www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Ecumenical Councils

JohnRussell,
That sounds about right. Would you say that dogma is binding but doctrine is more an interpretation or application of dogma?
Michele

Close, but that is not precisely how I understand it.

Dogmas are indeed binding.

The term "doctrine" is more general.

A doctrine is just a teaching.
A dogma is a binding teaching.

The dogmatic teaching on Original Sin is a De Fide teaching of the Catholic Church. Something cannot "be" and "not be" at the same time in the same respect, the principle of non-contradiction.

And please note that Church is singular not plural, i.e., there is no Original Sin teaching for the Western Church and the Eastern Church per any objective reading of the Sources of Catholic dogma that I'm aware of.

If one is Catholic, one adheres to dogmatic De Fide teaching without question. It is not just the effect of the sin of Adam that is transmitted to fallen man, but rather the sin itself which has the concupiscence toward sin as an effect.

We are all born with Original Sin on our souls because of The Fall, a De Fide teaching of the Catholic Church. And there is only one dogmatic De Fide understanding of this teaching, which is what De Fide means, as given in Ott, Denzinger et. al., and any number of dogmatic references which are very clear on this issue.

We are talking about teachings so important that nonbelief in them by those calling themselves Catholic is to be held in anathema.

It is erroneous in the extreme for anyone to say that the Dogma of Orignal Sin is open to interpretation on the part of Catholics. It is not.

This is incorrect. The Eastern doctrine of original sin is equal to the Western doctrine of original sin. I ask stlouisix to provide specific references to where either a council or a pope has declared the Eastern doctrine of original sin to be unacceptable to Catholicism.

stlouisix appears to be making the classic error of equating Latin doctrine with Catholic dogma.

There is no classic error being made here. That assertion is absurd. To say that the stain of Original Sin is not passed on to man from the fall is counter to a de Fide Catholic teaching for the ONE True Church founded by Christ, as documented in http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11312a.htm which refs Catholic dogma.

What could be clearer.

The Eastern doctrine of original sin does not teach that the stain of original sin is not passed on to man after the fall. Please learn something about the East before you condemn it.

There cannot be multiple doctrines that are diametrically opposed pertaining to dogmatic de Fide teachings of the One True Faith, which has been asserted on this thread. There is only one dogmatic Catholic teaching on Original Sin which must be held by all (de Fide) as an article of Faith. To imply otherwise is to venture into a new Pelagianism. "Adam's sin is transmitted to his posterity, not by imitation, but by descent. (De Fide.)"

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Orthodox Catholic:
[QB] Dear John Russell,

The Byzantine East has never accepted any "stain" of Original Sin in the sense of a passing on of the actual sin of Adam to humanity.

Please read this, Administrator, which is what I was responding to.

Alex is quite correct.

We do not inherit the actual sin of Adam and Eve. We inherit the consequences of that sin. For the Christian East the consequence focused upon is mortality (death). For the Christian West the consequence focused upon is the propensity towards sin (a tendency towards committing sin).

To get an understanding of the Eastern view of Original Sin look at Romans 5:12 and the verses that follow. Original Sin is the reason why death spread to the world. Adam and Eve sinned, and then came death. From Adam and Eve we inherit death, and then comes sin. That is why for Eastern Christians mortality is always the primary inheritance from Adam and Eve.

This presents a question I've had for some time regarding the Eastern understanding of Original Sin. If we inherit death as a consequence for Adam and Eve's sin, but do not inherit the sin itself, isn't death unjust? If we inherit the sin itself, our deaths are just and necessary, but if Adam's sin remains Adam's sin personally, only his death -- and not ours -- is a justified consequence. Or so it seems to my uneducated mind. Please elaborate.

The most obvious effect of the original/ancestral sin is physical death, but it is not the only effect, nor even the gravest. Physical death is an image of all that sin brings: spiritual darkness, alienation from God (loss of grace), loss of paradise, ignorance, ailments of body and soul, etc. For this reason Christ said that we must be born again, born from above. "That which is born of flesh is flesh, that which is born of Spirit is spirit."* The reason that one must be born again in baptism is because something essential is lacking in us from birth, therefore we must be "born again of water and the Spirit"* and thus enter the Kingdom of heaven.

* John 3:5,6.

It is a grave error to say that we do not inherit Original Sin. We are talking about De fide teaching that is an article of faith that must be believed by the Church Universal, which is NOT open to interpretation. To argue otherwise is neo-Pelagianism and makes a mockery of the Church's infallible protection by the Holy Ghost on dogmatic pronouncments on faith and morals.

We cannot be talking solely about the effects of Original sin without the sin itself. That's heretical! If we're only talking about the concupiscence toward sin, then why the necessity of the Sacrament of Baptism for salvation be it by water, desire, or blood? Why were the gates of Heaven closed requiring the ultimate Sacrifice of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to open them after the sin of Adam for our redemption to give mankind a chance for eternal salvation? To imply that this was done for merely reasons of concupiscence is nonsensical in that one can resist temptations without sin incurred. The gates of Heaven were not closed for concupiscence reasons only!

Are we to believe that Christ's death on the Cross was only the result of the effects of Original Sin, and not Original Sin itself? To do so is heresy pure and simple in denying a dogmatic article of faith.

[CCC 404] "It (Original Sin) is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to ALL mankind."

[Ott Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma] "Original sin is transmitted by natural generation. (De fide.)

"The Council of Trent says: In the baptism of children THAT is expurgated which THEY have incurred through generation. D 791.

"As original sin is a peccatum naturae, it is transmitted in the same way as human nature, through the natural act of generation. Although according to its origin, it is a single sin (D 790) that is the sin of the head of the race alone it is multiplied over and over again through natural generation whenever a child of Adam enters existence. In each act of generation human nature is communicated in a condition deprived of grace."

[Catholic Bible Dictionary accompanying The Douay-Rheims New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ] "The Sin of Adam and Eve in eating of the forbidden fruit (Gen. iii. 6); by reason of it ALL men are conceived in sin (Job xiv. 4; Ps. 1. 7; Rom. v. 12; I Cor. xv. 21; Eph. ii. 3)."

There are innumerable references in traditional Church teaching rooted in Sacred Scripture that underscore this dogmatic teaching to particular include the voluminous citations in Denzinger's Sources of Catholic Dogma, many of which are found in the aforementioned Catholic encyclopedia article on Original Sin.

It is the "mother-of-all-understatements" to say that one is on the thinnest of ices by arguing that Original sin is not inherited which is in stark contradiction to infallibly protected Catholic dogmatic teaching to be believed by the Universal Church.

One of Saint Anselm�s major works, the Proslogion, was originally titled, in the spirit of Saint Augustine, fides quaerens intellectum, faith seeking understanding. This might be considered a motto for the total effort of Anselm who recognized the need for meditating and reflecting on belief, whence comes understanding. We are not talking about a tension between faith and reason, but rather the realization that one accepts on faith, without the slightest doubt, revelation, while at the same time using reason to reinforce that faith. The priority remains, faith, however, since it enables reason. The God who gave us revelation also gave us reason. As God is all Good, and omniscient, He is incapable of contradicting himself. Thus, we have nothing to fear from the application of reason to the propositions of faith. Moreover, it is only by this faith-enabling reason that the unbeliever can be made to see the errors of his ways. What other avenue is open for this correction if the individual in question dismisses revelation out-of-hand?

But what happens if we reason to a direct contradiction with revelation? The answer is easy for Anselm, as it was for those aforementioned giants who followed him, in particular, Saint Thomas Aquinas. We immediately know that our reason is faulty because faith enables reason, i.e., the priority is faith.

Per Anselm, "We accept everything which is clearly demonstrated and that Holy Writ does not contradict, for since it is not opposed to the truth, it does not favor any falsehood, and from the fact that it does not deny any affirmations of reason, it sustains them by its authority. But if Scripture were evidently repugnant to our senses, no matter how irrefutable our reason may seem, we must believe to be sure of truth." [See De concord. grat., 6.]

Thus, it is important to note that Anselm�s fides quaerens intellectum doesn�t elevate reason into an absolute criterion for truth. To do that would be indicative of succumbing to rationalism, an extreme to be avoided as is fideism. If such were the case, then Saint Paul�s admonishments to be wary of a philosophy that could lead us astray would have gone unheeded.

Saint Anselm�s principal purpose was to show the reasonableness of faith. In this context, he is a theologian more than a philosopher.

Anselm held to a rather novel concept, given the extent of unchecked dissent since Vatican II, and its consequences that we�re seeing in the Church today. And make no mistake about it; the cause for the current crisis in the Church has been the allowance of radical dissent to go unchecked since Vatican II. It's origins are in the dissent against the Church teachings on contraception as given by Pius XI in Casti Connubi in 1930 in response to the Anglicans allowing contraception at the Lambeth Conference that same year, something Christianity had consistently taught against since its founding for millennia, and Paul VI in Humanae Vitae in 1968, reinforcing the truths of Casti Connubi for the modern world - in particular, the consequences for ignoring the Church teaching on contraception, all of which have come to pass in terms of vice being promoted as virtue to now include homosexuality, the promotion of sexually perverse lifestyles, as a cause celebre. Isn't it interesting that the "pill", all of a sudden, invalidated invariant magisterial teaching on morals since the founding of Holy Mother Church, per the likes of Charles Curran, Richard McCormick, Richard McBrien & Company! The Catholic Church holds such teachings on faith and morals to be infallible!

Thus, there is no such thing as dissent from them. You either assent to the truths of the faith, or you don't. The former defines you definitively as being Catholic; the latter labels you correctly as an apostate!

What was Anselm�s revelation, you say?

He observed that one who presumes to combat a truth confessed by the universal Church cannot be considered a Catholic; further, one who, without faith, undertakes to dispute about believed truths, simply cannot be dealt with as if he had the faith.

Where are the Saint Anselms today when we really need them? He was a model of the intellectual life for the Christian in his possession of an intellect captivated by faith.

In is not only an assault on the traditional teachings of the Church in terms of Faith, but also an assault on reason, using the "closed gates of Heaven example" to argue that Orignal sin is not inherited by mankind. Moreover, it is heresy!

In particular, see Items 2 through 4 below with the resulting anathemas!

http://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct05.html

The Council of Trent
The canons and decrees of the sacred
and oecumenical Council of Trent

Celebrated on the seventeenth day of the month of June, in the year MDXLVI.

DECREE CONCERNING ORIGINAL SIN
That our Catholic faith, without which it is impossible to please God, may, errors being purged away, continue in its own perfect and spotless integrity, and that the Christian people may not be carried about with every wind of doctrine; whereas that old serpent, the perpetual enemy of mankind, amongst the very many evils with which the Church of God is in these our times troubled, has also stirred up not only new, but even old, dissensions touching original sin, and the remedy thereof; the sacred and holy, ecumenical and general Synod of Trent,--lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the three same legates of the Apostolic See presiding therein,--wishing now to come to the reclaiming of the erring, and the confirming of the wavering,--following the testimonies of the sacred [Page 22] Scriptures, of the holy Fathers, of the most approved councils, and the judgment and consent of the Church itself, ordains, confesses, and declares these things touching the said original sin:

1. If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema.

2. If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:--whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.

3. If any one asserts, that this sin of Adam,--which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propogation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, --is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, santification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema: For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be [Page 23] saved. Whence that voice; Behold the lamb of God behold him who taketh away the sins of the world; and that other; As many as have been baptized, have put on Christ.

4. If any one denies, that infants, newly born from their mothers' wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining life everlasting,--whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false, --let him be anathema. For that which the apostle has said, By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned, is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation. For, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

5. If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema. For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made inno-[Page 24]cent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven. But this holy synod confesses and is sensible, that in the baptized there remains concupiscence, or an incentive (to sin); which, whereas it is left for our exercise, cannot injure those who consent not, but resist manfully by the grace of Jesus Christ; yea, he who shall have striven lawfully shall be crowned. This concupiscence, which the apostle sometimes calls sin, the holy Synod declares that the Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin.

This same holy Synod doth nevertheless declare, that it is not its intention to include in this decree, where original sin is treated of, the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, the mother of God; but that the constitutions of Pope Sixtus IV., of happy memory, are to be observed, under the pains contained in the said constitutions, which it renews.

"Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifested in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth." (C.C.C. # 1250)

"By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God, neither Adam's sin, nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God." C.C.C. # 1263)

The Council of Trent affirmed with certainty that all are born afflicted with the original sin that has its roots in the disobedience of Adam, a sin which is the "death of the soul." [Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1512]

As a longtime participant in this forum and former naval officer, I find it most interesting that "stlouisix" sports an icon of a battleship.

It has been my distinct pleasure to find that, in this Byzantine Forum, we seek to understand each other, without sinking each other.

Sir, there is a place and a time for war and it is neither here nor now.

In the Christ who is the King of Peace,
Andrew