We live with the propensity to sin, because we do not strive hard enough for the perfection God wishes for us. Many of the saints had the propensity taken away from them after years spent in prayer and fasting. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, related to Brother Reginald at his death that early after entering the Dominicans, and after much prayer, two angels had visited him and encircled him with a spiritual girdle to guard his chastity in answer to his prayers to be protected from impurity, and that after that time, he never again suffered from motions of his mind and body tempting him against Holy Purity.
This is where our theologies diverge, I believe, the Orthodox teaching that our nature has changed with the Fall, the Latins that our nature has become "tainted" but remians the same.
No, we say our nature is "changed for the worse", and anathematize the contrary position.
CANON 1. If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was "changed for the worse" through the offense of Adam's sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and contradicts the scripture which says, "The soul that sins shall die" (Ezek. 18:20); and, "Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?" (Rom. 6:16); and, "For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved" (2 Pet. 2:19). (Council of Orange)CANON 1. If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema. (Council of Trent)
Perhaps you are confusing our condemnation of the opposite Protestant error that human nature is utterly corrupted and unable to do anything good?
If the Blessed Mary was conceived without sin and full of Grace, than her nature would have been that of Eve before the fall, and that would make her something that we are not, and her sainthood something we cannot attain even if we will it.
You seem to be confusing the results of the active conception (the creation of her body by her parents in sexual intercourse) and the passive conception (the creation of her soul by God). God perfected her soul through grace in the passive conception. Her body is what her parents were able to give her, a corrupted nature from Adam, and upon this, the perfection of her soul had no direct bearing.
Her body was not perfected until the Assumption, just as ours will not be perfected until the Resurrection.
Hi Hermann.
"We live with the propensity to sin, because we do not strive hard enough for the perfection God wishes for us. Many of the saints had the propensity taken away from them after years spent in prayer and fasting. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, related to Brother Reginald at his death that early after entering the Dominicans, and after much prayer, two angels had visited him and encircled him with a spiritual girdle to guard his chastity in answer to his prayers to be protected from impurity, and that after that time, he never again suffered from motions of his mind and body tempting him against Holy Purity"
That's an interesting way of looking at things. For us, the Fathers speak of "dying to the self" so that the nous is completely focused on God. This is the state of theosis wherein a person is able to experience the uncreated light of God. St. Mary of Egypt and St. Symeon the New Theologian both experienced this and are sometimes depicted in icons surrounded by a mandilora. A number of the Desert Fathers speak of this manifestation at or near the death of particularly holy monastics. It is my understanding that +Thomas Aquinas may have experienced the uncreated light when he had the vision which convinced him that all his writings were so much straw and should be burned. At any rate, "dying to the self" is a near end result of the processes of theosis. For that reason I disagree that the propensity to sin is a result of our individual failure to "become like God", but rather and more simply, something to overcome to that we can "become like God".
"CANON 1. If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema. (Council of Trent)"
Well, of course, Orthodoxy doesn't accept Trent. In particular, Orthodoxy does not ascribe to a vengeful and wrathful God (I know what the OT and the NT say.). God is completely transcendant and no more "feels" these emotions than he is really an old man with a long white beard. The Fathers taught that the love of God falls equally on the good and the evil like the rain, no distinctions. This canon ascribes to God the creation of Death, something which Orthodoxy does not accept in accordance with the consensus patrum.
"You seem to be confusing the results of the active conception (the creation of her body by her parents in sexual intercourse) and the passive conception (the creation of her soul by God). God perfected her soul through grace in the passive conception. Her body is what her parents were able to give her, a corrupted nature from Adam, and upon this, the perfection of her soul had no direct bearing."
Orthodoxy does not confuse the results of active conception of the Most Holy Theotokos with the passive conception of her soul at all.Orthodoxy fully understands that the manner of Panagia's physical conception has nothing to do with the Latin dogma of the IC. We simply believe that as to her status as a descendant of Adam and Eve at her conception, active or passive, she was no different than the rest of us. If your explanation of the IC is the Latin dogma, then we do not believe the same thing. In all honesty I can't see how Orthodoxy can accept that she was at base and ab initio different from us through a special grace from God which is somehow greater than that which He showers on us daily. But once again, doesn't all this go back at a minimum to different ideas on the Fall?