According to biblical teaching, man was not created mortal, sickly, prone to sin. Negative qualities appeared in him when he transgressed the commandment of God and wanted to become like God himself. He could not resist the temptation and violated the only prohibitive commandment: not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
This transgression of the divine commandment by the first people is called original sin. It is one of the most difficult theological issues, the controversy around which continues to this day between different religions, denominations, and even within the denominations themselves. And, indeed, many questions arise: why did God create people if he knew that they would sin? How is original sin inherited by all mankind? What are its consequences? Etc.
What is original sin
Man was made master of the earth (although he was only in the Garden of Eden). Commandments were given to him: to cultivate the land, to give names to animals, to multiply. Only one commandment was forbidden - not to eat the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as this would lead him to death. But the first people neglected this prohibition, which led them to spiritual death, expulsion from Eden and distance from the Creator. The body became mortal and subject to passions, sins, the consequences of which are diseases.
Origin of the concept
The term "original (ancestral) sin" is unique to Christianity. It is not used in other Abrahamic religions. This term was proposed by Blessed Augustine in 396 in his treatise "On Various Questions to the Simplician". After this term was used by Patriarch Joseph in the "small catechism" of 1649, it became fixed in Orthodox theology.
Term meaning
The name "original", or "ancestral" means the deed of the first people, Adam and Eve, in other words, this is the first sin of man.
Sin is a violation of divine law or its non-fulfilment. It is also a sin to violate natural moral laws, to cause harm to others or to oneself. It is unnatural to human nature, therefore its commission harms the one who does it.
In theology, the term is used in two senses:
- As a violation of the commandment given in Eden.
- As a consequence of this violation, which is expressed in human nature damaged by sin.
History of Man's First Sin
The history of the creation of the first people and their violation of the divine law is contained in the second and third chapters of the book of Genesis. Often there are disputes related to the fact that the story of the creation of man is contained in the first chapter, and it allegedly contradicts the story from the second. But it's not. The first chapter summarizes this event, and the second reveals it. In the further description of the creation of the first people, we will adhere to the text from both chapters.
Creation of Adam and Eve
After God created the cosmos, the earth and everything on it, He created man in His own image and likeness. And he created him from the dust of the ground, and breathed into him the breath of life, and he became a living soul. And planted paradise in Eden, and put him there.
There are three points to be noted here:
- God said that He would create man in His image and likeness, but it is further described that He created him only in His image. In theology, this moment is explained by the fact that a person must achieve the likeness of the Creator through his spiritual perfection.
- Heaven was on earth.
- Adam was created from the dust of the earth, but outside of paradise.
It goes on to describe that Adam was commanded to give names to all living beings. But he did not find a similar creature. Having plunged him into a sound sleep, the Lord created a woman from the rib of a man. She was called wife because she was taken from her husband. In Russian, this phrase may sound illogical, but in Hebrew it is reasonable, since the husband is "ish" and the wife is "isha".
There is an interesting moment in this description: Adam says that he will leave his father and mother and cling to his wife. But he had no physical parents. He couldn't know about them. Interpreters explain this by saying that perhaps these words belong to Moses (the author of Genesis) or to God himself, but are presented in the context of Adam's speech. Others suggest that he had prophetic abilities.
Temptation in the Garden of Eden
The wife was the first to succumb to temptation. The tempter in the form of a snake deceived her, saying that if they eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they will not die, but will know good and evil like gods. She ate and also gave to her husband, and he also ate. The first consequence was that they were ashamed of their nakedness, which they had not noticed before.
They really knew evil, but not in the sense of knowing some secret, but in the sense that they created evil.
The idea of the serpent as the personification of evil is inherent in the Bible: in mythology, it was usually a symbol of fertility, the hearth, etc.
fall
Although the first parents broke the commandment, they had the opportunity to repent. This opportunity was given to them by God himself when he asked if they had eaten from the forbidden tree. Of course, He knew what they were eating, but He wanted them to repent. If they did, perhaps there would be no fall as such, because the fall is not only the commission of sin, but also immersion in it and subjection to it.
But instead of repenting, Adam shifted the blame onto his wife and the Lord, saying:
"The wife that You gave me, she gave me from a tree, and I ate."
The wife, in turn, said that the serpent was to blame.
Exile from Paradise
Before the exile, God warned the first people about the consequences regarding the fate of women and men and the further struggle between good and evil throughout history.
The fate of the serpent is as follows:
"T you will walk on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life.”
The consequences for people are:
- Finding food will become difficult.
- The work will get harder. The man will work hard.
- Man will return to the land from where he was taken, i.e. will become mortal.
- The woman will give birth in sickness and will be subject to her husband.
Then Adam gave his wife the name Eve, which means "giving life."
After these events, people were expelled from Eden and sent to cultivate the land from which they were taken.
Interpretation of the event
This event, in view of the fact that it was recorded much later and in the description the author used literary devices characteristic of his time, is extremely difficult to correctly interpret. Let us further try to find out how the theme of original sin is interpreted in the main Christian denominations.
In Orthodoxy
The patristic teaching about ancestral sin is varied. The opinions of the Holy Fathers do not agree in all aspects. But for a correct understanding of the event, one must take into account the temporal context, the motive for writing, to whom the text was intended, etc.
St. Cyril of Alexandria, discussing this topic, wondered about the meaning of creating people who would still sin. The conclusion was that people should "become partakers of the glory of the Builder." In other words, if humans did not exist, they would not be able to enjoy divine glory. And death after the fall was given in order to stop the multiplication of sin, which prevents the contact of this glory.
holy Basil the Great wrote that evil was not created by God, but is a departure from Him. And the tempter was not created by Him evil, but he fell away from Him.
The fact that after the fall, nudity caused shame, bliss. Augustine explains that the hierarchy was broken in a person, and the body began to prevail over the soul, which led to a focus on physical qualities, first of all.
To summarize, we can say this: man was created free and had the right to choose. He departed from the Creator, violating His commandment, and thereby subjected himself to evil. In order to return to the joy of divine glory, he must live his life righteously and prove that he is worthy of it. And illness and death are not a punishment, but a means to stop the development of sin.
In Catholicism
If we compare the Catholic teaching with the Orthodox, the differences are quite serious. Catholic theology teaches that people before the fall had special supernatural qualities, and the human essence was the same as after the expulsion from Paradise. The nature of people after sin has not changed, but has lost "supernatural gifts" and "original holiness and righteousness".
Also in Catholicism, the teachings of bliss are supported. Augustine, which is not accepted by Orthodoxy. This is the teaching that the guilt of Adam and Eve lies on the shoulders of all people.
In Protestantism
Unlike Catholics, Protestants teach that before the fall, the human essence did not have supernatural gifts, it was itself inclined towards holiness. But after the expulsion from Paradise, people lost the ability to do good.
Modern Protestants admit that the human soul still has a free will to do good, but it is reflected only in "civil" righteousness, i.e. in outward good works.
Consequences of the first sin
Original sin, from the point of view of Orthodoxy, distorted his essence in a person, made him prone to evil. Creation has moved away from its Creator. It is these consequences that distorted human nature. They are present in everyone (except Christ).
But this does not mean that the descendants of the forefathers are to blame for their sin and are responsible for it. The consequences are manifested in the inclination and ability to do evil.
How to escape the consequences
Jesus Christ, by His sacrifice, reconciled man with the Heavenly Father and gave him the opportunity to return to Him. He consecrated the Sacrament of Baptism, through which the believer is born for a new life. And most importantly, He gave Christians the opportunity to partake of Him and unite with God.
Video
Lecture about. Andrey Kuraev, dedicated to the fall into sin.
What is original sin?
The term "original sin" refers to the sin of Adam's disobedience (having eaten the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil), which affects all of humanity. Original sin can be defined as "the sin and guilt that we possess in God's eyes as a result of Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden." The doctrine of original sin in particular focuses on its consequences for our being and our status before God even before we reach the age of conscience to commit our own sins. There are three main theories regarding these consequences.
Pelagianism: The consequences of Adam's sin on the souls of his descendants are merely a sinful example that led them to sin in the same way. A person is able to stop sinning just by willing it. This teaching is in conflict with a number of texts that note that man is hopelessly enslaved to his sins (without divine intervention) and that his good works are "dead" or worthless in order to earn God's favor (Ephesians 2:1-2; Matthew 15:18- 19; Romans 7:23; Hebrews 6:1; 9:14).
Arminianism: Adam's sin caused all mankind to inherit a predisposition to sin, called the "sinful nature." This sinful essence makes us sin in the same way that the essence of a cat makes it meow - it happens naturally. According to this view, man cannot stop sinning on his own, so God gives universal grace to all to help us stop. In Arminianism, this grace is called preliminary grace. According to this view, we are not responsible for Adam's sin, only for our own. This teaching is inconsistent with the fact that all people are punished for sin, even though they might not have sinned in the way that Adam did (1 Corinthians 15:22; Romans 5:12-18). Similarly, the doctrine of preliminary grace is not supported by the Bible.
Calvinism: Adam's sin resulted not only in our having a sinful nature, but also in our bearing the resulting guilt before God, for which we deserve to be punished. Being born with original sin (Psalms 50:7) results in us inheriting a sinful nature—so corrupt that Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and exceedingly corrupt.” Not only is Adam guilty because he sinned, but his guilt and punishment (death) belongs to us as well (Romans 5:12, 19). There are two views on why Adam's guilt should apply to us. According to the first, mankind was with Adam in the form of a seed, so when Adam sinned, we also sinned. This is biblical, as Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek for Abraham, his ancestor (Genesis 14:20; Hebrews 7:4-9), even though he was born hundreds of years later. Another key view is that Adam was our representative and thus we bear the blame for him.
According to Calvinist theory, a person cannot overcome sin without the power of the Holy Spirit - a power that is obtained only when a person places faith in Christ and His atoning sacrifice on the cross. The Calvinist view of original sin is more in line with biblical teaching than others. However, how can God hold us responsible for a sin that we did not personally commit? There is a strong interpretation that we become responsible for original sin when we choose to accept and act upon our sinful nature. In the life of each of us there comes a moment when we begin to realize our sinfulness. At that moment, we must reject the sinful nature and repent. Instead, we all "accept" this sinful nature, convincing ourselves that it is not so bad after all. By accepting our sinfulness, we express agreement with the actions of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Thus, we are guilty of this sin, in fact, without committing it.
Archpriest Peter Andrievsky for the magazine "Blessed Fire"
It so happens that the beginning of my interest in theology has a place, a time and an event. The Moscow Theological Academy, where I entered in 1984, became such a place. And the event is the presentation of the dogma of original sin by Professor Mikhail Stepanovich Ivanov in the first year of the Academy. I don't think this name means anything to a lot of people. However, prof. Ivanov has been vice-rector of the academy for several decades and heads the department of dogmatic theology of the MTA, the most important educational center of our Church.
Original sin or damage to nature?
So, explaining the doctrine of original (or as it is also called) ancestral sin, prof. Ivanov said that the concept of "original sin" is actually a common noun. It is for Adam that this sin is a sin in the proper sense of the word. For us, his descendants, by "original sin" we must understand the damage to our nature, which we inherit from our forefather. And only damage to nature.
Frankly, these words of prof. Ivanov for many first-year students became a real revelation. Of course, it cannot be said that after seminary our knowledge of dogmatic theology was perfect. However, that the sin of Adam spread to all his descendants, that we all sinned in Adam, we have well understood this provision of the Orthodox dogma. And suddenly we hear that the descendants of Adam are not guilty for the sin of their forefather. That original sin is only for Adam is sin in the proper sense of the word. For his descendants, this is just damage to the nature they inherit. With this we could not agree.
In Adam we all sinned. Or not?
For some reason, we decided to convince prof. Ivanova. We brought the sayings of the Holy Fathers to classes in dogmatic theology, which, it seemed to us, irrefutably spoke in favor of the fact that the descendants are guilty of Adam's sin. However, the patristic expressions for prof. Ivanova were not like that. He said that in the sayings we cite, the Holy Fathers speak of the damage to human nature that occurred because of Adam's sin. But here the Holy Fathers do not say that we are guilty before God for the sin of Adam.
I do not remember exactly which sayings of the Holy Fathers we brought. I remember exactly that once we brought to class a saying from the "Orthodox Confession of the Faith of the Catholic and Apostolic Church of the East." It sounds like this:
“Original sin is the transgression of the law of God, given in Paradise to the ancestor Adam. This ancestral sin passed from Adam into all human nature, since we were all then in Adam, and thus through one Adam sin spread to all of us. Therefore, we are conceived and born with this sin, as the Holy Scripture teaches: “For one man, sin is in the world outside, and death is in sin; answer to question 20).
This saying cannot be reinterpreted. Here it is clearly stated that "this", i.e. original or ancestral sin, "passed from Adam into all human nature ... therefore we are conceived and born with this sin." Prof. Ivanov did not argue that it refers to the involvement of all the descendants of Adam in original sin. “But the Eastern Patriarchs,” he said, “are not holy Fathers.”
The connection of original sin with infant baptism
At that time we did not find a single testimony belonging to the Holy Father of the Ancient Church, which could not be reinterpreted. Only a few years later, when I was reading the canons of the Council of Carthage, did I find such evidence. Here is what is said in Canon 124 of this Council:
“It is also defined: whoever rejects the need for baptism of small children and newborns from the mother’s womb of children, or says that although they are baptized for the remission of sins, they do not borrow anything from the ancestral Adam’s sin that should be washed by the bath of resurrection (from which it would follow that the image of baptism for the remission of sins is used over them not in the true, but in a false sense), let him be anathema. For what was said by the Apostle: “In one man sin is in the world below, and death is in sin: and so (death) is in all men below, in which all have sinned (Rom. 5:12), it is fitting to understand it in no other way, except as the Catholic Church has always understood, everywhere spilled and spread. For, according to this rule of faith, even infants, who are not able to commit any sins by themselves, are truly baptized for the remission of sins, so that through regeneration, that which they took from the old birth will be cleansed in them.
As we can see, the rule of the Council is directed both against children who deny the need for baptism, and against those who deny the passing on to us of the ancestral, Adam's sin. The Fathers of the Council say that if we are not guilty of the sin of our forefather, then it turns out that the image of baptism for the remission of sins is performed by the Church on infants not in the true, but in a false sense. For babies have no personal sins. What sins are forgiven for babies in baptism? And if they are not guilty for the sin of Adam, then the Church, baptizing babies for the remission of sins, comes out and uses this image of baptism over them in a false sense. It is noteworthy that in support of this, the Council, as well as the Eastern Patriarchs, cited the saying of the Apostle Paul (Rom. 5:12), the same saying that heretics are now trying to interpret. But the Council testified that this saying of the Apostle should be understood exactly as the Orthodox Church has always understood it: that all people sinned in Adam, that original sin spread to all. And its authority is unconditional: by the 2nd canon of the VI Ecumenical Council, the rules of the fathers of the Council of Carthage, among other rules of the Local and Ecumenical Councils, are “sealed with consent”, i.e., approved. And the VII Ecumenical Council confirmed this statement with its 1st rule.
Babies sin only by the sin of their parents
It is no coincidence that the Fathers of the Council in this canon combined the transfer of Adam's sin to his descendants with the need for infant baptism. That's why babies need to be baptized, because they are sinful, sinful with the only sin - the ancestral one, with which they are born into the world. And if this sin is not cleansed in the baptismal font, then in the event of the death of the baby, he will appear as a sinner at the judgment of God. Why the Fathers of the Council, under pain of anathema, ordered the baptism of infants.
Therefore, all the reasoning and conclusions of another professor of the MDA A.I. Osipov, who is trying to prove that it is impossible to baptize babies, are meaningless and break on the anathemas of the Local and two Ecumenical Councils. And the prof. Osipov, along with those whom he managed to convince of his innocence, are under anathema.
Adam's sin passed on to all mankind
Returning to prof. Ivanov and his reinterpretation of the sayings of the Holy Fathers, it should be noted that not all of them can be reinterpreted. So it is impossible to reinterpret the two sayings found in the "Orthodox-dogmatic theology" of Metropolitan. Macarius (Bulgakov):
St. Ambrose of Milan: “We all sinned in the first man, and through the succession of nature, succession spread from one to all and in sin...; so Adam is in each of us: human nature sinned in him, because through one sin passed into all.
St. Gregory the Theologian: “This newly planted sin came to unfortunate people from the progenitor..., all of us who participated in the same Adam, were deceived by the serpent, and mortified by sin, and saved by heavenly Adam.”
It is also impossible to reinterpret the saying of St. Simeon the New Theologian: “That saying, which says that no one is sinless, except God, even if one day of his life was on earth (Job. 14:4-5) does not speak of those who themselves personally sin, because how can a one-day-old child sin? But this expresses the mystery of our faith, that human nature is sinful from its very conception. God did not create man sinful, but pure and holy. But when the original Adam lost this garment of holiness, not from any other sin, but from pride alone, and became corruptible and mortal; then all people descended from the seed of Adam are involved in the ancestral sin from the very conception and birth of their own. Whoever was born this way, even though he has not yet committed any sin, is already sinful with that ancestral sin ”(Words of St. Simeon the New Theologian. Issue 1. M. 1892. P. 309).
It should be added that there is not a single testimony of the Holy Father of the Ancient Church, which would say that we not guilty for the sin of his forefather. Even if there are expressions of the Holy Fathers, where they speak of the damage to human nature that occurred due to the sin of Adam, this does not mean at all that they say that as a result of sin only nature was damaged, and Adam's sin was not transmitted to descendants.
And here it is necessary to name one more prof. MDA Protodeacon Andrey Kuraev. This professor did discover one expression. It belongs to Rev. Mark the Ascetic. And he waves this expression like a flag in his books. But, unfortunately, he did not have the intelligence to understand this expression correctly.
Here is what Rev. Mark the Ascetic: “We did not receive crime by succession: for if we transgressed the law because of succession, then it would be necessary for all of us to be criminals and not be accused by God, as one who transgresses it due to the necessity of natural succession ... Crime, being arbitrary, by no one it is not inherited involuntarily, but the death that came from this, being forced, is inherited by us, and is estrangement from God; for after the first man died, that is, he became estranged from God, and we could not live in God. So, it was not a crime that we received in succession ... but we inherited death involuntarily.
Kuraev in these words, Rev. Mark under "crime" wants to see the crime of our forefather of God's commandment in the Garden of Eden. And since Rev. Mark says that “crime, being arbitrary, is not inherited by anyone involuntarily,” it turns out that St. Mark says that Adam's sin is not inherited by offspring willy-nilly. But Rev. Mark is talking here not about the sin of Adam, but in general about the sins committed by people. Are they committed due to the irresistible predisposition of the descendants of Adam to sin, or did the human soul still have the freedom not to sin even after the fall? In other words, do people commit sins freely or out of necessity, due to the fact that a person inherits from the forefather an irresistible predisposition to sin?
Rev. Here Mark is arguing with heretics, very common in his time, who taught that after the fall, the image of God was completely destroyed in man and man inherits from his forefather an irresistible predisposition to sin. But if it were so, says Rev. Mark, “then it would be necessary for all of us to be criminals and not be accused by God, as transgressing it from the necessity of natural succession.” If sins were committed by people due to the inheritance from the forefather of an irresistible predisposition to sin, then punishment for these sins from God would not follow.
The image of God in man is corrupted but not destroyed
But it's not. Although the image of God in man is darkened, it has not been completely destroyed. Although the human will is inclined towards evil, it is also inclined towards good. And after the fall, it depends on the will of a person whether to do a good deed or an evil deed. And therefore “a crime,” says St. Mark, - being arbitrary, no one inherits willy-nilly.
Not crime, but death is inherited by us. At the same time, Rev. Mark here means spiritual death, the consequence of which is estrangement from God. “For after the first man died,” says St. Mark, that is, estranged from God; and we could not live in God.” Of course, here Rev. Mark speaks specifically of spiritual death, for bodily death does not alienate us from God, which is why our Lord Jesus Christ Himself assumed mortal nature and tasted death on the Cross of Calvary. It is spiritual death, which for all the descendants of Adam is a consequence of original sin, that alienates us from God. Therefore, the words of Rev. Mark: “we inherited death involuntarily,” we understand in the sense that St. Mark speaks here not only of our inheritance of spiritual death, but also of its cause - the sin of the forefathers, inheriting which, we become "by nature the children of the wrath of God" (Eph. 2, 3), by virtue of which a person is born into this world "alienated from God." Thus, Rev. Not only does Mark not share the delusion about our innocence for original sin, but, on the contrary, he professes the Orthodox teaching that we inherit original sin, by virtue of which we are born into this world already estranged from God.
Why do modern theologians deny the guilt of descendants for the sin of the forefather?
The question arises: why do modern Orthodox theologians so persistently deny the guilt of the descendants of Adam for the sin of the forefather? The answer is obvious. This is due to the fable they confess, that Christ assumed human nature exactly as it became with Adam after the fall, with which all the descendants of Adam are born into the world. If the descendants of Adam are guilty for the sin of the forefather, then Christ will also be guilty, and the fabulists themselves will enter into a clear contradiction with the confession Orthodox faith that Christ is absolutely sinless. Thus, there are obvious difficulties with the spread of this fable.
And if this is obvious, then the following is completely incomprehensible: why do people who brazenly deny the teaching of the Holy Fathers and the definitions of the Ecumenical Councils freely occupy the chairs in theological academies and seminaries?
How did Christ remain free from sinful passions?
How did Christ the Savior remain free from those present in the nature of the Mother of God, from Whom He assumed human flesh, original sin and the reproachful passions associated with it?
Having assumed this mortal nature, Christ, as it is sung in the Octoechos, “cut off the passions of both,” i.e. cut them off from His divine soul and body. What passions did he cut off? Of course, reproachful. What passions did you take? Irreproachable. Why did He take on irreproachable passions? In order to accomplish in the flesh the economy of our salvation. Consequently, the devil was defeated by that nature, which, in the person of Adam, was defeated in him. ... In order to “cut off” from Himself the reproachable passions that would have imparted sinfulness to His human nature, Christ used an amazing means - a supernatural birth, which became a kind of “filter” that prevented the passage of these passions from the nature of the Virgin Mary. At the same time, the impeccable passions from the human nature of the Mother of God were voluntarily accepted by our Lord Jesus Christ.
The question of original sin and its redemption is one of the central ones in Christian dogma. As you know, this concept boils down to the fact that the sin of disobedience, disobedience to God of the first people (Adam and Eve) was transferred to all mankind: “Therefore, as by one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death passed into all people, because everyone has sinned. ... One crime condemns all men ... ”(Rm.5: 12.18). That is (according to the conclusion of Paul and later Augustine) any person is initially ungodly, weighed down by this sin, and therefore vicious. The Church teaches us: due to the fact that the only righteous person on earth (Jesus Christ), having accepted martyrdom, atoned for our guilt, took it upon Himself, faith in Him gives us salvation. Since mediation in such a faith is by default provided by the church, the logic of the proposed concept is clear. More precisely, this concept is arbitrary and is a tangle of contradictions.
Let's start with the fact that in the Old Testament itself, on which the Apostle Paul relies, there is not only no mention of the "passing" of the sin of Adam's disobedience to all people, but there is not even a promise of immediate punishment by the death of himself: "but from the tree of the knowledge of good and do not eat evil from it, for on the day you eat from it you will die the death” (Gen. 2:17); with all this, Adam lived happily for 930 years (Gen. 5:5). Judaism, which initially “belongs” to people, does not see deliberate sinfulness. Old Testament: everyone starts his life with a "clean slate", and no one is responsible for other people's sins. “The son will not bear the guilt of the father, and the father will not bear the guilt of the son, the righteousness of the righteous remains with him, and the iniquity of the wicked remains with him” (Ezekiel 18:20).
The gospel words of Jesus Christ are also interpreted unambiguously: about the man born blind - "...neither he nor his parents sinned" (John 9:3); “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6); “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8); “for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:13); “I tell you that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous who have no need of repentance” (Luke 15:7). That is, in reality, the human totality is heterogeneous: sinners, according to Jesus, exist side by side with the righteous - with people who are pure in heart. There is no mention of any "primogeniture".
Further, in fact, the sin of disobedience was “redeemed” by the sinners themselves already by the fact that God punished them anyway: he drove them out of paradise, deprived them of immortality (excommunication from the tree of life) and doomed them to a hard life (Genesis 3: 17-19). And in general, it would be easier and more humane for Him to forgive Adam and Eve, especially since Jesus (according to Christianity, God incarnate) preached love and mercy. God the Father himself here seriously tarnished the reputation of “long-suffering and many-merciful, forgiving iniquity and crime” (Numbers: 14: 18).
From this perspective, the rationale for the earthly mission of Jesus Christ to forgive sins, to deliver mankind from them through redemption by the Blood of the Savior, also looks ridiculous. In addition to the fact that there was nothing to “bath”, in fact, and this procedure itself looks rather strange. Sin is allegedly atoned for by Jesus, but the punishment is not actually abolished. In addition, proceeding from the postulated unity of the Trinity, God atoned for our sins before Himself: first He invented everything, and then He provided a ransom for Himself, that is, through Christ He offered Himself (as the Son inseparable from Him) as a sacrifice to Himself, sacrificing Himself the same, and even to no avail, because. people still remained after the "sacrifice" mortal and vicious.
There is confusion even with the circumstances of the Fall itself. Naturally, the laws of human society did not constrain Adam's actions, since this society itself did not yet exist. Nevertheless, he was faced with the choice of whether or not to heed God's commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It hardly makes sense to take the text of the Bible literally. Yes, and the "behavior" of God looks illogical. He endowed a person with free will, and then he was indignant that people made the “wrong” choice. But after all, they show only those qualities that the Creator himself honored them with.
Since there are no indisputable criteria for the truth of various interpretations of the events of the book of Genesis, it is permissible to assume that in fact Adam was called to “cultivate and keep” not the Garden of Eden, but the garden of his divine soul. Then the phrase “you will die the death” is perceived not as a prohibition or threat, but as a warning from the Father to his beloved, but foolish child. Adam is simply confronted with the fact that he will lose his divine likeness if he lets himself in, "knows" evil. And you, they say, decide for yourself what to do, because you are endowed with free will. In the spiritual world there is no good and no evil in our understanding. There is no malice, envy, meanness, hatred and other attributes of human relations familiar to us. This perfect world is harmonious, whole. Adam faced a choice: with his immaculate, but undeveloped soul, to remain forever a dependent, a “slave of God”, an inert burner of a monotonous life, or plunge into the reality of our dual, polar world, enter the path of self-realization, become the creator of his own destiny. And he (a creative person endowed with free will) preferred the second, his own path.
The most interesting thing here is different. Without the knowledge of God, nothing happens in the world. God is omnipotent and “sees” through time, he “knows” the future in advance (for Him, the Last Judgment has already taken place). Therefore, in fact, everything was predetermined in advance, and God “knew” what choice Adam would make. At the same time, Adam by no means predetermined death for himself and his descendants. God, of course, “understood” that in the long term, physical immortality would inexorably lead humanity to death from the overpopulation of the planet, that is, he could not go for it. Since the soul is immortal, in this perspective the words “you will die a death” apparently mean: “In the new life you will doom yourself to suffering, to a painful struggle with yourself and with the world. Having known evil, having accepted it into your soul, you will move away from Me, you will cease to be divine, perfect. I am telling you this because I love you. You are still mine, and you will return to Me like a prodigal son, with a pure heart and humility, having overcome the evil generated by egoism, strengthened spiritually in these difficult trials and regained integrity.
The highest goal of human life, therefore, comes down to becoming at least a little more human during one's incarnation, to get closer to returning "home", to one's original self. And the meaning of life, therefore, is that it gives us such an opportunity. In the eyes of God, being an accomplished person does not mean having at your disposal unlimited opportunities to please your flesh and vanity, command people, stand above others, be known as “successful”, always right or impeccable. All these standard “external” criteria and landmarks so coveted by many in the Universe are worth nothing. At the same time, God does not expect supernatural spiritual efforts from us. It is not even necessary to be a believer and go to church, because He is always with us anyway. To become free from fuss, one also does not need violent asceticism or material sacrifices to Him. You only need to sacrifice your selfishness.
Strange, however, is the picture of the fall. After all, when the serpent whispered to the naive Eve that having tasted the fruits of the tree of good and evil, she would not die, the “father of lies” formally spoke the real truth. God commanded a person for his possible misdeed not to die in general, but literally “on the day that you eat from him” (from this tree). And, as we know, this did not happen. Since God is omnipotent, infallible, truthful and accurate, this means that such an outcome was not originally planned, but was only a warning to an unreasonable child. What happened, apparently, was part of His plan, which is not for us to judge. The very conversation of Eve with the serpent about physical death was most likely an empty phrase for her, since she, having no such experience, hardly understood what it was. God, apparently, "meant" that immediately people would die only as higher beings - they would die in them, the divine principle would disappear, they would cease to be god-like. It is inconceivable that God "did not keep his word."
As for the figure of the insidious serpent (Satan), he, like everything else in the world, was created by God himself (of course, also with a specific purpose) and still remains a companion of our life, performing the extremely important function of tempting a person with all sorts of temptations. Our ultimate goal is to return to God, to reunite with Him again, to restore the once lost union, to grow spiritually to His level. In earthly life, this can be done only in the struggle of the soul with our so-called practical reason, which is precisely under the control of the Devil. Having complete freedom of thought and will, we are nevertheless forced in relations with people and circumstances to constantly make a choice between a clear conscience and our carnal egoism, between the Devil and God, to make decisions on the verge of good and evil. Depending on the nature of these decisions, we spiritually move forward or fall back into bestiality. We can say that God, with the help of Satan, tests us, and the soul grows only in torment, "it is obliged to work day and night, and day and night."
It is unlikely that anyone will doubt the Lord's right to leave something hidden from man, since God "has the right" to everything. In addition, it is not for us to judge His plans, which we may well not understand. The whole experience of mankind shows that the lessons of history (including biblical history) do not teach us anything. And the devil has nothing to do with it. He sits in us in the form of vanity, pride and other manifestations of our selfishness. These vices push a person to all conceivable stupidities. God's will is reflected in His commandments, in the moral principles of life. In the same way as the "will of the state" is expressed in legal laws. Hardly anyone will deny the existence of legislatures on the grounds that many themselves violate these laws.
The inconsistency of the “biblical” actions of God, who grew the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but forbade people to eat its fruits, attracts attention. In this case, He seems to have become the first tempter. Since God is infallible and “is not mocked” (Gal. 6: 7), here, apparently, we should look for some meaning hidden from us. In particular, it would be necessary to explain why God did not fulfill his threat "for on the day you eat from him, you will die by death." We are left with the interpretation of the words of God, meaning "then you will die as a divine being." People have moved away, fallen away from God. God created man, but He obviously already had His own plans for the development of mankind from the very beginning. He “did not want” a person to immediately acquire pure divinity (become like the gods), but to develop spiritually gradually, and eternal life was not supposed for him: “... but God knows that on the day you taste them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil. And the Lord God said, Behold, Adam has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, no matter how he stretched out his hand, and took also from the tree of life, and ate, and began to live forever. And the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.” (Gen. 3: 5, 22, 23).
That is, everything was “known” to God in advance, and the warning was made so that people “do not take offense” at Him because their life has become so difficult. As if they got what they wanted. But it was the choice of their free will. More precisely, everything happens with the knowledge and control of God, but a person is given the illusion that he himself makes decisions (Hindu Maya). As for the serpent, which also in essence did not suffer punishment, that is, there is reason to suspect under it an allegory of the bodily mind of the people themselves (Eve tempted herself). The nature of man is dual - in him the undeveloped soul of the individual tries to get along with his troubled selfish "mind", from which all our troubles come. In fact, this interaction often comes down to enmity, which God predicted for the snake (he) and the “wife” (she), but as a result of which the spiritual growth of a person occurs.
Thus, no matter how difficult it will be for the Church to come to terms with this, the reality is that the dogma about the consequences of original sin for mankind has nothing to do with the described Old Testament events in the Garden of Eden, since it was completely invented by churchmen - approximately 400 years after the execution of Christ. Its author was Augustine the Blessed, referring to a very confused text of the chapter of the 5th Epistle to the Romans of Paul. But the Apostle Paul - a former strict Pharisee, not God, and even more so not a witness to the aforementioned collision - does not speak about facts, but only puts forward his own version: “To the rest I say, and not the Lord ...” (1 Corinthians 7:12 “Whatever I say, I will say, not in the Lord...” (2 Corinthians 11:17). He, like any person, is impartial, and his arbitrary interpretations should be approached with caution. However, Augustine's concept, which made of Adam a kind of generalized personality that contained the essence of all future people, was convenient for the church, since it strengthened its power: sinful people from birth had to seek God's grace from her. Such a doctrine was also very useful to the secular authorities. After all, since a person is sinful by nature (from birth), he is not able to control himself. Therefore, in his own interests, he should obey his rulers, even if they themselves are unjust and vicious. Let us add that this doctrine simply contradicts the facts, since the sins of the parents are not inherited. Each person is responsible before God only for his actions. The Church, on the other hand, changed the teachings of Jesus Christ in the way that suited her more in order to strengthen her power over the souls of her flock.
And after all, Christ did not come to earth for “redemption”, the necessity of which He, undoubtedly, would have said himself. But, as you can see from the Gospels, He taught otherwise. His true mission was to save us from lack of spirituality, to reveal to people a loving God. When humanity was mired in real sins, and the world lay in evil and total darkness, Jesus made an attempt to change it on the basis of love, to call people to see the High in themselves, to get in touch with the divine spark in their hearts and strive for unity with God. But this is too serious and capacious topic.
Man before the fall
Man, created in the image of God, came out of the hands of God holy, impassive, sinless, immortal, aspiring to God. God Himself gave such an assessment of man when He said about everything that He created, including man, that everything “is very good” (Gen. 1, 31; cf.: Eccl. 7, 29).
St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) writes:
"It will be told by Divine revelation that the first man was created by God ... in the beauty of spiritual grace, created immortal, alien to evil."
Man represented a complete unity of spirit, soul and body, one harmonious whole, namely, the spirit of man aspires to God, the soul is united or freely subordinated to the spirit, and the body to the soul. The man was holy, deified.
Rev. Justin (Popovich):
“Man, made in the image of God, came out of the hands of God immaculate, impassive, without malice, holy, sinless, immortal and all this made his soul extraordinarily God-seeking. God Himself gave such an assessment of man when He said about everything that He created, including man, that everything is “very good” (Gen. 1:31; cf. Eccl. 7:29). "God created man mild, painless, carefree, adorned with every virtue, abounding in every good." As such, man was able, with the help of the grace of God, to achieve the goal set for him by God. His whole being, with all its compositions and properties, was pure and holy, and thus capable of infinite improvement in virtue and wisdom.
"Our nature," says Saint Gregory of Nyssa, - was originally created by God as a kind of vessel capable of accepting perfection.
The will of God, precisely, consists in this, that man should freely, i.e., with love, aspire to God, the source of eternal life and bliss, and thereby invariably remain in communion with God, in the bliss of eternal life.
Such was the first man. That is why he had an enlightened mind and “Adam knew every creature by name”, which means that the physical laws of the universe and the animal world were revealed to him.
The mind of the first man was pure, bright, sinless, capable of deep knowledge, but at the same time he had to develop and improve, as the minds of the Angels themselves develop and improve.
Rev. Seraphim of Sarov described the state of Adam in Paradise as follows:
"Adam was created so unaffected by the action of any of the elements created by God that neither water drowned him, nor fire burned, nor the earth could devour him in his abysses, nor the air could harm him by any of his actions. All was subdued to him as the beloved of God, as the king and possessor of creation. there has never been from time immemorial, no, and there will hardly ever be a man on earth wiser and more knowledgeable than he. and all the properties of the creature that it has according to the gift of God, bestowed upon it at creation.It was by this gift of God's supernatural grace, sent down to him from the breath of life, that Adam could see and understand the Lord as he walked go to Paradise, and comprehend His verbs and the conversation of the holy angels, and the language of all animals and birds and reptiles living on earth, and all that is now hidden from us, as from fallen and sinners, and which was for Adam before his fall so clear. The same wisdom and strength, and omnipotence, and all other good and holy qualities, the Lord God gave to Eve ... "
His body, also created by God, was sinless, passionless, and thus free from disease, suffering and death.
Dwelling in paradise, a person received direct revelations from God, who communicated with him, taught him a god-like life, and instructed him in every good thing. According to Saint Gregory of Nyssa, the person "enjoyed the Epiphany face to face."
St. Macarius of Egypt He speaks:
“Just as the Spirit acted in the prophets and taught them, and was inside them, and appeared to them from outside: so also in Adam the Spirit, when he wanted, was with him, taught and inspired…”
"Adam, the father of the universe, in Paradise knew the sweetness of God's love," writes St. Silouan of Athos- The Holy Spirit is the love and sweetness of the soul, mind and body. And whoever has known God by the Holy Spirit, those insatiably day and night yearn for the living God.
Saint Gregory of Nyssa explains:
“Man was created in the image of God, so that like could see like, for the life of the soul consists in the contemplation of God.”
The first people were created sinless, and they, as free beings, were allowed voluntarily, with the help of the grace of God, to establish themselves in goodness and perfect themselves in divine virtues.
Man's sinlessness was relative, not absolute; it lay in the free will of man, but was not a necessity of his nature. That is, "a man could not sin," not "a man could not sin." About it Saint John of Damascus writes:
“God created man by nature sinless and free by will. Sinless, I say, not in the sense that he could not accept sin (for only the Divine is inaccessible to sin), but in the sense that he had the possibility of sin not in his nature, but primarily in his free will. This means that, assisted by the grace of God, he could remain in goodness and prosper in it, just as by his own freedom, with God’s permission, he could turn away from goodness and end up in evil.”
2. The meaning of the commandment given to man in paradise
In order for a person to develop his spiritual strength by perfecting himself in good, God gave him a commandment not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: from the tree, if you understand good and evil, you will not tear it down; but if you take a day from it, you will die the death” (Gen. 2:16-17; cf. Rom. 5:12; 6:23).
“God gave man free will,” says St. Gregory the Theologian- so that he freely chooses good ... He also gave him the law as material for the exercise of free will. The law was the commandment, what kind of fruits he can eat, and which he does not dare to touch.
“In fact, it would not be useful for a person,” argues Saint John of Damascus- to receive immortality before he was tempted and tested, for he could become proud and fall under the same condemnation as the devil (1 Tim. 3, 6), who, due to an arbitrary fall, because of his immortality, irrevocably and relentlessly established himself in evil; while the angels, inasmuch as they have voluntarily chosen virtue, are unshakably established in goodness by grace. Therefore, it was necessary for a person to be tempted at first, so that when, through the temptation, through the keeping of the commandment, he would appear perfect, he would accept immortality as a reward for virtue. In reality, being by nature something between God and matter, if man avoided addiction to created objects and united with God in love, by keeping the commandment he would be firmly established in goodness.
St. Gregory the Theologian writes:
"The commandment was a kind of educator of the soul and tamer of pleasures."
“If we had remained what we were,” he says, “and kept the commandment, we would have become what we were not, and would have come to the tree of life from the tree of knowledge. What would, therefore, become? “Immortal and very close to God.”
By its nature, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not deadly; on the contrary, it was good, like everything else that God created, only God chose it as a means of educating man's obedience to God.
It was named so because a person through this tree learned by experience what good is contained in obedience, and what evil is contained in resistance to the will of God.
St. Theophilus writes:
“Wonderful was the tree of knowledge itself, and marvelous was its fruit. For it was not deadly, as some think, but the violation of the commandment.
“Holy Scripture called this tree the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” says St. John Chrysostom, - not because it conveyed such knowledge, but because through it a violation or observance of the commandment of God was to be accomplished. ... since Adam, through extreme negligence, transgressed this commandment with Eve and ate from a tree, the tree is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This does not mean that he did not know what is good and what is evil; he knew this, for the woman, talking to the serpent, said: “God said: don’t eat from him, don’t die”; this means that she knew that death would be the punishment for transgressing the commandment. But since they, after eating from this tree, were both deprived of the highest glory and felt nakedness, the Holy Scripture called it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: it had, so to speak, an exercise in obedience and disobedience.
Saint Gregory the Theologian writes:
“They are commanded not to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was not planted maliciously and forbidden not out of envy; on the contrary, it was good for those who would use it in a timely manner, for this tree, in my opinion, was contemplation, to which only those who have perfected experience can safely proceed, but which was not good for simple and immoderate in their desires. ".
St. John of Damascus:
“The tree of knowledge in paradise served as a kind of test, and temptation, and exercise of human obedience and disobedience; hence it is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Or maybe it was given such a name because it gave those who ate its fruit the strength to know their own nature. This knowledge is good for those who are perfect and established in divine contemplation and for those who are not afraid of falling, for they have acquired a certain skill by patient exercise in such contemplation; but it is not good for the unskilled and subject to voluptuous lusts, for they are not established in good and are not yet sufficiently established in adherence to that which is good only.
3. Causes of the Fall
But by their fall, people have upset their nature.
Etc. Justin Popovich:
“Our forefathers did not remain in a state of primitive righteousness, sinlessness, holiness and bliss, but, having transgressed the commandment of God, they fell away from God, light, life and fell into sin, darkness, death. The sinless Eve allowed herself to be deceived by the crafty serpent.
... that the devil was hiding in the serpent is easily and clearly seen from other places in the Holy Scriptures. It tells: “And the great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent, called the devil and Satan, which makes the whole world great” (Rev. 12:9; cf.: 20:2); “He was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44); “through the envy of the devil, death entered the world” (Wisdom 2, 24).
Just as the envy of the devil in relation to God was the cause of his fall in heaven, so his envy in relation to man as a godlike creation of God was the motive for the disastrous fall of the first people.
"You have to count," he says. St. John Chrysostom- that the words of the serpent belong to the devil, who was prompted to this seduction by envy, and this animal is used as a suitable tool in order to cover his deceit with bait, first to seduce his wife, and then with her help and the primordial.
Seducing Eve, the serpent openly slandered God, attributed envy to him, arguing contrary to Him that eating the forbidden fruit would make people sinless and leading everything, and that they would be like gods.
However, the first people could not have sinned, but by their free will they chose to deviate from the will of God, that is, sin.
Rev. Ephraim Sirin writes that inIt was not the devil who caused Adam's fall, but Adam's own desire:
“The tempting word would not have led those who were tempted into sin if their own desire had not served as a guide to the tempter. If the tempter had not come, then the tree itself, with its beauty, would have introduced their position into the struggle. than the advice of the serpent, their own desire damaged them "(Interpretation on the book of Genesis, ch. 3, p. 237).
Etc. Justin Popovich writes:
“The seductive offer of the serpent causes a boil of pride in Eve’s soul, which quickly turns into a God-fighting mood, to which Eve curiously succumbs and deliberately transgresses the commandment of God. … Although Eve fell at the temptation of Satan, she fell not because she had to fall, but because She acted at Satan's suggestion only after she had previously consciously and voluntarily accepted his proposal with all her soul, for she participates in this with both soul and body: she examines the fruit on the tree, sees that it is good for eating, that it is pleasant to look at it, that it is beautiful for the sake of knowledge, thinks about it, and only after that decides to pick the fruit from the tree and eat from it. As Eve did, so did Adam. As the serpent persuaded Eve to eat from the forbidden fruit, but did not force her, because she could not, so did Eve with Adam. He could not accept the fruit offered to him, but did not stepped the commandment of God (Gen.3, 6-17)".
4. The essence of the fall
In vain do some wish to see the meaning of the fall allegorically, i.e. that the fall consisted in physical love between Adam and Eve, forgetting that the Lord Himself commanded them: “Be fruitful and multiply...” Moses clearly narrates that “Eve sinned before alone, and not together with her husband,” says Metropolitan Filaret. “How could Moses write this if he wrote the allegory that they want to find here.”
The essence of the fall consisted in the fact that the forefathers, having succumbed to temptation, ceased to look at the forbidden fruit as the subject of God's commandment, but began to consider it in the supposed relation to themselves, to their sensuality and their heart, their understanding (Col. 7, 29), with deviation from the unity of the truth of God in the multitude of my own thoughts, own desires not centered in the will of God, i.e. with a deviation into lust. Lust, having conceived sin, gives birth to actual sin (James 1:14-15). Eve, tempted by the devil, saw in the forbidden tree not what it is, but what she herself desires, according to certain types of lust (1 John 2:16; Gen. 3:6). What lusts were opened in the soul of Eve before eating the forbidden fruit? “And the woman saw that the tree was good for food,” that is, she assumed some special, extraordinarily pleasant taste in the forbidden fruit - this is the lust of the flesh. “And that it is pleasing to the eyes,” that is, the forbidden fruit seemed most beautiful to the wife, is the lust of eyes, or passion for pleasure. “And desirable, because it gives knowledge,” that is, the wife wanted to know that higher and divine knowledge that the tempter promised her - this worldly pride.
The first sin is born in sensuality - the desire for pleasant sensations - for luxury, in the heart, the desire to enjoy without reasoning, in the mind - the dream of arrogant knowledge, and, consequently, penetrates all the forces of human nature.
The human mind became darkened, the will weakened, the feeling was distorted, contradictions arose, and the human soul lost focus on God.
Thus, having transgressed the limit set by the commandment of God, a person turned his soul away from God, the true universal concentration and fullness, formed for it a false focus in its selfhood. The mind, will and activity of man turned away, deviated, fell from God to the creature (Gen. 3, 6).
« Let no one think, - declares blessed Augustine, - that the sin of the first people is small and light, because it consisted in eating the fruit from the tree, and moreover, the fruit is not bad and not harmful, but only forbidden; obedience is demanded by the commandment, such a virtue, which among rational beings is the mother and guardian of all virtues. ... Here is pride, for man desired to be more in his own power than in God's; here and blasphemy of the sacred because he did not believe God; here and homicide because he subjected himself to death; here is spiritual fornication, for the integrity of the soul is violated by the temptation of the serpent; here is theft, for he took advantage of the forbidden fruit; here and love of wealth because he desired more than he had enough.”
Rev. Justin Popovich writes:
"The fall is broken and rejected the divine-human order of life, but the devil-human is accepted, for by the willful transgression of the commandment of God, the first people announced that they wish to achieve Divine perfection, to become “like gods” not with the help of God, but with the help of the devil, which means - bypassing God, without God, against God.
Disobedience to God, which manifested itself as a creation of the will of the devil, the first people voluntarily fell away from God and cleaved to the devil, led themselves into sin and sin into themselves (cf. Rom. 5:19).
Actually original sin means the rejection by a person of the goal of life determined by God - becoming like God on the basis of a god-like human soul - and replacing this with likeness to the devil. For by sin, people have transferred the center of their life from a god-like nature and reality to an extra-Godly reality, from being to non-being, from life to death, turned away from God.
The essence of sin is disobedience to God as the Absolute Good and the Creator of all that is good. The cause of this disobedience is selfish pride.
“The devil could not lead a man into sin,” writes blessed Augustine, - if pride did not come out in this.
"Pride is the pinnacle of evil," says Saint John Chrysostom. - For God, nothing is so disgusting as pride. ... Because of pride, we have become mortal, we live in sorrow and sorrow: because of pride, our life flows in torment and tension, burdened with unceasing work. The first man fell into sin from pride, desiring to be equal to God».
St. Theophan the Recluse writes about what happened in human nature as a result of the fall:
“To be subject to the law of sin is the same as walking in the flesh and sinning, as can be seen from the previous chapter. Man fell under the yoke of this law as a result of a fall or falling away from God. It is necessary to recall what happened as a result of this. Man: spirit - soul - body. Spirit to live in God is destined, the soul is to organize earthly life under the guidance of the spirit, the body is to produce and observe the visible elemental life on earth under the guidance of both. As his spirit did not present any means for this, because of his estranged nature, then he turned entirely into the area of spiritual and bodily life, where extensive nourishment was presented to self-indulgence, and he became spiritually carnal. sin against his nature: for he should have lived in the spirit, spiritualizing both soul and body. But the misfortune was not limited to this. enter the soul-body realm, perverted the natural forces, needs and functions of the soul and body, and, moreover, introduced much that has no support in nature. The soul-carnality of a fallen man became passionate. Thus, fallen man is self-pleasing, and as a result he is self-pleasing, and feeds his self-pleasing with passionate spiritual fleshliness. This is his sweetness, the strongest chain that keeps him in these bonds of fall. Taken together, all this is the law of sin, which exists in our lives. In order to free from this law, it is necessary to destroy the aforementioned bonds - sweetness, self-pleasing, selfishness.
How is this possible? There is a detached power in us - a spirit breathed by God into the face of a person, seeking God and only by life in God can find peace. In the very act of creating him - or blowing him out - he is placed in communion with God; but fallen man, cut off from God, cut him off from God. His nature, however, remained unchanged, - and he constantly reminded the fallen, mired in spiritual-fleshiness - sharpened - of his needs and demanded their satisfaction. The man did not reject these demands and in a calm state decided to do what was pleasing to the spirit. But when it was necessary to get down to business, passion arose from the soul or from the body, flattering sweetness and taking possession of the will of man. As a result, the spirit was denied the task ahead, and the passionate spiritual-fleshiness was satisfied, because of the promised sweetness in nourishing self-indulgence. As it was done in this way in every case, it is fair to call such a course of action the law of sinful life, which kept a person in the bonds of a fall. The fallen one himself was aware of the burden of these bonds and sighed for freedom, but he did not find the strength in himself to free himself: the sweetness of sin always lured him and incited him to sin.
The reason for such weakness is that in the fallen spirit lost its defining power: it passed from him into a passionate soul-bodily. According to his original structure, a person should live in the spirit, and we define him to be in his activity - complete, that is, both spiritual and bodily, and to spiritualize everything in himself with the power of it. But the strength of the spirit to keep a person in such a rank depended on his living communion with God. When this communion was interrupted by a fall, the strength of the spirit also dried up: it no longer had the power to determine a person - the lower parts of the nature began to determine him, and, moreover, the aggravated ones - what are the bonds of the law of sin. It is now obvious that in order to be freed from this law, it is necessary to restore the strength of the spirit and return to it the power taken from it. This is what accomplishes the economy of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, the spirit of life in Christ Jesus."
5. Death is a consequence of the fall
Created by God for immortality and god-like perfection, people, but in words St. Athanasius the Great, turned away from this path, stopped at evil and united themselves with death.
They themselves became the cause of the death of our forefathers, since by disobedience fell away from the Living and Life-Giving God and gave themselves over to sin, exuding the poison of death and who infects everything he touches with death.
St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) writes about the first person:
“In the midst of bliss that is not disturbed by anything, he poisoned himself spontaneously by tasting evil, in himself and with himself he poisoned and destroyed all his offspring. this death, but not devoid of being, and death is all the more terrible as it is felt, he is cast down to earth in shackles: in rough, painful flesh, transformed into such from a passionless, holy, spiritual body.
Rev. Macarius the Great explains:
"As after the transgression of Adam, when the goodness of God condemned him to death, at first he underwent death in his soul, because the intelligent feelings of the soul became quenched in him and, as it were, mortified by the deprivation of heavenly and spiritual pleasure; afterwards, after nine hundred and thirty years, bodily death also befell Adam.
After a person has transgressed the commandment of God, he, according to the words St. John of Damascus,
“I was deprived of grace, I lost boldness towards God, I was subjected to the severity of a miserable life, - for this means the leaves of a fig tree (Gen. 3, 7), - put on mortality, that is, in mortal and coarse flesh, - for this means putting on skins ( Gen. 3:21), by the righteous judgment of God, he was expelled from paradise, condemned to death, and became subject to corruption.”
St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) writes about the death of the soul of the first people after their fall into sin:
“The fall changed both the soul and the human body. In the proper sense, the fall was for them together with death. The death we see and call, in essence, is only the separation of the soul from the body, previously already mortified by the retreat from them of true life, God. We are born already killed by eternal death!We do not feel that we are killed, by the general property of the dead not to feel their own mortification!
When the forefathers sinned, death immediately struck the soul; the Holy Spirit immediately departed from the soul, which constitutes the true life of the soul and body; evil immediately entered the soul, which constitutes the true death of the soul and body .... What the soul is for the body: the Holy Spirit is for the whole person, for his soul and body. Just as the body dies, the death that all animals die when the soul leaves it, so the whole person dies, both in body and soul, in relation to true life, to God, when the Holy Spirit leaves him.
Etc. Justin (Popovich):
By his willful and self-loving fall into sin, man deprived himself of that direct grace-filled communion with God, which strengthened his soul on the path of god-like perfection. By this, a person himself condemned himself to a double death - bodily and spiritual: bodily, coming when the body is deprived of the soul that revives it, and spiritual, coming when the soul is deprived of the grace of God, which enlivens it with higher spiritual life.
St. John Chrysostom:
“Just as the body then dies when its soul leaves without its power, so the soul then dies when the Holy Spirit leaves it without its power.”
St. John of Damascus writes that "just as the body dies when the soul is separated from it, so when the Holy Spirit is separated from the soul, the soul dies."
The soul first died, because Divine grace departed from it, says St. Simeon the New Theologian.
St. Gregory of Nyssa:
“The life of the soul, created in the image of God, consists in the contemplation of God; its real life consists in communion with the Divine Good; as soon as the soul ceases to communicate with God, its real life ceases.
Holy Bible says that death entered the world through sin:
“God did not create death” (Wisdom 1, 13); “God created man into incorruption, and in the image of His likeness create him; but through the envy of the devil, death entered into the world” (Wisdom 2:23-24; cf.: 2 Cor. 5:5). “by one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin” (Rom. 5:12; 1 Cor. 15:21:56).
Together with the Word of God, the holy fathers unanimously teach that man was created immortal and for immortality, and the Church collectively expressed the universal faith in the God-revealed truth about this immortality by a decree Cathedral of Carthage:
“But if anyone says that Adam, the original man, was created mortal, so that even if he sinned, even if he did not sin, he would die in the body, that is, he would leave the body, not as a punishment for sin, but according to the necessity of nature: yes will be anathema” (Rule 123).
The Fathers and Doctors of the Church understood Adam's immortality according to the body, not that he could not die due to the very nature of his bodily nature, but that he could not die due to the special grace of God.
St. Athanasius the Great:
“As a created being, man by nature was transient, limited, finite; and if he had remained in divine goodness, he would have remained immortal, imperishable by the grace of God.
“God did not create man,” says St. Theophilus, - neither mortal nor immortal, but ... capable of both, that is, if he aspired to what leads to immortality, fulfilling the commandment of God, he would receive immortality from God as a reward for this and would become god-like, and if he turned to the affairs of death, not obeying God, he himself would become the culprit of his death.
Etc. Justin (Popovich):
“The death of the body differs from the death of the soul, for the body disintegrates after death, and when the soul dies from sin, it does not disintegrate, but is deprived of spiritual light, God-striving, joy and bliss and remains in a state of darkness, sorrow and suffering, living unceasingly by itself and from himself, which many times means sin and from sin.
For our forefathers, spiritual death came immediately after the fall, and bodily death later.”
“But although Adam and Eve lived many years after eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” says St. John Chrysostom, - this does not mean that the words of God were not fulfilled: "In that day, if you take away from him, you will die the death." For from the moment when they heard: “Thou art the earth, and into the earth thou shalt depart,” they received a death sentence, became mortal, and, one might say, died.”
"In fact," argues St. Gregory of Nyssa- the soul of our ancestors died before the body, for disobedience is a sin not of the body, but of the will, and the will is characteristic of the soul, from which all the devastation of our nature began. Sin is nothing but a separation from God, who is true and who alone is Life. The first man lived for many years after his disobedience, sin, which does not mean that God lied when he said: "Then you will die of it the next day, you will die the death." For by the very removal of a person from true life, the death sentence against him was confirmed on the same day.
6. Consequences of original sin
As a result of the fall all the powers of the human soul were damaged.
1.Mind darkened. He lost his former wisdom, insight, clairvoyance, scope and godly aspiration; the very consciousness of the omnipresence of God was darkened in him, which is obvious from the attempt of the fallen forefathers to hide from the All-seeing and Omniscient God (Gen. 3, 8) and falsely represent their participation in sin (Gen. 3, 12-13).
The mind of people turned away from the Creator and turned to the creature. From God-centered, he became self-centered, gave himself up to sinful thoughts, and selfishness (self-love) and pride took possession of him.
2. Sin damaged, weakened and corrupted will people: she lost her primordial light, love of God and God-directedness, became evil and sin-loving and therefore more prone to evil, and not to good. Immediately after the fall, our forefathers appear and reveal a tendency to lie: Eve blames the serpent, Adam blames Eve, and even God, Who gave her to him (Gen. 3, 12-13).
The disorder of human nature by original sin is clearly expressed in the words of the Apostle Paul: “The good that I want, I do not, but the evil that I do not want, I do. But if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Romans 7:19-20).
3. The heart has lost its purity and purity, given over to unreasonable aspirations and passionate desires.
St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) writes about the breakdown of all the forces of the human soul:
“I plunge even deeper into examining myself, and a new spectacle opens up before me. I see a decisive breakdown of my own will, disobedience to its mind, and in my mind I see the loss of the ability to direct the will correctly, the loss of the ability to act correctly. With a distracted life, this state is little noticed, but in solitude, when solitude is illuminated by the light of the Gospel, the state of disorder of the forces of the soul appears in a vast, gloomy, terrible picture. And it serves as a witness before me that I am a fallen being. I am a servant of my God, but a servant who has angered God, an outcast servant, a servant, punished by the hand of God.. Thus declares me and the Divine Revelation.
My state is a state common to all people. Mankind is a class of beings languishing in various disasters..."
Rev. Macarius the Great thus describes the destructive effect of the fall into sin, the state into which all human nature comes as a result of spiritual death:
"The kingdom of darkness, that is, that evil prince, having captivated man from the beginning ... So the soul and all its being was clothed with sin by that evil chief, defiled it all and captivated it all into his kingdom, that neither thoughts, nor mind, nor flesh, and finally, he did not leave a single one of its composition free from his power, but all of her blankets in the mantle of darkness ... the whole person, soul and body, that evil enemy defiled and disfigured; and clothed a person in an old man, defiled, unclean, ungodly, not obeying the law of God, i.e. clothed him in sin itself, but no one sees a person, as if he wants to, but he sees evil, hears evil, his feet are impetuous to evil deeds, hands that do lawlessness, and a heart that thinks evil ... Just as during a gloomy and dark night, when a stormy wind breathes, all plants sway, rumble, and come into great movement: so also a person, subjected to the dark power of the night - the devil, and spending his life in this night and darkness, vacillates, rumbles and agitates. fierce wind of sin, which all his being, soul, mind and it pierces through thought, and all its bodily members also move, and there is not a single spiritual or bodily member free from sin that dwells within us"
“Man is made in the image of God and after the likeness,” says Saint Basil the Great- but sin disfigured the beauty of the image, drawing the soul into passionate desires.
Etc. Justin (Popovich) writes:
“The disturbance, obscuration, distortion, relaxation that original sin caused in the spiritual nature of man can be briefly called violation, damage, darkening, disfigurement of the image of God in man. For sin darkened, disfigured, disfigured the beautiful image of God in the soul of the primordial man.
By doctrine Saint John Chrysostom, until Adam did not yet sin, but kept his image, created in the image of God, pure, the animals obeyed him as servants, and when they polluted their image with sin, the animals did not recognize their master in him, and from servants turned into him enemies, and began to fight against him as against a foreigner.
“When sin entered human life as a habit,” writes Saint Gregory of Nyssa- and from a small beginning, immense evil occurred in man, and the god-like beauty of the soul, created in the likeness of the Primitive, was covered, like some kind of iron, with the rust of sin, then the beauty of the natural image of the soul could no longer be fully preserved, but it changed into a disgusting image of sin . So man, a great and precious creation, deprived himself of his dignity, falling into the mud of sin, lost the image of the incorruptible God, and through sin put on the image of corruption and dust, like those who through carelessness fell into the mud and smeared their faces, so that they and acquaintances cannot recognize.
A.P. Lopukhin gives an interpretation of the verse “And he said to Adam: because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying: do not eat from it, the earth is cursed for you; in sorrow you will eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles she will grow for you ... ":
"We find the best explanation of this fact in the Holy Scripture itself, namely in the prophet Isaiah, where we read:" the earth is defiled under those who live on it, for they have transgressed the laws, changed the charter, violated the eternal covenant. living on it "(Is. 24, 5-6). Consequently, these words give only a particular expression of the general biblical thought about the close connection between the fate of man and the life of all nature (Job. 5, 7; Eccl. 1, 2, 3; Eccl. 2, 23; Rom. 8, 20). In relation to the earth, this divine curse was expressed in the impoverishment of its productive power, which in turn resonates most strongly with a person, as it dooms him to hard, hard work for daily subsistence.
According to the teaching of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, The image of God in fallen man was not destroyed, but deeply damaged, darkened and disfigured.
Rev. Macarius the Great writes about the consequences of the fall for the God-given nature of man:
"The man was in honor and purity, was the lord of everything, starting from heaven, knew how to distinguish between passions, was alien to demons, pure from sin or vice - God was likeness."
“Look, beloved, into the intelligent essence of the soul; and don't go too far. The immortal soul is a precious vessel. See how great heaven and earth are, and God did not favor them, but only you. Look at your dignity and nobility, because he did not send angels, but the Lord himself came as an intercessor for you, in order to call on the lost, wounded, to return to you the original image of pure Adam. Man was the master of everything, from heaven to earth, knew how to distinguish between passions, was alien to demons, pure from sin or vices, was the likeness of God, but died for a crime, became ulcerated and dead. Satan has darkened his mind."
“For the soul is not of God’s nature and not of the nature of evil darkness, but is a clever creature, full of beauty, great and wonderful, a beautiful likeness and image of God, and the deceit of dark passions entered into it as a result of a crime.”
“The crafty prince of darkness, at the beginning, enslaved a person and clothed his whole soul with sin, defiled all of her being and all of her, enslaved her all, did not leave any part of her free from his power, neither thoughts, nor mind, nor body. All the soul suffered from the passion of vice and sin, for the evil one clothed the whole soul in his evil, that is, in sin.
Rev. Justin (Popovich) writes about how the fall distorted the image of God, given to man by God at creation, without destroying it:
“With the transfer of ancestral sinfulness to all the descendants of Adam by birth, all the consequences that befell our forefathers are transferred to all of them at the same time. after the fall; disfigurement of the image of God, clouding of the mind, corruption of the will, defilement of the heart, sickness, suffering and death.
All people, being the descendants of Adam, inherit from Adam the god-like nature of the soul, but godlikeness, darkened and disfigured by sinfulness. The whole human soul is generally saturated with ancestral sinfulness. ... But although the image of God, which is the integrity of the soul, is mutilated and darkened in people, it is still not destroyed in them, because with its destruction that which makes a person a man would be destroyed, which means that a person would be destroyed as such. The image of God continues to be the main treasure in people (Gen. 9, 6) and partially manifests its main features (Gen. 9, 1-2), the Lord Jesus Christ did not come into the world in order to re-create the image of God in fallen man , and in order to renew it - "Yes, His packs will renew the image, decayed by passions"; May it renew "our nature corrupted by sins." And in sins, a person nevertheless reveals the image of God (1 Cor. 11, 7): “I am the inexpressible image of Your glory, if I also bear the plague of sins.”
Abba Dorotheos:
“But God created man with His own hands and adorned him, and arranged everything else to serve him and calm him, who was appointed king over all this; and gave him the sweetness of paradise for enjoyment, and what is even more amazing, when a person was deprived of all this through his sin, God again called him by the blood of His Only Begotten Son. Man is the most precious acquisition, as the Saint said, and not only the most precious, but also the most proper to God, for He said: “Let us make man in Our image and after our likeness.” And again: “God created man, in the image of God create him… and I will blow into his nostrils the breath of life” (Genesis 1:26-27; 2:7). And our Lord Himself came to us, took on the form of a man, a human body and soul, and, in a word, in everything except sin, became a man, so to speak, assimilating this person to Himself and making him His own. So, well and decently said the Saint, that "man is the most precious acquisition." Then, speaking even more clearly, he adds: "Let us render to the Image what was created in the image." How is it? -Let us learn this from the Apostle, who says: “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit” (2 Cor. 7:1). Let us make our image pure, as we received it, wash it from the filth of sin, so that its beauty, which comes from virtues, will be revealed. David also prayed about this beauty, saying: “Lord, by Your will give strength to my goodness” (Ps. 29, 8).
So, let us purify in ourselves the image of God, for God requires it from us in the same way that He gave it: having neither spot, nor wrinkle, nor anything of the kind (Eph. 5:27). Let us render to the Image what was created in the image; let us remember in whose image we are created, let us not forget the great blessings bestowed upon us by God solely by His goodness, and not by our dignity; Let us understand that we are created in the image of God who created us. "Honor the Prototype". Let us not offend the image of God in which we are created."
Archim. Rafail Karelin shows how the distortion of the dogma of original sin by Catholicism also distorts the understanding of the dogma of salvation, the meaning of spiritual life as repentance, sobriety, the fight against sin, the eradication of passions, opposition to demonic forces that seek to keep a person in their power - which does not give a Catholic the opportunity to cleanse himself of passions :
"Catholicism differently than Orthodoxy, considers the tragedy of the fall of man and its consequences. According to the teachings of Catholics, sin deprived a person of supernatural grace and thereby introduced a certain dissonance into his mental life, but the natural forces of the soul remained intact. Thus, passions are not seen as a disease of the soul but as overkill and abuse. Such a teaching hides the catastrophic consequences of sin, deprives the spiritual struggle against sin and demonic power of that tension, constant effort and vigilance that are characteristic of Eastern ascetics.
The doctrine of unceasing inner prayer, of the eradication of the passions, of repentance as the basis of spiritual life, is supplanted by external achievement and public service. This becomes especially evident through a comparison of Orthodox and Catholic monasticism as the main exponent of the church spirit.
Monasticism in the East is above all an inner life, a renunciation of the world, a striving for unceasing communion with God. Catholic monasticism is an image of the public service of the Church... In the Catholic Church, monastic asceticism immediately took the form of order and work, that is, organization.
Catholicism considers the natural powers of the soul intact, so it begins its sermon with a call to love. But love without preliminary purification of the heart from passions is love of the soul, not of the spirit. It can be hot and intense, colorful and emotional, it can carry a lot of care, compassion and affection, but this is earthly love, based on solidarity and duty, it is dissolved with sensuality and subject to affectation.
Orthodoxy begins preaching with a call to repentance: only through a long path of cleansing the soul from sin does the human spirit awaken and the heart feels love and compassion as a new life, as a feeling incomparable with anything, as the action of the Divine Himself in the human heart. This love is devoid of amazing emotions, it is quiet and deep, its sign is to love God with all your heart, and people as the image and likeness of God. Spiritual love is an act of grace, therefore it carries within itself the Divine light of transfiguration and illuminates the world with reflections of this light.
So, according to Catholic teaching, original sin did not affect human nature, but only affected the relationship of God to man. The sin of Adam and Eve is understood by Catholics as an infinitely great insult to the people of God, for which God was angry with them and took away their supernatural gifts Your grace. According to this dogma of Catholicism, human nature did not change as a result of the fall, having lost the harmony of all spiritual and bodily forces and perfection with the loss of communion with God, and only a certain supernatural gift of righteousness, or primitive purity, was taken away from it by an angry God. In order to restore the broken order, it was necessary, according to the teachings of Catholicism, only to satisfy God for the inflicted insult and thus remove the guilt of mankind and the punishment that weighed on him. He does not know about the deep essence of the sacrifice of Christ as a sacrifice of God's Love and the propitiation of God's truth for the sake of forgiveness of the fallen, but not deprived of His mercy, people, about the grace-filled sanctification and purification of the penitent soul running to God, its transfiguration by God, deification as a way of salvation - he does not know formalism of the Catholic formula "sin - anger - satisfaction". Hence the legalism of the doctrine of redemption, salvation, how a person should act in order to get rid of “anger, punishment” and hell, dogmas about satisfying God for sins, about super-due merits and about the treasury of saints, purgatory and indulgences.
Orthodox theology the theological Catholic point of view is alien, not knowing the unchanging love of God for His creation, not seeing the distortion of the whole person by sin, distinguished by the formal, legal nature of the formulas "insult - punishment - satisfaction for insult." Orthodoxy teaches that in the fall man himself departed with his soul from God and, as a result of sin, became impervious to the grace of God. According to St. Nicholas of Serbia, when Eve "...believed in a beautiful serpent, a feigned lie, her soul lost harmony, the strings of divine music weakened in it, her love for the Creator, the God of love, cooled. ... Eve ... Looked into her muddy soul and I didn't see God in her anymore. God left her. God and the devil can't be under the same roof." That. As a result of arbitrary sin, man lost communion with God, God's grace, holiness and perfection, the harmony of all spiritual and bodily forces, lost true life and entered into the power of death. This sin-disturbed nature from Adam and Eve was inherited by their descendants. Orthodoxy understands original sin not as a mechanical punishment of God for the sin of people, but as a disorder of human nature due to sin and the loss of communion with God that naturally follows, as a distortion of human nature by an irresistible inclination to sin and death. According to this understanding of the essence of original sin, Orthodoxy, differently than Catholicism, understands the dogmas of redemption and salvation. We confess that God expects from a Christian not satisfaction for sins and not a certain sum of external, mechanical deeds, but repentance that transforms the soul, purification of the heart.
St. Basil the Great He speaks:
“Adam, as he sinned because of a bad will, so died because of sin: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23); to what extent he departed from life, to such an extent he approached death: because God is life, and the deprivation of life is death; because Adam prepared death for himself by withdrawing from God, as it is written: “Those who remove themselves from You perish."(Ps. 72:27)".
“Man is created in the image and likeness of God; but sin has distorted (ήχρείωσεν) the beauty of the image, dragging the soul into passionate desires.
Prot. Maxim Kozlov writes:
"...according to the Roman Catholic teaching, human nature did not undergo changes due to original sin, and original sin affected not so much the person himself, but his relationship with God. ... the loss of a person's paradise state is interpreted precisely as the loss of a certain amount of supernatural gifts, without which "man is not able to communicate with God, without which the human mind is darkened by ignorance, the will has weakened so much that it began to follow the suggestions of passions rather than the requirements of the mind, their bodies became subject to infirmities, sickness and death. " The last phrase was a quote from Roman Catholic Catechism of 1992. The Roman Catholic understanding of human nature determines several derivative provisions: Firstly, since a person has simply lost his natural grace and at the same time human nature itself has not undergone any change, then this supernatural gift can be returned to a person at any time, and for this there is no need for the action of the loveka. From this point of view, in order to explain why God does not return a person to his paradise state, nothing else can be imagined, except that a person must earn his justification, satisfy the justice of God, or that this justification must be earned for him, bought by someone else. ".
Orthodoxy claims that all the actions of God towards man have a source not His insult and wrath(in the human understanding of the passion of anger), but His unwavering love and justice. So, teacher Isaac Sirin writes:
“Whoever makes admonishment with the aim of making it healthy, he admonishes with love; and whoever seeks revenge, there is no love in him. His... This kind of love is the consequence of righteousness and does not deviate into the passion of vengeance.
St. Basil the Great writes about the foundations of God's providence:
“God, by a special dispensation, betrays us to sorrows ... because we are creations of a good God and we are in the power of Him Who arranges everything that concerns us, both important and unimportant, then we cannot tolerate anything without the will of God; and if we tolerate anything, it is not harmful, or not such that it would be possible to provide for something better».
“Adam, as he sinned because of a bad will, so died because of sin: “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23); to what extent he departed from life, to such an extent he approached death: because God is life, and the deprivation of life is death; because Adam prepared death for himself by withdrawing from God, as it is written: “Those who remove themselves from You perish."(Ps. 72:27)".
St. Ignatius (Bryanchaninov):God, allowing us to be tempted and betraying us to the devil, does not cease to provide for us, punishing, does not cease to do good to us.
Rev. Nicodemus the Holy Mountaineer:
« All temptations in general are sent by God for our benefit.... all the sorrows and torments that the soul undergoes during internal temptations and the impoverishment of spiritual consolation and sweetness, nothing else but a cleansing medicine arranged by the love of God with which God cleanses her, if she endures them with humility and patience. And, of course, they prepare for such patient sufferers a crown, acquired only through them, and the crown is all the more glorious, the more painful the torments of the heart endured during them.
St. Nicholas of Serbia:
“... the forefathers of the human race. As soon as they lost love, they darkened the mind. With sin, freedom was lost.
... At a fateful moment, God-loving Eve was tempted by someone who abused her freedom. ... she believed the slanderer of God, believed the lie instead of the Truth, the murderer instead of the Lover of mankind. And the moment she believed the beautiful serpent, the feigned lie, her soul lost harmony, the strings of divine music weakened in her, her love for the Creator, the God of love, cooled.
… Eve... She looked into her muddy soul and did not see God in it anymore. God left her. God and the devil cannot be under the same roof. …
Listen now, my daughter, to this secret. God is a perfect person, therefore He is perfect love. God is a perfect person, therefore He is a perfect life. That is why Christ uttered the words that shocked the world: “I am the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6), meaning by way the way of love. That is why love, as a way, is put in the first place. For only love comprehends truth and life. That is why it is said in the Word of God: "If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed" (1 Corinthians 16:22). How can he not be cursed who is deprived of love, if at the same time he remains without truth and life? Thus he curses himself. ...
God wanted to forgive Adam, but not without repentance and sufficient sacrifice. And the Son of God, the Lamb of God, went to the slaughter for the redemption of Adam and his family. And all out of love and truth. Yes, and the truth, but the truth lies in love."Orthodox dogmas of redemption and salvation are based on this understanding of original sin.. According to the immutable Truth of God, sin entails estrangement from God. As the Holy Scripture testifies, “the wages (“obrotsy” (glor.) - payment) for sin is death” (Rom. 6, 23). This is also spiritual death, which consists in estrangement from God, the Source of life, for "sin committed gives birth to death" (James 1:15). This is physical death, naturally following spiritual death. " We must always remember that God is not only love, but also truth, and He has mercy in righteousness, and not arbitrarily."- writes St. Theophan the Recluse.
Without ceasing to provide for the fallen man and desiring his salvation, God combined His mercy, His perfect love for the man He created, and His perfect justice, Truth, having redeemed mankind with the Cross of Christ:
"The only begotten Son of God, not enduring the sight of the tormented human race from the devil, came and saved us" (From the prayer of the rite of consecrating the water of the holy Epiphany).
Orthodoxy teaches about the death of Christ the Savior on the cross, as a redemptive, propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the human race, brought to the justice of God - the Holy Trinity - for the whole sinful world, thanks to which the rebirth and salvation of mankind became possible.
The essence of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross is the love of God for man, His mercy and His Truth.
Archim. John (Krestyankin) spoke:
"... out of divine love for all people, the Lord drank the bitter cup of the greatest suffering.…out of His love for people, God gave His Only Begotten Son to suffering on the Cross and death for the atonement of the sins of the entire human race.
On the Cross the Propitiation Sacrifice was offered (Rom. 3:25) the immutable truth of God for each of us. By the life-giving Blood of Christ shed on the Cross, eternal condemnation has been lifted from mankind."
St. Philaret (Drozdov) spoke thus of the essence of redemption:
““God is love,” says the same contemplator of love. God is love in essence and the very essence of love. All His attributes are garments of love; all actions are expressions of love. ... she is His justice, when she measures the degrees and types of her gifts sent down or withheld by wisdom and goodness, for the sake of the highest good of all her creatures. Draw near and consider the formidable face of God's justice, and you will definitely recognize in it the meek gaze of God's love.".
Svmch. Seraphim (Chichagov) outlines the orthodox redemption dogma showing and that the Cross sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ both original sin and its consequences in the souls of believers are forgiven, on it “the right of the Redeemer is based to forgive the sins of the penitent, to cleanse and sanctify their souls with His blood”, thanks to it “graceful gifts are poured out on the believers” :
“The truth of God first of all requires that retribution be received for the merits of people, and punishment for their guilt. ... But since God is love in essence and the very essence of love, He predetermined for fallen man a new path to salvation and perfect rebirth through cessation in him sin.
At the request of the Truth of God, a person had to bring satisfaction to the Justice of God for his sin. But what could he sacrifice? Your remorse, your life? But repentance only softens the punishment, and does not relieve it, for it does not abolish the crime. ... Thus, man remained an unrequited debtor to God and an eternal prisoner of death and the devil. The destruction of sinfulness in oneself was impossible for a person, for he received an inclination to evil along with being, with soul and flesh. Consequently, only his Creator could recreate a person, and only Divine omnipotence could destroy the natural consequences of sin, such as death and evil. But to save a person without his desire, against his will, by force, was unworthy of both God, who gave freedom to a person, and a person, a free being. … The only-begotten Son of God, consubstantial with God the Father, assumed human nature, united it in His Person with the Divine and, thus, restored humanity in Himself - pure, perfect and sinless, as it was in Adam before the fall. ... He ... endured all the sorrows, sufferings and death itself assigned to man by the Truth of God, and by such a Sacrifice he fully satisfied Divine Justice for all mankind, fallen and guilty before God. Through the incarnation of God, we became brothers of the Only Begotten, became His co-heirs, united with Him, as a body with a head. ... It is on this infinite price of the Redemptive Sacrifice offered on the Cross that the right of the Redeemer is based to forgive the sins of the penitent, to purify and sanctify their souls with His blood. According to the power of Christ's merits on the cross, gifts of grace are poured out on the believers, and they are given by God to Christ and to us in Christ and through Christ Jesus.
Rev. Justin (Popovich) teaching about the immutable love of God, he emphasizes that it was not God who cursed people, but people condemned themselves by sin to death and damnation:
"The human race first condemned itself by sin to death and damnation, but God the Word, being born in the flesh, tore the robes of ancient condemnation and clothed us in incorruption."
Prot. Mikhail Pomazansky writes in Orthodox dogmatic theology about the distorted understanding of original sin by Catholicism:
"Roman Catholic theologians consider that the result of the fall was the taking away from people of the supernatural gift of the grace of God, after which the person remained in his "natural" state; his nature was not damaged, but only became confused: namely, the flesh, the bodily side, took precedence over the spiritual; original sin is that the guilt before the God of Adam and Eve passes to all people.
Orthodox theology is alien Roman Catholic point of view, characterized by a clear legal, formal character.
Orthodox theology perceives the consequences of ancestral sin in a different way.
Man after the first fall departed with his soul from God and became unreceptive to the grace of God revealed to him, ceased to hear the Divine voice addressed to him, and this led to the further rooting of sin in him.
However, God has never deprived mankind of His mercy, help, grace..
But even the Old Testament righteous could not avoid the common lot of fallen mankind after their death, staying in the darkness of hell, until the creation of the Heavenly Church, that is, until the resurrection and ascension of Christ: the Lord Jesus Christ destroyed the doors of hell and opened the way to the Kingdom of Heaven.
One cannot see the essence of sin, including original sin, only in the dominance of the carnal principle over the spiritual. as it represents Roman theology. Many sinful inclinations, moreover, severe ones, belong to the properties of the spiritual order: such is pride, which, according to the Apostle, is the source, next to lust, of general sinfulness in the world (1 Jn. 2, 15-16). Sin is also inherent in evil spirits that have no flesh at all. The word “flesh” in Holy Scripture refers to the unregenerate state, the opposite of the regenerated life in Christ: “Flesh is born of the flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit.” Of course, this does not deny the fact that a number of passions and sinful inclinations originate from the bodily nature, which is also indicated by Holy Scripture (Rom. 7 chapter). Thus, original sin is understood by Orthodox theology as a sinful inclination that has entered mankind and has become its spiritual illness.
From the Catholic doctrine of original sin comes and misunderstanding of the essence of salvation. Orthodoxy teaches that salvation consists of 1) the redemption of mankind by the Savior and 2) the purification of the soul of each person, sanctification and deification: and "He will deliver Israel from all his iniquities" (Ps. 129, 8); “for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21); “For He is our God, deliver us from our iniquities; For that is our God, deliver the world from the charm of the enemy; Thou didst free the human race from incorruption, O life and incorruption of the world, and a gift" (Octoechos' stichera).
St. Theophan the Recluse writes about the essence of salvation:
"For our salvation, it is necessary: firstly, the propitiation of God, the removal of the lawful oath from us and the return of God's favor to us; - secondly, the quickening of us, the mortification of sins, or the giving of new life to us."
Thus, God does not require "satisfaction for sins" from a person, but repentance that transforms the soul, becoming like God in righteousness. In Orthodoxy, the matter of salvation is a matter of spiritual life, purification of the heart; in Catholicism, it is a matter that is formally and legally decided by external affairs.
“This is a cardinal difference in the understanding of salvation, that salvation, according to the patristic understanding, is deliverance from sin as such, and according to the legal, juridical, deliverance from the punishment for sin,” notes Fr. Maxim Kozlov. – “According to medieval Catholic doctrine, a Christian should do good deeds not only because he needs merit (merita) to obtain a blessed life, but also in order to bring satisfaction (satisfactio) in order to avoid temporal punishments (poenae temporales).
Based on the understanding of original sin as a disorder of human nature itself, Orthodoxy claims that no good deeds can save a person if they are done mechanically, not for the sake of God and His commandments, not from the depths of a soul that humbles itself and loves God, because in this case they do not attract the grace of God, which sanctifies and cleanses the soul from all sin. On the contrary, from the Catholic understanding of original sin, the doctrine arose that, along with ordinary merits, there are super-due deeds and merits (merita superrogationis). The totality of these merits, together with the meritum Christi, forms the so-called treasury of merit or the treasury of good deeds (thesaurus meritorum or operum superrogationis), from which the Church has the right to draw to blot out the sins of her flock. From this follows the doctrine of indulgences.
Venerable Macarius of Egypt. Spiritual Conversations:
About the state of Adam before his transgression of God's commandment and after he lost both his own and the heavenly image. This conversation contains some very useful questions.
This conversation teaches that not a single person, if not supported by Christ, unable to overcome the temptations of the evil one, shows what should be done by those who desire divine glory for themselves; and yet, it teaches that through Adam's disobedience we fell into slavery to carnal passions, from which we are delivered by the sacrament of the cross; and finally, it shows how great is the power of tears and divine fire
When using the site materials reference to the source is required