In a thread a few years ago in TAW re original sin, I posted an e-mail reply our parish priest gave to me on the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. He was a former RCC priest whose early adult life was pre Vatican II. St. Augustine made an honest but, regrettably, costly mistake. Here is the link:
explain "original sin?"
My cut & paste skills on an iPhone are faulty.
What do you think of this quote from St Augustine? To the Pelagians
"It is not I who have invented original sin, which the Catholic Faith holds from of old, but thou, who deniest it, thou art without doubt a new heretic"
“Let the word of Christ persuade you of this, also, as He says that no one can enter into the kingdom of heaven unless he is born again of water and the Spirit. Through Him the stains of the first birth are cleansed away, through which we are conceived in iniquity and in sins have our mothers brought us forth.” (Oratio in natalem Christi.) St. Gregory Nazianzen
St. Cyprian - “[A]n infant...being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth. [He] approaches the more easily on this very account to the [baptism] of the forgiveness of sins—[for] to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another.” (Letter 58, To Fidus)
St . Jerome - “Those of adult age [do penance], and it reaches to the smallest, for none is without sin, not even if their life were only one day, or the years of their life were able to be counted.”
(Commentary on Jonah 3:5, Duval 248.101-103; trans. Hegedus, 50).
St. Ambrose of Milan - “Before we are born we are stained by contagion, and before seeing the light we receive the injury of our very origin, we are conceived in iniquity…[for] there are already some sins in the one being born... The conception is not without iniquity, since the parents are not without sin, and if not even a child of one day is without sin, so much more are those days of the maternal conception not without sin. Thus, we are conceived in the sin of our parents and are born in their iniquities. But birth itself also has its own contagions, and the nature itself has not merely one contagion.” (Defense of the Prophet David 11)
From Orthodox Wiki:
"St. Gregory Palamas taught that man’s image was tarnished, disfigured, as a consequence of Adam’s disobedience.
It isn’t only that we are born in death, or in a state of distance from God, but also that we are born with disordered passion within us."
This is what the Latina call the stain of original sin. The explanation of the guilt is in the link above from Catholic Encyclopedia
Catholics also do not teach that our nature changed in essence or is no longer fundamentally good. This was explained to me in Catechism by a very knowledgeable priest. We don't teach total depravity. Our nature is weakened with concupiscence but is still good in itself. The guilt of original sin is not a personal sin guilt and any description of it being voluntary is not in the direct sense.
For these reasons I don't understand what the difference is, with the Orthodox view... except perhaps if the Orthodox see as sin only coming from environment, but I'm not sure what the Orthodox view is because you also agree there are disordered passions
I also came across information that the idea of the Immaculate Conception started in the East:
Was Mary born without sin? (Immaculate Conception)
When we say that Our Lord had human nature as Adam before the fall we mean He didn't have concupiscence... It seems the Orthodox believe that we are not fully separated from grace after the fall, I've never read anything from Catholic sources on this topic but I know we always have access to actual graces. But we also have concupiscence which is what makes it so hard. So though our nature is still essentially good it is so weakened that we have a real hard time not sunning in fact without a special grace given we can't avoid venial sin... We believe Our Lady had this special grace. Without it it's not like our nature is corrupted but we can't fully avoid all sin.
Having original sin and a gnomic will is the same thing for a Catholic...
I'm beginning to wonder what is the difference here. I know many Orthodox claim we believe original sin is a personal guilt. But from everything I was taught that was not the meaning of Trent, as in traditional Catholic theology there is more than one type of guilt..
