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Originally Posted by Rob Instigator
Hey suchfriends, I think you are a member of the Coptic Christians right? Is that right? I was curious, do the Orthodox christians (Eastern Orthodox, Ethiopian, Greek, etc.) still believe in the tri-partite conception of man? That man is a "trinity" like the godhead? Mind, sol, spirit? The roman catholics (assholes one and all) chose to exclude the "spirit" aspect of man, leaving uis with just a mind and a soul. The "spirit" is supposed to be an aspect of the Holy Spirit, part of the godhead's trinity.
The Roman Catholics try to foool everyone into thinking they are born sinners, and tainted, and hell-bound, and they took away the idea that all humans have a bit of the Holy Spirit in us, making us divine creatures. Fuck I hate the Roman Catholics.
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As a card-carrying member of the Coptic/Ethiopian Orthodox Church I can say that the heresy of the threefold division of the human person is not "Orthodox" in teaching. The Orthodox Churches, be they the Orientals like me or the Byzantine Eastern Orthodox (Greeks, Russians, Georgians, Ukrainians) teach that the human person is a composite of two parts, spiritual and physical. HOWEVER, these are never separated. The human soul defines the physical body sort of like spiritual DNA however, ontologically speaking, the human soul exists through the body. They are fundamentally interconnected, hence the dogma of the Christian Resurrection of the Body. The human body is such an integral aspect of the human soul that they should be considered mutual. What a deep question btw, I guess that is why I am the resident SYG theologian
You are discussing a different concept, though, one of "Original Sin" and indeed those pesky Romans got all mixed up in heresy which is why the Orientals separated from Rome in 451AD and never looked back. The human existence is indeed divided into two components, body or mind and soul. The concept of Original Sin in the Orthodox conception is better thought of in English as "Ancestral Sin." In the Catholic doctrine, human "nature" is some how structurally damaged by sin, so that ALL of humanity are universally damaged. However, nature can't be changed, human nature is what is is since Creation. We were Created a particular way, and this is our "nature" in the terms of theology. Our nature is to be spiritual-physical beings, to unite the spiritual and physical realms. Our mind is the measuring tool of our physicality, it is the connection point between the body and soul. In theologically abstract or poetic terms the "soul" resides in the "heart" of man. However, through Ancestral Sin, ontologically speaking, the original ancestors Adam and Eve introduced sin into Creation. Afterwards, Creation was forever altered towards the negative. Human nature remains intact, but Creation itself is altered. Sort of like the Greek myth of Pandora's Box, it can't be closed again after its been opened. What was done was done. Sin is sin. Sin is simply when human beings make decisions separate from the Will of God. In the story in Genesis, Adam and Eve lived with God. God is a person with His own personality and will/desire. Man was created to serve the Will of God, and in that story man became self-seeking rather than serving God. This is what "sin" was. It is the "Original Sin" because it was the first one. Now? Sin exists, and its always an option in this equation called life. What has changed about human experience is not our nature, but our experience. Now we all have the option to reject God, to commit sin. This is what the Catholics imply by Original Sin, but they talk about it being something structural in humanity, part of our nature. The Orientals disagree. Human nature is fine, but clearly human beings still make decisions. Its a consequence of sin existing, but not our nature.
What the Orthodox Patristic Fathers taught which is unique and NOT Roman Catholic, is that at the moment of Ancestral Sin there was a fracture in the human experience. The heart/soul and mind were fractured and temporarily separated. The mind doesn't have enough strength of character to operate without the heart/soul. EVERY HUMAN BEING KNOWS WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT WHEN I SAY HEART OR SOUL. It is that transcendentally human experience of feeling, not thinking, sometimes called intuition or "your gut." Your gut and your mind are often at odds, but as most humans know from day to day experience, ALWAYS GO WITH YOUR GUT.
In the Orthodox theology, the function of Baptism is not to restore human nature as in the Roman Catholic teaching, rather, to restore the break, to heal the fracture, to renew the human person to that state of Grace in Eden. We are not structurally flawed, our nature is not the problem, but our day to day reality is tainted by our continual ability to make bad decisions using our minds/bodies. This is what the Romans call Concupiscence which is the ability or agency towards sin. It means we have the option, but to say that sin is part of human nature as the Romans teach in their heresy of "Original Sin" is that humans essentially ALWAYS sin by nature, and the good parts of humanity are a gift solely from God. The Orthodox Church disagrees, humans are not sinners by nature, but we have introduced sin into nature and it becomes an eternally available option after the fact, which is what is again called Concupiscence.