- Sep 29, 2016
- 1,507
- 822
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Non-Denom
- Marital Status
- Single
- Politics
- US-Republican
My priest advised me to stop posting online, just because I'm not Orthodox and I don't want to spend too much time "theologizing" without actually living my Faith.
However, I want to post just one more question that I feel like merely just asking my Priest would not be sufficient to answer, because it's a complicated question. It's a question I don't want to think too much about, because we know that several Elders felt sinful even considering that the Virgin Mary sinned in thought - however, I don't want to hold a heretical view of Christ, considering my spiritual foundation ought to be Christ.
So, this will be my last post for now.
With that said, here's the question: How do we understand the sinlessness of Jesus?
Often times I feel in my life that I am forced in situations where I have no choice to sin - "involuntary sin" as the Liturgy says.
Let me give you an example.
Let's say I'm in a circumstance where my Father Confessor tells me that, because of certain circumstances, I should not follow the fasting rules of the Church for a while, and I need to eat breakfast before Liturgy.
Turns out I sleep past my alarm unintentionally, and I wake up just 10 minutes before Liturgy starts. If I leave now, I will not be late for Liturgy, but I'll be ignoring my Father Confessor's orders of needing to eat Breakfast before Liturgy, thus sinning.
However, if I eat Breakfast before Liturgy, I'll be late to Liturgy, thus sinning.
So, whatever I do, I have to sin. I think the less sinful thing to do is obviously eat breakfast before Liturgy, but either way I'm still sinning.
And this isn't the only example - tons of examples come up where the moral thing to do seems really, really grey.
Some Church Fathers even go beyond this in terms of involuntary sin - Saint Augustine (5th Ecumenical Council calls him a Saint, so I am) says that even the crying of a child, screaming and kicking the ground, is kind of a sinfulness in selfishly asking for milk from the mother, or perhaps being jealous of his siblings in attention.
From "The Confessions of Saint Augustine", Book 1
"For before You none is free from sin, not even the infant which has lived but a day upon the earth...
In what, then, did I sin? Is it that I cried for the breast? If I should now so cry — not indeed for the breast, but for the food suitable to my years — I should be most justly laughed at and rebuked. What I then did deserved rebuke; but as I could not understand those who rebuked me, neither custom nor reason suffered me to be rebuked...
...I myself have seen and known an infant to be jealous though it could not speak. It became pale, and cast bitter looks on its foster-brother. Who is ignorant of this?...Yet we look leniently on these things, not because they are not faults, nor because the faults are small, but because they will vanish as age increases. For although you may allow these things now, you could not bear them with equanimity if found in an older person."
So, we know that for one moment Jesus did not sin, even though He was tempted.
How did Jesus avoid sin in these situations where it seems like sin is involuntary? Did He manage to avoid these situations of involuntary sin throughout His entire Life? Did Jesus not cry for milk when He was a baby who was hungry? Or is Saint Augustine just wrong here - even though clearly our crying for milk and jealousy of siblings is a result of our fallen nature?
Did Jesus not sin insofar as He avoided committing a worse evil when these involuntary sins appeared in His life? Or did He manage to avoid them all together? If the latter, how do we avoid these occasions of involuntary sin?
However, I want to post just one more question that I feel like merely just asking my Priest would not be sufficient to answer, because it's a complicated question. It's a question I don't want to think too much about, because we know that several Elders felt sinful even considering that the Virgin Mary sinned in thought - however, I don't want to hold a heretical view of Christ, considering my spiritual foundation ought to be Christ.
So, this will be my last post for now.
With that said, here's the question: How do we understand the sinlessness of Jesus?
Often times I feel in my life that I am forced in situations where I have no choice to sin - "involuntary sin" as the Liturgy says.
Let me give you an example.
Let's say I'm in a circumstance where my Father Confessor tells me that, because of certain circumstances, I should not follow the fasting rules of the Church for a while, and I need to eat breakfast before Liturgy.
Turns out I sleep past my alarm unintentionally, and I wake up just 10 minutes before Liturgy starts. If I leave now, I will not be late for Liturgy, but I'll be ignoring my Father Confessor's orders of needing to eat Breakfast before Liturgy, thus sinning.
However, if I eat Breakfast before Liturgy, I'll be late to Liturgy, thus sinning.
So, whatever I do, I have to sin. I think the less sinful thing to do is obviously eat breakfast before Liturgy, but either way I'm still sinning.
And this isn't the only example - tons of examples come up where the moral thing to do seems really, really grey.
Some Church Fathers even go beyond this in terms of involuntary sin - Saint Augustine (5th Ecumenical Council calls him a Saint, so I am) says that even the crying of a child, screaming and kicking the ground, is kind of a sinfulness in selfishly asking for milk from the mother, or perhaps being jealous of his siblings in attention.
From "The Confessions of Saint Augustine", Book 1
"For before You none is free from sin, not even the infant which has lived but a day upon the earth...
In what, then, did I sin? Is it that I cried for the breast? If I should now so cry — not indeed for the breast, but for the food suitable to my years — I should be most justly laughed at and rebuked. What I then did deserved rebuke; but as I could not understand those who rebuked me, neither custom nor reason suffered me to be rebuked...
...I myself have seen and known an infant to be jealous though it could not speak. It became pale, and cast bitter looks on its foster-brother. Who is ignorant of this?...Yet we look leniently on these things, not because they are not faults, nor because the faults are small, but because they will vanish as age increases. For although you may allow these things now, you could not bear them with equanimity if found in an older person."
So, we know that for one moment Jesus did not sin, even though He was tempted.
How did Jesus avoid sin in these situations where it seems like sin is involuntary? Did He manage to avoid these situations of involuntary sin throughout His entire Life? Did Jesus not cry for milk when He was a baby who was hungry? Or is Saint Augustine just wrong here - even though clearly our crying for milk and jealousy of siblings is a result of our fallen nature?
Did Jesus not sin insofar as He avoided committing a worse evil when these involuntary sins appeared in His life? Or did He manage to avoid them all together? If the latter, how do we avoid these occasions of involuntary sin?
Last edited:
