Ancestral Sin as Inherited Mortality Rather Than Inherited Guilt, Beliefs & Restrictions
Standing
Concerns Point in Dispute
Currently States How far the Eastern and Latin accounts genuinely conflict, and how much of the difference is one of vocabulary and emphasis, is itself argued.
The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches teach that Adam's descendants inherit mortality and a nature bent toward sin, but not the guilt of his act itself, which they hold to be personal and non-transferable; the Latin tradition, following Augustine, has instead spoken of an inherited state of sin removed by baptism. John Meyendorff's standard survey of Orthodox theology traces how this difference in starting point reaches into further disagreements, over the meaning of baptism, over the nature of grace, and over the Latin doctrine of Mary's immaculate conception, which addresses a problem the Eastern framework does not pose in the same terms. How far the two accounts genuinely conflict, rather than expressing the same underlying conviction in different theological vocabularies shaped by Greek and Latin patristic traditions respectively, is itself argued among theologians on both sides. The question has not been settled because it depends on how much weight is given to vocabulary versus substance in comparing two theological traditions that developed largely independently of each other after the early centuries.
Source Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes, John Meyendorff