As I understand it, the Western Church looks at sin as being transmitted from Adam by the act of sexual intercourse (yes? no?). I believe somewhere I read that Augustine was the one who really got this ball rolling.
It led to the concept of "Original Sin" (yes? no?)
In that context, it is understandable that the Theotokos had to be Immaculately Conceived. Have to break that line of Original Sin.
So how does the Orthodox faith view the sin of Adam as affecting the cosmos and how do they see it being transmitted to the rest of the human race? Something is deeply wrong with us. Orthodoxy looks at it as disease, and sees the Eucharist as "the medicine of immortality."
So how does Orthodoxy see the disease being transmitted?
Links to articles appreciated!
I'm by no means an expert on the subject, but seeing that I'm a Lutheran and therefore part of the broad Western theological tradition and have tried to study and understand historic theology I'll try to offer both the more broadly Western idea, as well official Catholic teaching (in the form of the Catechism of the Catholic Church linked to below) as well as the Lutheran perspective.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church's treatment on Original Sin can be found here:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p7.htm
I only skimmed it, but I couldn't find anything speaking of OS being transmitted by sexual intercourse. I've heard that Augustine did argue that, but I don't know if that dimension of Augustine's thought ever made it into the official teaching of the Western Church. I suspect that this idea of sex being an integral part of Original Sin comes from, perhaps, in reading the idea of transmission--that from Adam, Adam's sinful human nature has been transmitted to us.
The closest I can think where sex itself would be an issue as a means to address why Christ was sinless, pointing to the Virgin Birth; since Christ was conceived without sexual intercourse then that is why--though I don't know to what end that would be "official" teaching.
The central thesis of Original Sin, however, is that we share in Adam's fallen nature; pointing to St. Paul who says that "through one man's disobedience the many were made sinners"; we therefore bear the consequences of Adam's sin even in ourselves, into which we are conceived.
From the above referenced portion of the CCC:
"
How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man".By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act."
The central difference between the Roman Catholic view here and the Lutheran would be in the phrasing "...original sin is called 'sin' only in an analogical sense", specifically Lutheranism holds that concupiscence--the disordered passions--is what we inherit from Adam and this isn't merely the propensity to individual sinful acts, but is itself sin. Lutherans speak of
homo incurvatus in se, man bent or curved inward upon himself; this is what sin fundamentally is, man is misshapen, bent, inwardly curved toward himself upon himself and so the passions are disordered and oriented to serve himself and his lusts. This is what the concept of depravity means, "depravity" literally comes from the Latin de+pravus, "crookedly bent", man is misshapen; the concept of total depravity is often misunderstood. The "total" here means that human depravity permeates every dimension of our humanity, man is misshapen in all his members.
Official Lutheran teaching can be found here in the Augsburg Confession:
"
Also they teach that since the fall of Adam all men begotten in the natural way are born with sin, that is, without the fear of God, without trust in God, and with concupiscence; and that this disease, or vice of origin, is truly sin, even now condemning and bringing eternal death upon those not born again through Baptism and the Holy Ghost." - Augsburg Confession, Article II.1-2
This is perhaps the central difference between Roman Catholic and Lutheran thought: Whether or not concupiscence is itself sin, Catholics would argue it is not itself sin, Lutherans argue it is itself sin. Thus the Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord reads,
"
...[Original Sin] is called a nature-sin or person-sin, thereby to indicate that, even though a person would think, speak, or do nothing evil (which, however, is impossible in this life, since the fall of our first parents), his nature and person are nevertheless sinful, that is, thoroughly and utterly infected and corrupted before God by original sin, as by a spiritual leprosy; and on account of this corruption and because of the fall of the first man the nature or person is accused or condemned by God's Law, so that we are by nature the children of wrath, death, and damnation, unless we are delivered therefrom by the merit of Christ."
I suspect that this would be the most problematic from an Orthodox perspective.
-CryptoLutheran
