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If post-lapsarian man has the same Imago Dei as pre-lapsarian man, then the characteristic of rebellion counts as a wound of the image, it is not what the image itself consists in. If it is what the image itself consists in, then the pre-lapsarian people would have acted the same way. If post-lapsarian man has a different image than pre-lapsarian man had, and if human nature is nothing other than the image, then human beings ceased to exist at the fall and a new kind of being -- call them fallen-man--came into existence.

The Greek word which was translated into our word "sin" originally meant to fall short or miss the target. As in archery. The west has created an entirely new concept from this. "Stain" is probably acceptable for use in describing sin, but I find the use of "fall" as I have encountered it in the west, to be beyond what the Orthodox church actually teaches.
The Russians have a word for "fall" that more accurately fits the situation, imo. It is a usage which describes an unfortunate but very accidental, unintentional, kind of fall, one which implies only a slight injury, and this seems to contrast with what I often perceive as the more "devious" portrayals of Eve sometimes encountered in the west.

I think that English is simply a poor language for conveying spiritual things. Russian, Greek, and even Serbian offer us a far greater spiritual treasure.
I suppose I would say that this could be a major contribution to your prediction a few posts ago about Christianity in the west.

These are extemely interesting posts. I wish I had more time to read and repsond to them (maybe this weekend), and my time difference doesn't help.

Let me just touch on Marmema's statement:

I think that English is simply a poor language for conveying spiritual things. Russian, Greek, and even Serbian offer us a far greater spiritual treasure.

There were only three liturgical languages in Christianity, as still are, as far as I know: Greek, Latin (which was developed from Greek) and Church Slavonic (constructed from Greek grammatically and alphabetically in the 9th century). These languages have corresponding constructs that are exact equivalents of each other.

Other languages have to use similar words, or words with approximate meaning, they have to qualify the sentences or express concepts in using several less precise expressions together.

As far as Marmema's comment is concerned, Russian and "even" Serbian are one language in the Church (Church Slavonic is the official language). Modern vernacular Serbian is a poor medium for conveying spiritual concepts. Russian, because it has deviated less from the original language, has advantage there, but is still lacking the sophistication of the Church Slavonic.

The notion of sin as missing the mark is also in Latin. "Peccatus", etymologically, also means missing the mark. This is how Aquinas too used the word. The term is transferred from an action that misses the mark to the person who misses the mark, and precisely to that interior disposition inclining the person to miss the mark. That interior disposition is sometimes called the "stain" or also called simply "sin". Technically, "stain" refers to the loss of the BEAUTY proper to the creature. I think I can show that the Greek Fathers had the same idea, even if they used a different word. For they too -- like Augustine and Aquinas-- thought in terms of an ethic that is totally foreign to us today, namely, virtue ethics. The ethics dominant in the west is not a virtue ethic, but a specific sort of legalism, an ethics of pure duty, confusingly combined with an ethic of simple pleasure calculation. Both of these ethics are alien to the Gospel, and are no good for explaining what sin and salvation are.

Yes, the stain is slight in the sense that it does not cause human nature to cease to exist. Humans are wounded and stained, but still human. The Imago Dei is blurred, distorted, and prone to miss the mark, but still the Imago Dei. Because we are so stained, humans are inclined to miss the mark -- to miss it by a very wide mark. Hence, Auschwitz. Hence, Calvary.

I too try to avoid using all talk of sin-nature, post-lapsarian man, fallen-nature etc. These terms, on my view, reveal the LOSS of any concept of human nature and are discordant with Scripture. The very vocabulary and language that is being used obscures the Gospel. I use these expressions not because they are in my vocabulary, they are not even in Aquinas' vocabulary. They are not in Catholic vocabulary. But they are Calvinist terms, developed under the influence of a human philosophy alien to the Gospel, and I use them only because my interlocutor is Calvinist.

If you want to read a valuable study of the Thomistic concept of sin, and see how close it is to your own, MarMema, I suggest Josef Pieper's book "The Concept of Sin". A whole chapter is devoted to the meaning of peccatus as missing the mark.