I’ve never much been impressed with Kimel’s theological musings, either before or since he “swam the Tiber”. Frankly, this article, with its numerous allusions to “contemporary” Catholicism, demonstrates the danger of ordaining Western protestant clergymen into the priesthood of The Church. In Orthodoxy here in America we have seen similar talk from convert clergy, especially in the Antiochian Church.
Let me add re this:
“What, after all, does the dogma positively assert? Nothing more nor less than the full and perfect indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the soul of the Theotokos from the moment of her conception. At no point in her existence was she ever separated from God. Do Orthodox theologians really want to assert otherwise?”
Assuming there is no concern with heresy and some pressing need, or fixation on dogmatizing exactly when Panagia attained perfect theosis, I doubt that Orthodox theologians would “want to assert otherwise”, but the fact of the matter is there is no such compelling need. Why imagine one and why mess with heresy?? Why theosis at conception, which frankly seems absurd, destroys Panagia as any sort of example to the rest of us and presents us as surely as +Pius IX’s dogmatic declaration does with a Christological heresy?
Yes, unfortunately.
Why theosis at conception, which frankly seems absurd, destroys Panagia as any sort of example to the rest of us and presents us as surely as +Pius IX’s dogmatic declaration does with a Christological heresy?
Precisely. No matter how they dress it up in contemporary or classical Catholicism, the Augustinian idea of the Original Sin being a sin we in inherit without which Catholic infant Baptism is pointless continues to live in the Catholic Church, JPII's words notwithstanding.
The weight of the 1,700 year old mindset is simply too big to absorb that the Pope was telling them (probably for the first time in the Catholic history) that the original Sin is not really our sin...something we are somehow "guilty" of. If it's not our sin, then don't call it a sin.
The idea that original sin changed our nature and made it mortal hasn't been "developed" yet in the ever-developing doctrine...I suppose.