"What is the difference in views between Orthodoxy and the western churches?
It seems the author here equates Eastern (or one of the varieties of eastern) Orthodox with Orthodoxy. That would be a mistake. Eastern Orthodox is not the standard by which other wannabe's are to be measured.
Original sin (προπατορική αμαρτία in Greek means ancestral sin) is a term used in western churches that is different from what the Church originally taught as ancestral sin. It is a doctrine that comes from the time of Saint Augustine. He was defending the Church against the teaching of Pelagius. Augustine taught that all humanity sinned with Adam. That is, his sin became our personal sin. The consequence is that guilt replaces death as the ancestral inheritance.
The author says 'the consequence is'. What does he mean by that —that consequentially, what Augustine taught necessarily implies that the ancestral inheritance is guilt and not death? I am not particularly familiar with Augustine, but if he taught what the Reformed believe, he did not teach that the ancestral inheritance is not death, nor that we inherit guilt. Imputation has to do with guilt, or directly with the sin of Adam. Imputation is not inheritance. What we inherit is the sin nature.
It is pointed out that Augustine used a poor translation of Romans 5:12. ἐφ᾿ ᾧ (ef Jw) which means "because of" was translated as "in whom." Sinned in Adam is quite different than sinned because of Adam. The correct interpretation teaches that Adam’s sin carried death to all creation, and that although our sin is evidence to this death, it is not Adam’s specific transgression that we have inherited.
I've seen this before, concerning Augustine, but also it has been thrown in my face when I use a verse or passage that someone else (who disagrees with some theological tenet to which I hold) talks as though it is on that verse alone that I base my conclusions. The supposed 'correct use' of the preposition of Romans 5:12 does not deny the possibility of Augustine's use for the verse, and there are others that use a different preposition that are hardly deniable that they mean "in Adam", or the like. The principle stands.
In the Orthodox teaching we are subject to sinful tendencies, sickness, suffering and death as the result of our descendence from Adam. With Adam’s sin our nature was changed. Our goal now is to overcome these fallen tendencies with the help of the Holy Spirit and the way of Christ so we can gain union with God and live in harmony with him in Paradise.
Whoa! This is a bit scary, and unorthodox sounding. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the author. —Is he saying that our goal now is to overcome sickness, suffering and death? And if not, if he is not calling these our tendencies we are to overcome, do we really overcome in order to live in harmony with him in Paradise? How is it even possible for someone to be in Paradise that does not live in harmony with him? That whole paragraph has a kind of vague feel to it.
But, anyway, he continues here with his narrative that Augustine did not believe we inherit the sin nature. Again, the inheritance is not the same thing as the imputation.
In the Orthodox view, guilt can only result from an act which one has committed. We can’t sin for another person. We believe that we need a savior to overcome death and our separation from God, to be forgiven our own transgressions, but not to be forgiven for Adam’s transgression. For Adam, sin came first then death. We inherit death from Adam and our sin follows.
Is it Orthodoxy (no, I didn't say, 'Eastern Orthodox'), that God only ever deals individually with mankind concerning sin?
Death is a significant burden for us to carry. Our lives are dominated by the fear of death and our struggle to survive. In this struggle we tend to become self-centered. As a result we can be separated from God. Our salvation involves a transformation from this fearful autonomous state. For eternal life we must be in communion with God and one another.
"As a result" of the struggle, or of becoming self-centered? We are BORN separated from God; we are born self-centered.
I can't help but wonder what, precisely, the author means by 'autonomous' and how it applies here.
Does the author believe we achieve some worthy degree of unity with God and with one another, IN ORDER TO receive eternal life?
Augustine in his debate with Pelagius developed the position that only grace is able to save. The Church had always taught that it was both a matter of grace and personal effort or synergia as it was termed. This position of the early Church was abandoned in the west. A concept of legalistic justice was then applied to western theology which led to further differences between east and west and the notion of a wrathful God in the west rather than the loving God of Orthodoxy."
Well, no, the church has not always taught synergy. Several places in Romans, for instance, and Ephesians 2:1-10 teach monergism rather directly. If the New Testament teaches that by grace through faith we are saved, and that not of ourselves (it is the gift of God), where is room for synergism? And again, no, Reformed Theology does not deny man is entirely embroiled in the effort, but that man's efforts do not avail him in regeneration and salvation. Our salvation rests on God's choice, Christ's substitution, and the work of the Sprit of God within the redeemed, and not on man's efforts or even man's choice.
