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Old 02-01-2007, 09:02 AM
novaseeker novaseeker is offline
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Eastern Orthodox are very skeptical of Augustine's theology of Original Sin because of its emphasis on utter depravity and an in-born stain of guilt such that those born into Original Sin cannot be in the presence of God unless that sin is removed (this is where the theory of 'limbo' comes from ... it is where babies without actual sin, but with Original Sin (due to lack of baptism) go because while their lack of actual sin precludes the 'punishment' of hell, the presence of unremoved Original Sin precludes full communion with God). Augustine's theory of Original Sin also forms the basis for substitutionary atonement theologies as well as things like the Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception.

The view that many Orthodox theologians have of Original Sin is that it is the inheritance of mortality -- it isn't so much a stain that precludes communion with God as the inheritance of immortality in our mortal flesh ... an inheritance that is "washed away" in the waters of baptism in which we die with Christ and are risen again in Christ -- in other words, in baptism we "put on Christ" and therefore share in his inheritance of immortality, replacing our prior inheritance of mortality, and our death experience is transformed, if we live our lives in Christ, to the death experience of Christ - i.e., not as a terminal experience, but as a passage to new life. Original sin, seen in this light, is, to my spiritual experience at least, more understandable, less abstract, and more sensible -- but I do respect Augustine's views as well as those who have theologies that derive from his own.
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