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To: redgolum; kosta50
The Fall of Adam and Eve did something to mankind.

No doubt. But when one gets sick, does that mean how we define "man" changes? Does that mean that we are to define "man" as a rational being with a heart ailment? Metaphysically, man was created in the image of God. The disease that we call sin does not mean we are no longer made in the image of God. It means that something, the sickness, is preventing us from realizing our fulfillment.

Regards

1,088 posted on 12/11/2006 11:18:00 AM PST by jo kus (Humility is present when one debases oneself without being obliged to do so- St.Chrysostom; Phil 2:8)
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To: jo kus; kosta50
No doubt. But when one gets sick, does that mean how we define "man" changes? Does that mean that we are to define "man" as a rational being with a heart ailment?

See, that is the problem. In some ways, how "man" is defined DID change. Neither of you, Catholic or Orthodox, would say that left alone with no input a society can be moral with out God. Mankind, after he removes revealed and natural law, can be the most horrible monster imaginable. Is that what we were from the pre fall Adam?

But at the same time, we are the same. Otherwise the Incarnation would be meaningless, and we would not be saved. What makes us human, in essence, must be the same as what made Adam human.

So what changed? The West has the concept of Original sin, the East talks of something similar. I personally like the way (as some EOC on FR have explained it) the Orthodox talk of an inherited infection of sin (Might not have phrased that right). But we are left with one of those paradox that our finite human minds can not quite get. In one sense, what we are remains what it was otherwise Jesus is not what we proclaim He is, True God and True Man. At the same time, we are not what we were, for we were not created to sin.

1,100 posted on 12/11/2006 3:05:21 PM PST by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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