That's It I"m Becoming Eastern Catholic

[abercius24]

[quote name='mortify' post='1633805' date='Aug 21 2008, 05:47 PM']Friend, with all due respect, you don't know what you're talking about.

You really don't know what you're talking about.[/quote]

Please don't pretend to hold respect when you are clearly showing disrespect. Feel free to disagree. You have every right to be wrong.

And unfortunately for your position, I have studied the Eastern Church much more than you may realize. I have found that both East and West teach the same doctrines. They just don't agree on how those doctrines should be understood and what aspects of each doctrine should be emphasized over other aspects.

For example, the Western Church teaches that a person who dies in mortal sin will suffer eternal damnation. But we leave a great amount of subjective application to that doctrine given the 3 conditions a sin must meet for it to be considered mortal (willingness, knowledge, and gravity). Even beyond that, we believe that a person who dies with perfect contrition despite having committed a mortal sin would in fact be forgiven of that sin and be washed clean by God's grace.

So how do we approach these teachings? We assume the worst is possible for most, and therefore emphasize personal accountability in each believer's spiritual walk. We invoke what many call "Catholic guilt" to help motivate people to realize the very real and destructive nature of sin and the danger such sins can ultimately lead us to. And though many chaffe at this general approach, we still teach that God's grace and mercy have a very unusual and unpredictable role in the whole scheme that each of us cannot even begin to understand. And given those underlying realities, we ultimately must trust in the work of Grace.

Now the Eastern Catholic/Orthodox will deny that they teach "mortal sin" because they don't understand sin as being a stain on the soul. Instead they gauge a soul's state based on its relationship with death -- which includes a sense of spiritual death. And in all cases death exists where there is a lack of grace. They see the presence of grace as an infusion of God's life into a dead person. They also see no need to differentiate between venial and mortal sin because what ultimately matters is whether or not the soul is alive in grace or dead in sin. And as we teach at the base of our shared doctrines, what determines the soul's state is one's willful participation in God's grace through the sacraments. So given that grace and a life in Christ is the key to salvation, the Eastern Church emphasizes a believer's need to envelop their being into God's grace through deep, spiritual worship, which will lead to God's victory over the hold sin has on an individual. If one gives themself to God's grace, God's grace will lead them to salvation.

But despite what the East and West teach, and how they formulate these doctrinal truths, we both teach the core truths of the doctrine of salvation:
--That individual accountability is important
--That each individual must abandon themselves to God's grace
--That salvation is found through grace alone
--That grace is a gift from God
--Grace is what makes us alive in Christ
--A refusal of grace and a stubborn love of sin (of the created over the Creator) causes a soul to exist in death and ultimately damnation

But when we in the West hold on to our formulations of mortal vs. venial sin, we forget those other underlying truths regarding the power of abandonement and grace that our formulation does not entirely account for. And when we encounter the East who has an understanding that lacks those formulations, many of us try to push that understanding on them. But we must remember that the East DOES teach the essence of mortal and venial sin without making the strict distrinctions we have made to help us understand the doctrine.

And Apotheoun will disagree with the way in which I have explained things here. I believe that is because I am trying to explain things from a Western perspective, which is difficult to translate through. But we still agree upon the basics of the doctrine despite our insignificant disagreements.

Edited August 23, 2008 by abercius24