have assumed our fallen nature in order to transform it and vanquish the foes of sin and death. This is why Scripture talks of Him learning obedience through suffering; Christ was not imperfect, but was unperfected and only became so through obedience to God's will, through suffering, dying and rising from the dead. We share in Christ's glory when we share in His suffering; He shared in our suffering so that we might share in His glory.
One point of clarification though: when I say fallen, I most emphatically do not mean that Christ's fallenness in some way transferred to His person and caused Him to be sinful. (The difference between nature and person is that a nature does not act or determine actions, it only limits them. Since a nature cannot act, it cannot be held responsible for the acts of a sinful person, which is why we are not judged for Adam's disobedience.) I believe simply that He deified His fallen humanity when it freely co-operated with His divinity, and thus opened the way for all of us to become deifed persons.
God took on the life of men so that men could participate in the life of God. |
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Lover of Monasticism
Average Member
USA
919 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 19:29:43
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While there is a bit of truth in what you say (mainly in distinguishing the fallen nature from the so-called "original sin" of the Latins), when you theorize that Christ was under the fallen nature, you are doing just that: theorizing. The Father say that He was not under the fallen nature as we all are, and that it would have been impossible for Him to be our Savior if He were. The fallen part of our natute is not natural, and He had to take on our nature, but not the fallen part of it. For if He were under the curse Himself, He could not defeat the curse.
Now we come to the how. Just how was our Lord spared from taking on the fallen nature when He became incarnate? Well, according to the Fathers the fallen nature is transferred from person to person by the complete process of procreation, ie. the sperm and egg joining. Since there is obviously no way to avoid this when being concieved, we are all born with the ancestral curse (the fallen nature). However, as we all know, the Lord was incarnate and concieved by the Holy Spirit, thus bypassing the process of normal procreation and not taking on the fallen nature.
"By why did He hunger and thirst; and how did He die?" you ask? He willingly accepted all of those things and willed them to happen to Him during the entire course of His life, since it would not otherwise have happened since He was not under the curse of fallen nature. As we all know, His death was completely voluntary, thusly it was unnatural for Him. (In a way, it is unnatural for us, since we were not created to die. But it was really unnatural for Him, since His nature was not fallen.) This is why it was impossible for Him to stay dead, or to remain it Hades, for it was a paradox of existence itself. He was doing the impossible, and that is one of the many reasons for His Resurrection.
Yes, He bore the exact same nature in absolutely every way possible as we do. However, not bearing the fallen nature does not make His nature different than ours, since that part of it was not part of what God had created. If you think of it in a philosophical way, Christ is actually more human than any of us are, for we were not supposed to transgress God's commandment and were not supposed to undergo this fallen nature; and indeed, we are not supposed to sin. Christ did none of these things, and thus He was a human being in every single way that weare supposed to be.
Kyrie Iesou Christe eleison me. |
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A Clever Disguise
Starting Member
USA
6 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 20:15:44
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Lover of Monasticism:
While I await your providing quotes from the Fathers to prove that Christ did not have the fallen nature, I must point out that the idea of fallenness is passed down through procreation is more Augustinian than Orthodox, in my humble opinion. For a nature is just that -- that which is natural to us. Granted, having a fallen nature means that we are handed some problems that are not essential to our being (i.e. sickness, emotional distress, etc.) but since from the moment of Christ's conception, His humanity was being energized by His divinity and the two were being joined, He did not experience but voluntarily some things that we, who do not have the divine nature, experience by virtue of our fallenness. I will grant you that Christ assumed what is essential to our nature, then willingly underwent what is accidental (suffering and death). Also, I do think it is important to realize that Christ was not born naturally mortal -- but neither was He born perfect, complete and spiritually mature in His human nature. Such an error is known as aparthodocetisim I do beleive.
What I am trying to understand is how, if Christ did not accept the consequences to our nature that were brought on by the first Adam's disobedience, did He restore our nature and redeem us from death?
God took on the life of men so that men could participate in the life of God. |
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Lover of Monasticism
Average Member
USA
919 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 20:43:20
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All that was necessary for correcting our nature was taking on that nature itself, not its fallenness. To be under the fallen nature is to be a slave to it. Also, if He did in fact take on our fallen nature, then what is the purpose of the virgin birth? If there was no alterior motive, why even do it?
All I can tell you is that the patristic quotes I am referring to are contained in The Orthodox New Testament by Holy Apostles Convent in Buena Vista, CO (which is not to be confused with The Orthodox Study Bible), in the commentary sections pertaining to the infancy narratives.
Kyrie Iesou Christe eleison me. |
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A Clever Disguise
Starting Member
USA
6 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 21:00:51
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So then, Lover of Monasticism, in your view is fallenness not an essential part of our nature? If it is, then Christ must have taken it on or we are not saved; if it is not, then I can see how perhaps when we refer to fallen nature we are not saying that fallenness is essential to it, but is an accidental intrusion that came about from the first Adam's disobedience. If this is the case (which it very well could be - I would have to think more on it), then it is certainly possible to reconcile the intricate Christology of the sixth and seventh centuries with fourth-century Patristic century. I have just always implicitly understood "fallenness" to refer to something in our nature itself, but I am now reconsidering that line of thought: fallenness may perhaps refer not to something in our nature, but to the state which our nature is in due to the fall. That certainly makes good sense, as I have maintained for awhile that what the first Adam did did not fundamentally alter our nature so as to make it sinful - rather, the consequences of what we experience both emotionally and in our physical bodies are the consequences of living in a fallen world, which became fallen through the disobedience of the first Adam. Hmmm...
Also, I see the virgin birth as having more significance than simply avoiding Christ's fallen nature. (I still don't fully buy that fallenness is tramsitted through procreation.) One reason for the virgin birth, of course, is that Christ was to have no human father - His birth from a virgin points to His eternal origin. There are other important reasons, so I don't think it is necessary to maintain that the primary purpose of the virgin birth was to keep Christ free from the fallen nature.
God took on the life of men so that men could participate in the life of God. |
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Lover of Monasticism
Average Member
USA
919 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 22:05:32
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Purchase The Orthodox New Testament. Read the commentary. I'm sure you'll find it.
I never thought I'd have to defend Orthodoxy so much on an Orthodox message board.
Kyrie Iesou Christe eleison me. |
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A Clever Disguise
Starting Member
USA
6 Posts |
Posted - 02/27/2006 : 22:26:01
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I would much rather discuss if you disagree with anything I said or need to clarify or critique my points...
And I am not attacking Orthodoxy; I simply did not realize that the Fathers unanimously taught that Christ did not assume fallen human nature. I thought the two guiding principles of Orthodox soteriology were what I wrote on my signature (a paraphrase of Sts. Irenaeus and Athanasios) and the statement that "What is not assumed is not healed." I just don't see, if fallenness is an essential part of our nature, how Christ could not have assumed it and still healed it. The only other alternative, it seems to me, is to say that our fallenness is accidental or somehow external to our nature.
Could you please clarify where I am mistaken, if I am mistaken? Like I said, I would much rather have a discussion than go out and purchase something and then "get back to you."
God took on the life of men so that men could participate in the life of God. |
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Antonios
Junior Member
USA
140 Posts |
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Was Mary Sinless?
