Jo, sin is clearly defined by Geneiss as disobedience, the consequence of which is loss of Grace. Loss of Grace is a punishment. It applies to Adam and Eve as well as to those who are baptized who willingly disobey God's commandments. Just as Adam and Eve were given a chance to confess and repent, so do baptized Christians have a chance to confess and repent and be restored in the future life. It's a ticket!
Because of their refusal to repent, Adam and Eve were cursed. That curse changed their nature which became succeptible to decay and death (absence of Grace). Thus the essence of our absence of Grace is not guilt, macula, spot that has to be removed or washed away, but mortality. And we know that baptism does not remove our mortality.
No doubt. Sin = loss of grace. Grace = God. Thus, sin is a lack of God, not a positively created thing.
Because of their refusal to repent, Adam and Eve were cursed. That curse changed their nature which became succeptible to decay and death
Man's nature was not "changed". Concupiscence is not part of our nature, although it is part of our experience. Our nature was wounded. Otherwise, if sin was part of our nature, then Christ did not become "man". If He became a nature that we are not, then the Fathers would say we were not saved...
Thus the essence of our absence of Grace is not guilt, macula, spot that has to be removed or washed away, but mortality. And we know that baptism does not remove our mortality.
Being baptized infuses the life of Christ within us. Was it there before? No? That is the description of original sin. Life before the Spirit enters into man upon Baptism, at least in the New Covenant. Does the Orthodox teach that man has the Spirit BEFORE baptism? Does the Orthodox teach that man is reborn upon baptism?
Regards
In the West, humanity likewise bears the "consequences" of the "original sin" of Adam and Eve. However, the West also understands that humanity is likewise "guilty" of the sin of Adam and Eve. The term "Original Sin" here refers to the condition into which humanity is born, a condition in which guilt as well as consequence is involved.The second is from Orthodox Wiki:In the Orthodox Christian understanding, while humanity does bear the consequences of the original, or first, sin, humanity does not bear the personal guilt associated with this sin. Adam and Eve are guilty of their willful action; we bear the consequences, chief of which is death.
The original (or "first") sin was commited by Adam and Eve (see Book of Genesis Chapter 3). Orthodoxy believes that, while everyone bears the consequences of the first sin, the foremost of which is physical death (in this world), only Adam and Eve are guilty of that sin (see Book of Ezekiel Chapter 18). Roman Catholicism teaches that everyone bears not only the consequence, but also the guilt, of that sin.Thus the Orthodox take issue with Catholics over the question of personal guilt being born by the descendant of Adam. But if we look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church we find the following statement:
404 How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man". By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state. It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act.Thus Catholics do not hold that we inherit the personal guilt or culpability of Original Sin. The Council of Trent (Session V) states it thus:405 Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice [emphasis added], but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.
2. If anyone asserts that the transgression of Adam injured him alone and not his prosterity, and that the holiness and justice which he received from God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone and not for us also; or that he being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has transfused only death and the pains of the body into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul [emphasis added], let him be anathema, since he contradicts the Apostle who says: By one man sin entered into the world and by sin death; and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.The idea that we inherit the guilt of Original Sin can be found in Article 5 of the same session of the Council of Trent:
5. If anyone denies that by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted, or says that the whole of that which belongs to the essence of sin is not taken away, but says that it is only concealed or not imputed, let him be anathema.This however is a misleading, even if common, translation. The word that is translated above as "guilt" is in the original Latin "reatum." As I have pointed out in an earlier discussion about Purgatory, this does not actually mean "guilt", which in Latin is "culpa." Rather reatum is a technical legal term which refers to the status of a person charged or convicted of a crime. It is because there is no English equivalent that this term is usually rendered as "guilt." A discussion found in Peter Lombard's Sentences from the 12th century might illuminate the difference:
Some think original sin is the criminal status (reatum) of the penalty for the sin of the first man, that is, the debt (debitum) or enslavement (obnoxietatem) by which we have been enslaved and are bondmen to the temporal and eternal punishment for the actual sin of the first man: because for this, as they say, eternal punishment is owed by all, unless they are freed through grace. — According to their opinion it must be said that original sin is neither fault (culpam) nor punishment (poenam). They do not acknowledge that it is guilt (culpam). Also, according to them, it cannot be a penalty (poena), because if original sin is the debt of punishment, since the debt of punishment is not punishment, neither is original sin punishment. — Some of them also say that in Scripture original sin is often called criminal status (reatum); and here they understand 'reatum', as it is said, is the enslavement (obnoxietem) of punishment.For the sake of honesty I must state that Peter Lombard did not agree with this opinion but sided with St. Augustine that original sin is guilt (culpa). But the Council of Trent did not include the definition of St. Augustine and only mentioned reatum, not applying culpability of Original Sin to individuals.
(Liber II, Dist. XXX, Cap. 6)
Kosta, having read Jo Kus's post 1041, I need to take back my wording that original sin is a "macula" in the precise sense. It is just a word. Jo described it with great precision. Now, to your conclusion that all there is to the phenomenon we call original sin is death. It is not really accurate. Death is one of these consequences. But the underlying condition we call original sin is lack of grace. Death is one consequence. It is not the entire consequence. Concupiscence is another consequence.