[Kolokotronis]

In great haste as I am off to the office. I think the distinction lies in the Orthodox view of our created purpose which is to be in the image and likeness of God. The ability to attain the likeness of God through cooperation with God's grace which falls equally on the good and the evil was lost in The Fall and restored by the Incarnation. The word for sin in Greek, armatia means "to miss the mark", the mark being Christ. By not missing the mark and proceeding through the process of theosis, we by grace become more and more like Christ and die to the self so that in a state of perfect theosis, the self as fallen man ceases to exist and our entire being becomes focused on God. That's the purified state. All of this is wrought by God's love. The thread of theology I am referring to says that after death if we have a similitude to Christ, God's love, through His mercy, finishes the business of purification. If there is no similitude to Christ, that same love torments and "destroys". But there is nothing we are doing in this post physical death state. God, as is demonstrated by the way grace and love fall on all of us, doesn't need our expiation as some sort of atonement for missing the mark. He simply finishes what He began at our creation, but now there is nothing we can do to respond to that process. I suppose at base the distinction is that expiation is viewed as something we do in the nature of atonement, of pay back while purification is 100% a God operation which acts on us.

[trisham]

Bookmark.

[Klondike]

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I feel out of my depth ( I am no theologian ) here but I cannot help the feeling that we (East and West) are really describing the same truth. Like the proverbial blind men describing the elephant, both entirely accurate, different perspectives. Is it possible that God can apply as our Sacred Physician different remedies to each soul in order to perfect each?
I agree that once the body dies there is nothing one can do to make satisfaction for his past imperfections. The poor soul is at this point entirely at God's mercy. It is up to those (church triumphant and church militant) to plead with God to be merciful.

[Klondike]

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I feel out of my depth ( I am no theologian ) here but I cannot help the feeling that we (East and West) are really describing the same truth. Like the proverbial blind men describing the elephant, both entirely accurate, different perspectives. Is it possible that God can apply as our Sacred Physician different remedies to each soul in order to perfect each?
I agree that once the body dies there is nothing one can do to make satisfaction for his past imperfections. The poor soul is at this point entirely at God's mercy. It is up to those (church triumphant and church militant) to plead with God to be merciful.