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To: Agrarian
Your answer is actually quite in line with what is believable and possible, even though not reasonable. My observation was intended to suggest that claiming He was "fully human" or "just as we are" in all but sin, is a misleading and ambiguous statement for He was nothing like anyone else — precisely because of all the things you list in your answer. Thus, He was not not even anything like Adam, having been conceived and born in a womb of a Virgin, instead of having been fashioned out of clay; Adam, was not a God-man, but only a man.

The Scripture doesn't say that Mary would spontaneously form a child, it says that she would be overshadowed by the power of the Holy Ghost, causing her conception -- that's pretty powerful stuff. There *was* a Father involved, even if we completely reject the Mormon idea that carnal relations took place

Yes there was a "Father" but in Adam's case there was no "Mother." Thus one more difference in this strange equation. Besides, why is God "the Father?" God revealed Himself to Moses as the one Who is (I am who I am); that is entirely genderless.

The fatherhood comes from the ancient stereotypes associating "blood line" with the male line of inheritance and the early polygamies. The reason why it is possible to have more than one wife and still maintain a family is because the father is always known; thus the lineage is established. In the opposite case, if a woman had many husbands, the father would be unknown and the family would be lost.

Thus it was the male who generated his offspring, and a woman was but a "suitable vessel" (a "pot," if you will) where this generation was "cooked." Besides, women had no property rights and could not work. So, of course, man was the master and therefore God, being the Supreme Master, is also "male." Note that there is no female divinity in Judaism/Christianity. Woman was but a "suitable vessel" for man's "deposit" for future generations.

There is one more curious thing about Christ's Humanity: St. Augustine apparently believed that Christ would have died a natural death had He not been killed by Romans (cf St. Augustine, De Peccat., II, 29; P. L., XLIV, 180).

This seems a little strange considering that we are told by St. Paul that death came into this world through the sin of one man (Adam). If Christ is a pre-Fall second Adam, differences not withstanding, why is He susceptible to the post-Fall consequences? This also makes Him, a pre-Fall man, mortal and "slave to death." This also makes His death a necessity and not a divine will. But we know that Christ did not (and if fact could not) sin and, being pre-Fall and sinless, would not suffer death.

There is one more aspect of the whole issue of humanity that is a puzzle: we are all born as infants, become babies, grow into boys and girls, and mature into men and women, and then begin to decline into the old age and die. Our "aging" process and susceptibility to death is often used as a visible sign of our fallen nature that makes maturation a consequence of our spiritual corruption made visible in our physical appearance.

Thus, by that definition, Christ should have never grown from an Infant into a Child, and finally into a 30-year-old Man, susceptible to death! Of course, we can always say that He willed it so, which makes His humanity appear even less "just like us."

What I am driving at is that it is difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, the divine from human; the inspired from rationalization; the ordained from man made, tec. I think one of the best examples of this mixture where human and divine is inseparable is the Orthodox fasting practice.

Not only did St. Paul "release" Gentiles from dietary restrictions of Pharisaical Judaism, but the disciples themselves were released from Judaic fasting practices until Christ's death. But early Christians, all of whom were Pharisees by worship, continued to fast twice a week. When Christianity spread into other areas, there were no specific rules as to when to fast, how long, or what not to eat. None of this is scriptural, of course and falls under the "Tradition."

The truth is that the Church eventually decided to "regulate" fasting and even insist on it to the point of excommunication! Thus, some Orthodox Churches teach that twice weekly fast is the same Fast as the Great Lent: no oil, animal products or wine; eat once (ninth hour), and always less than desired.

In the beginning, the Church regulated monastic fasts longer than that for laity. Many monastics have since then started fasting on Mondays as well, in order to "exceed the Pharisees" in righteousness.

All of this is man-made mumbo-jumbo for the lack of a better term and none of it Biblical or even Judaic or for that matter ethnic. Now, I am not saying that fasting is not good, because other religions recognize it as "purifying" and so on, but that is something that would come naturally with higher states of theosis, and not something that is pre-conditioned and imposed. The way it is can be likened to making a commitment before being in love.

Thus, whether we talk about the 'sola scriptura' which is an oxymoron because it is not independent of human rationalization (interpretation), or whether we speak of invented de-novo Church traditions, we see the same human element being the crucial hinge that seems to overlap everything else, including the imposition of a "gender," by necessity, to God.

6,151 posted on 05/10/2006 3:17:19 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: kosta50

As I said, I didn't have a good explanation.


6,182 posted on 05/10/2006 6:44:43 PM PDT by Agrarian
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