Can you read through this and see if it answers your question any better?
Let me know. I don't want to write reams of material that miss the point, which seems to be the narrow one of 'Why the cross?'.
I will add, as comment on some posts in this thread, that St Athanasius, St Cyril and St Severus do not speak of God's wrath and His being offended with an infinite offence. Rather they write with a great sense of the love of God, and His desire to save man who had fallen away from life.
These Fathers do not believe that the nature of man was made corrupt in the Fall, rather that man lost the grace of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and was left in his natural mortal and corruptible state. Each of us, they teach, is born corruptible, but not sinful or corrupt. Each of us is born without grace, but not because we are ourselves born sinners, rather because we are also subject to that loss of Divine grace which came upon all mankind because of Adam's fault.
We become sinners and corrupt ourselves through our own sinful choices. Indeed they are clear that sin has no existence at all. It is not a reality in itself, rather it is the wrong exercise of our human will. A turning away from God to our own pleasure.
Left without the grace of God mankind faces an increasing dissolution since from dust we came and to dust we return. But God did not will that His creation should face such an end and Himself became man in our condition, mortal and corruptible (though not corrupt), so that He could renew the relationship of man with God, and receive the Holy Spirit back into union with man. Death is the enemy not man. Christ sacrifices Himself for man's sake, not to satisfy an angry God - for God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.
Why the cross? St Athanasius makes some suggestions. Try and read the version I linked to.
Can I ask you also to view this: and tell me what you think??
I feel that Dr. Mikhail has gone beyond looking at Christ's death as merely a penal substitution, yet he has stressed in his videos the need for us to be given life through Christ's death. Again, I do NOT entirely understand his point about how Christ's death (from his videos) gives us life OTHER than paying the Divine Justice (as expressed by St Athanasious's works).
Could you kindly go through the videos and tell me what you think??
I know that this is a contentious issue, but I really want to understand this topic well. (thanks for your patience by the way!).
I know also, despite my ignorance in Theology, that the Greek Orthodox Church would tend to agree with Dr. Mikhail. I know this, because I've asked Greek Orthodox Theologians. (I mean, REAL Theologians).
They seem to take the same view of salvation as Dr. Mikhail: That Christ's suffering was MORE than just penal substitution - it was to give us "an injection of life". How??? I DO NOT KNOW.
Why did Dr. Mikhail make this video??? (or videoS)?? he made them to respond against "Medievil" (as he puts it) philosophy in our Church that came from Anselm: i.e. that Christ's death and suffering was SOLELY to repay the Divine Justice (as if God the Father needed to see blood to forgive).
Now, I'm no theologian, but this is REALLY inherent in our faith to understand and to get to grips with basic theology: WHY CHRIST CAME TO DIE.
Every Christian should know this. However, having said this, although I do not understand COMPLETELY dr. Mikhail's perspective (probably due to my ignorance and impatience in listening to EVERY video), I do prefer his viewpoint than what we have been given by the Orthodox Church: That Christ's death was solely there to repay the debt to the Father. That the punishment had to be proportional to the offended party's status. (Anselm).
He also quotes from St. Athanasious in his video, yet he draws different conclusions... and frankly, this entire topic is not only interesting, but it is REALLY mind-boggling.
I really trust your opinion Fr Peter, and I really value your input.
((( Oh!! I forgot to mention: Now, I know that Dr. Mina talks about Theosis... that's a huge topic. I am not going to delve into that in this thread... I'm still trying to grapple with Why Christ died on the Cross. Please therefore, whether you agree/disagree with him about Theosis, can we just focus on the issue at hand)))?
Mark 8:31 (NKJV): Jesus Predicts His Death and Resurrection. 31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
Trying to express this as I understand it: In essence Christ is the Word incarnate (Son and man). He is God, and because He is infinite as a direct consequence His suffering and death are also infinite thus encompassing and benefiting all human beings (past, present and future) who believe in Him.
As God is infinitely just and He is Truth, without His Salvation we are all surely sanctioned to perish, carrying this corrupted sinful human nature of ours. He passed over our corrupted nature and renewed it. He trampled death by His death and His resurrection. He set us free from death and from the curse of being indefinitely apart from God, i.e. under the dominion of evil and its cursed prince.
Romans 6:10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;
1 Corinthians 15:3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ..
1 Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
2 Corinthians 5:15 ..and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
The Lamb of God, the perfectly Holy and Life Giver Word has died instead of man and rose from death for everyone. He reconciled us with the Holy Trinity, renewed us and changed our nature (body and spirit) to be candidate for the ultimate everlasting heavenly state, and has reopened the door of Heaven, to the newer and glorious Heavenly Jerusalem.
1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
There are definitely huge amounts of sermons and explanations on this very important matter throughout human history BC and AD in all ages. Only God Himself could save the humanity He created on His image and out of infinite Love He did. It is indeed the greatest of all works of God.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Your post, although I appreciate your response, is not focusing on the question I have asked.
It really does not add anything to the discussion, and it is what we already know. Although Saint Athanasious does mention WHY Christ suffered, and why He was punished, we are now looking at the videos on Divine Justice that argue that there was MORE to Christ's death than just PENAL SUBSTITUTION.
All the information you provide was related to Penal Substitution. It was / how we were taught in Church.
The videos from Mr Mikhail argue that Christ's death was MORE than this. I did not understand from his videos what exactly is extra about Christ's death OTHER than Penal Substitution, but it so happens that his understanding is completely in accordance with the Greek Orthodox Church.
As far as I am aware, the Greek Orthodox Church does not nullify the fact that Justice had to be served, but it does not use Anselm, nor really believe in it (please correct me if I'm wrong).
And what Mr Mikhail is suggesting is that our Orthodox faith WAS not based on Anselm, we only adopted this philosophy to explain something that was BETTER explained before Anselm's period.
I still yet have not completely understood from Mr Mikhail's videos where/how/why Christ's death gives us life. Perhaps I've missed the point, or perhaps I need to re-view the videos again.
I appreciate Fr. Peter's link to the works of St. Athanasious on the Incarnation of the Word. This is truely helpful as the translation I had was pretty much worthless. I can see from St Athnasious that there are reasons (good reasons) why Christ chose to die on the cross. However, all these reasons are related to penal substitution.
Therefore, before I conclude that Christ's death was SOLELY to pay the Divine Justice, can you see Mr Mikhail's videos and tell me that there is nothing else missing from this belief?
It seems to me, from my study of St Cyril and St Severus (which I am not suggesting is comprehensive), that the Anselmian notion of Penal Substitution is very far from their own Orthodox teaching. Indeed I do not believe it is Orthodox at all.
This does not mean that there is not a place for an understanding of God's just and righteous judgement against sin, his hatred and condemnation of sin, his punishment of those who turn to darkness and harden their hearts. But this is not what Anselm teaches. The more I study our own Orthodox Fathers - St Athanasius, St Cyril and St Severus - the more I am filled with their own sense of the deep and abiding love of God for mankind, and the sense that the whole of the Holy Trinity is involved in earnestly desiring the renewal of mankind in life above all else. The idea that one of the Holy Trinity had to somehow become an object of hatred by another is far, far from Orthodox.
I will not fill this forum with extensive passages from the Fathers, but I can do if necessary, and perhaps I will write a paper explaining my understanding. I need to write something for the next edition of the British Orthodox Glastonbury Review in any case. But I will try to summarise my understanding.
God, the Holy Trinity, created man as the object of divine love. Looking upon Adam and Eve He said that what He had created was good. Man was created from dust, and like all created beings was naturally mortal and corruptible (corruptible is not the same as corrupt). But Adam and Eve received the breath of life, the Holy Spirit, who was breathed into them and granted them the gift of immortality and incorruptibility. This blessed life in the Garden of Eden was contingent upon one thing only, that the law of God which said 'you shall not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil' was not broken. As long as Adam and Eve preserved themselves in obedience they retained the gift of the Holy Spirit, and would have lived for ever in a state of happiness with God.
But Adam and Eve were tempted, and by the exercise of their own free will they chose to satisfy their own pleasure, and by choosing other than God's will they fell into sin. Sin is nothing other than the exercise of the human will apart from God. The Fathers are very clear that sin has no existence at all. It is a wrong choice. A choice for self and not for God. When Adam and Eve chose other than God they broke the one command they had been given, and the curse fell upon them. Dust you are and to dust you shall return.
The Holy Spirit withdrew from Adam and Eve, it cannot dwell where there is sin. Adam and Eve found themselves left in their own human nature - mortal and corruptible. Human nature was not changed. St Cyril and St Severus are absolutely insistent that our human nature has not become corrupted. But our hearts are without the stabilising grace of the Holy Spirit and our wills are shot to pieces, choosing other than God all the time. Yet even when the curse fell upon Adam and Eve our Fathers teach us that this was an exercise of God's mercy and love. It would have been a terrible thing if mankind was allowed an immortality in sin, and so the length of a man's life was cut short by his natural mortality. Even more, God granted that the soul of a man might retain the gift of immortality so that it would always be drawn beyond itself to the spiritual heights of heaven - which is why every man is filled with a yearning for that which is eternal.
Cast out of Eden, man was doomed to suffer, to hunger and thirst, and eventually to suffer a bodily death. Yet there was a greater doom, since having lost the Holy Spirit he was already in a state of absolute death, of separation from God.
Each of us is born into this condition of mortality and corruptibility. But we are not born sinners. We are not born corrupt. Our human nature is as it was when God created it and saw that it was good. Yet because we lack grace and the Holy Spirit we all of us find that our will is turned this way and that and quickly finds itself bound by sinful habit, ignorance and self-love. We are born mortal, but not sinners. We choose to sin.
Yet we are still under the curse and in the power of death. Not even so much the death of our bodies but the death of separation from Life, from God Himself who was the true life of Adam and desired to be the true life of all mankind. The ultimate problem which mankind faces is the righteous judgement laid upon Adam which we all suffer the consequences of. Even if each one of us stopped sinning, or somehow had never sinned throughout our whole lives we would still be lost, not because our humanity is corrupt and sinful - this is absolutely rejected by the Orthodox Fathers - but because we are all in a state of gracelessness, and we all naturally lack the Holy Spirit. Even a sinless man would suffer all of our human frailities and would die. Even a sinless man would be left apart from God for eternity, because all of mankind is in the state in which God's judgement upon Adam left us - we are mortal and corruptible and do not have the breath of Life in us.
When the Holy Trinity willed to save mankind from this state it was not possible that the curse be lifted simply as an exercise of mercy. As has been said elsewhere in this thread, the mercy and righteousness of God must both be satisfied. But the Fathers do not teach that God was so angry, or filled with such wrath, that only a divine sacrifice could appease Him. Far from it. The work of salvation is the will of the whole Trinity, which loves man and wished his salvation.
No mere man could save man, because even a perfectly holy life could not take away the curse which was justly spoken. Rather, it was necessary that a new humanity be created, not by changing the substance of our humanity, but by renewing the divine relationship with man so that the Holy Spirit could once more take up a habitation in our hearts and souls.
The Word Himself became man as we are, save for sin. This means that he took our own humanity from the Virgin Mary, a humanity which was mortal and corruptible, but not corrupt. It was liable to suffer, to hunger and thirst, and to die. If he was to save mankind then he must unite our own humanity to himself, and not some other humanity that was not in our situation. Being mortal and corruptible it was found in the state of being under the curse of God. He shared our own condition, caused by sin, by Adam's sin, but he never chose other than the will of God, and therefore there was never any sin in him, and though his body was physically corruptible and liable to suffering and blamesless passions such as hunger, there was never any trace of the moral passions which we allow to grow and flourish in our own hearts.
The Fathers teach us that one of the reasons why our Lord took our humanity by means of a Virgin Birth was not because he had anything but the highest regard for the sancitity and holiness of marriage, but because he wanted to show that he was the firstfruits, the founder, of a new spiritual humanity in which those who were to be united with him would be sons and daughters of God.
What did the Word do in his incarnation? The Fathers teach us that it was necessary that he lived out our human life in obedience. He is described many times as 'taking up the fight which Adam lost'. So we must understand the incarnation as replaying what happened in Eden. In the Garden, Adam, the man who held our human destiny in his hands, blew it in a big way. Now in his earthly life, and clearly in the Garden of Gethsemane, the same contest happens again, but this time Christ, the Word Incarnate says 'Your will be done'. The failure of Adam had been redeemed in the obedience of Christ.
But this was not enough. A perfect human life had been lived in obedience, which was the basis for the renewal of man's relationship with God. But the curse remained. The curse was not an act if God's implacable anger, but a necessary provision for the salvation of man. Therefore it was necessary that the power of death, true death, be broken by an exercise of power by the one who is true life. Death needed to be destroyed from within. And to be destroyed from within it needed to be experienced by one who was mortal and subject to death, therefore the Word became mortal in our own humanity.
We see several features in his death. He died on the cross, which the Holy Spirit had inspired the prophets to speak of as a cursed manner of death. He was lifted up into the air, as Moses lifted up the golden serpent in the desert for the healing of the people. He was unjustly accused of sin when there was no sin in him at all. Even in his burial he was laid in a borrowed tomb, signifiying that the death he endured was not his own but was that which was due to us.
If he sacrificed himself, and he said, 'No-one takes my life, but I lay it down', then who did he sacrifice himself to? Certainly not the Father, who had sent him to do this work of salvation - for God so loved the world. Certainly not to the Devil - the prince of this world has nothing in me. But surely he offered himself as a sacrifice of love for us. He did not die INSTEAD of us - because we were already dead. But he died WITH us so that we might live, might experience his life.
What happened when He died? In the first place he experienced that separation of body and soul which we call death. His soul descended to Hades (which I will not attempt to define) and brought out the souls of the righteous to Paradise (which I will not attempt to define). His body was preserved free from corruption - as the Fathers teach us - and as it is written in the Psalms. Then on the third day, by an exercise of his power, he destroyed death. A holy man destroyed the power of death. The curse had not been taken away, in the sense of being quietly forgotten. Rather the Word Incarnate, as a mortal man, died and then came out the other side.
A holy man, a perfect man, could not achieve this. The best he could have achieved was a sad commendation by God, well done, but sorry you are still cursed, you are still separated from God by true death. But the Word Incarnate could not only live a holy life, but he could die, and more than that he could raise himself from death.
But what does it mean for us? It means that a man, the Divine man, representing all of mankind, has made a way through death to life for us all. This Divine man has a humanity which is filled with resurrection life, true Life, and with the Holy Spirit. Now we can be united with this man and be born again into a new humanity. His life becomes our own. We participate in this life by faith and by the sacraments. These renew in us the presence of the Holy Spirit. He dwells in us not because we are perfect and holy but because Christ is and we belong to Christ. By faith we cast ourselves in humility before God alone and ask Him to have mercy on us. By baptism and chrismation God unites us to Christ and we receive the benefits which He has won for mankind. We receive the Holy Spirit who is our life, our true life. Death is overcome for us and in us. Our turning to God in faith and repentance allows God to forgive our sins, but forgiveness of sins is not all that we need. We need both forgiveness AND the life of the Holy Spirit. Our sins are forgiven because Christ, the Word Incarnate, has taken upon himself our death and in swallowing up the power of death over us he has taken away the power of the curse and has made it possible for our sins to be forgiven. He has lived an obedient life on our behalf - as Adam could have done but did not. And so we are able to say - do not look at my sins, Lord, but look at the obedience and holiness of your own son.
So why do we still die? Well the curse has not gone away. It was and is a righteous judgement against sin and against man who sins. It had an effect because of Adam, and that effect persists. We are mortal and die as mortals. But by faith and the sacraments we are united with God and follow Christ through mortal death to life. We have already received the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that we will rise to true life, because the Holy Spirit does not dwell in those who are subject to death. If we have any experience of the Holy Spirit at all then we can have faith that what has been begun will come to fulness and fruition in the life beyond death. Our sins have been forgiven because Christ has offered himself as a man who has done no sin, and who bears the consequences of our sin himself. He entered our death and took it upon himself.
But Christ has made a way for us through death to life. We follow in his footsteps. We are baptised, we fast and pray, we allow ourselves to be despised and treated as dead in the eyes of the world, we suffer and eventually we die. But this is not the end, it is the means of passing beyond the power of the just judgement of God and being restored to the place of blessing and life.
Christ did not die to satisfy God's anger. He died to manifest God's love. He died for us all, not standing in our place in the face of an infinite wrath, though we must not forget that God is indeed angered by our sin, and did indeed bring a just judgement and chastisement upon Adam and us all, but even before the judgement was made God had already - as our Fathers clearly teach - prepared a way of salvation to deal with the outcome of Adam's sin, which he forsaw. He has always acted in love towards us, even before he created us, and even when Adam sinned.
If we are found in Christ then mortal death holds no fears. It is the path to life. It frees us from the power of the curse and brings us to the place of promise. We can experience this now, if we are faithful. Life in the midst of death. Life in the face of death. Life with power over death. If I die surely I will live.
The teaching of Anselm reminds us that we should not diminish the offence of sin in the eyes of God. It is death to us. It is the opposite of life and therefore is anti-God. It repels God. But we should not turn to Anselm to remind ourselves of the cost of our sin, and its offensiveness. He is not Orthodox. He teaches a deformed Christianity. We must always turn back to our own Orthodox and trusted Fathers and see how they explain these things. And we can find much in our own Fathers about the seriousness of sin. We should not base our theology on a Roman Catholic teacher, this will lead to imbalance.
No mere man could save us. The judgement of God against us was indeed an infinite judgement which could not be overturned. But it was always the judgement of a loving Father, not an angry, wrathful and distant deity. Only the Word Incarnate could overcome the divine judgement by participating with us in the outcome of that judgement, by living with us and for us, by dying with us and for us, and by rising to new life in the Holy Spirit for us. God is love, not wrath. 'God so loved the world', not was 'so angry with the world'.
My every sin deserves death and is a slap in God's face. But God knows what I am like. Christ knows what I am like. Yet still I am offered new life in Christ. He allows me to share in his renewed humanity though there is nothing in me that warrants such kindness. All of this demonstrates to me the overwhelming love of God towards us.
Penal substitution as popularly taught does not do justice to God's love, nor is it rooted in the teaching of the true and Orthodox Fathers. This is not the teaching of St Athanasius, St Cyril or St Severus. Justice indeed had to be served, and the Fathers are constant in this theme, God could not simply overturn His judgement, but this is never because he is so angry, or because he is offended. He knew what we were like before he made us, nothing is a surprise. Even his judgement is a mercy, as St Severus and St Cyril teach us. And even while he was angry with a righteous indignation against Adam and Eve, and against each one of us who follows them in sin, nevertheless he was always loving with a perfect love towards those he had created and chastised them and us rather than punishing us as we truly deserved.
I could write much more, but I hope that this short summary explains at least my own understanding of these things.
God bless all who seek to understand the truth, may the Holy Spirit lead us into truth
if anyone ever dared to think my posts were useless or worthless, let this thread and Fr. Peter's response to it put them to shame.
Thanks Fr. Peter. Please see the videos of Mr. Mikhail, and tell me what you think. Your explanation is brilliant and what I was looking for and is not clearly talked about.
I think I am beginning to understand better now the ideas of Mr Mikhail.
Thank you father for your post, it summarizes a lot and is written in a very understandable and clear manner, but some questions remain:
Why were we born with the curse that was the result of Adam's sin? Why don't we all get the chance/choice to reject God's will and LOSE the grace of the indwelling Holy Spirit as Adam did?
Also, you mentioned that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit made Adam and Eve immortal and incorruptible (you must mean physically incorruptible, because morally they had to remain corruptible, otherwise there would have been no free will) , once they lost this grace, they became mortal and corruptible...
1. what exactly is the difference between being (physically) corruptible and being mortal? 2. in the quote I gave below you mention a consequence of us losing the indwelling of the Holy Spriti (our wills choosing that which is not according to God) yet Adam did that while he STILL had the Holy Spirit. So if our human nature didn't change, and we simply became separated from God, what exactly happens to our will? our freedom? does it become weaker? (what about after we regain the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? (through baptism and chrismation wit Myron oil)
"But our hearts are without the stabilising grace of the Holy Spirit and our wills are shot to pieces, choosing other than God all the time."
We are born under the curse that was the result of Adam's sin because we are subject to the consequences of our fore-father's actions. This is something which is the case for all of us as humans living in human families. My own ancestor was born in France and left that country in about 1845. I live with the consequences of his choice and I am English. I cannot say, 'Why can't I be French', because the fact that my ancestor left France 150 years ago has consequences I must live with.
We can imagine a man who is an important official in a king's court. He is very wealthy and lives in luxury. The king trusts him with all that he owns, and he is able to come into the king's presence whenever he chooses. Let us say that this official commits some act which causes the king to cast him out from the court and exile him in a small village far from civilisation. He loses all of his wealth and when he tries to enter into the king's presence one last time the soldiers on guard no longer step aside but brandish their swords.
Now after many years the descendants of this official are still living in poverty in their remote village, but they remember that one of their ancestors was once very wealthy. Now it would not be reasonable for them to insist that they should have inherited the wealth and important position which their ancestor had lost. It has been lost and they have been born into a world changed by his actions and face the consequences which he caused.
We might say that we would have been a better servant of the king and should be given a chance to prove ourselves, but the king is under no obligation to allow each one of us to enjoy the position which our forefather had lost. He brought poverty upon his whole family. Indeed when we make the difficult journey to the court and seek to approach the king we are not allowed access because we are not officials of the court but are poor, dirty and ignorant peasants and have no place in the court.
Surely this is the same for all of us in regard to Adam's sin? He is our fore-father and the world has changed because of what he did.
Also I am not sure that 'curse' is the best word. Though I used it myself. The Fathers speak rather of a judgement or sentence. God cursed the ground so that Adam would have to work hard, but he did not curse Adam in Genesis 3. But God did issue a judgement which changed the universe. We are the children of our father Adam and so we are born into the situation he caused. If he brought us to poverty then that is not our fault but it is the situation we are born into.
We don't get the chance to replay the Garden of Eden because it is too late. The Holy Spirit has departed. Each of us is born without the breath of life. If we ask why then the answer is because our father Adam threw away the gift that he had been given. Our father Adam squandered the riches which might have been our inheritance. It is not our fault, but it is the condition we find ourselves in.
I am not sure that Adam and Eve were not granted moral incorruptibility by the presence of the Holy Spirit. It seems to me, and this point is my own opinion at present, I will need to study more, but it seems to me that moral incorruptibility does not preclude free will, which I think is essential to human nature. I wonder rather if the Holy Spirit reinforces the choice for God and that the gift of the Holy Spirit makes possible a moral incorruptibility, a preservation of moral purity. Indeed the Fathers do teach that had Adam and Eve remained in the will of God they would have always enjoyed the blessing of Paradise. It was therefore possible that by the Holy Spirit Adam and Eve could have remained without sin and that the Holy Spirit would have reinforced this choice for God so that it became habitual without denying free will. In fact we see that they were granted immortality, but this also was not absolute, and they lost this immortality when they sinned.
The great saints come more and more to give over their whole lives to obedience and enter as far as is possible into the experience of moral incorruptibility, which seems to me to mean that their wills are set to be habitually obedient, yet this does not mean that it is not possible for them to sin, their moral incorruptibility is not absolute but is a function of their co-operation with the Holy Spirit. To him who has, more will be given. I think this applies to the one who gives himself or herself in obedience. The first steps of obedience are rewarded with grace to be more obedient.
As to the other questions, I think that being physically corruptible is a characteristic of being mortal, and being mortal is a characteristic of all created physical beings. To be corruptible means to be liable to physical weakness and necessity. Because we are mortal and physically corruptible we hunger, thirst, grow tired, are afraid etc etc. Because we are mortal we are slowing falling to pieces and we return to the dust from which we came.
If Adam chose evil when he had the Holy Spirit then our own wills are in a much more weakened state. Indeed the Fathers speak about how through our senses the will is led astray in all manner of directions. When we see things we lust after them, when we smell and taste things we become gluttons. It is very hard for a man without the Holy Spirit to choose what is good let alone to be constant in desiring the will of God. We only have to look at the world around us to see what humanity without God is like.
But you are right, when we receive the Holy Spirit in baptism and chrismation, and in the eucharist, we have the possibility of growing into moral incorruptibility. Though we are not in the same situation as Adam because we have a body that is still mortal and weakened in many ways. If we read the lives of the Desert Fathers and Mothers then we can see what is possible. By the grace of the Holy Spirit we can be obedient. We can turn our wills towards God if we ask for grace, we cannot do it in our own strength. It is a process that begins with baptism (even before baptism for those who are converts) and continues through our mortal death into resurrection. We may only experience the fulness of resurrection in a partial way this side of our own resurrection, but we can genuinely experience a growth in the stability of our will by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Indeed the more we turn to God the more we experience true freedom of will. Free will is not choosing sin, but choosing God. To choose God always is to enter into the freedom of moral incorruptibility.
Without judging others I think that if we consider the concerns of those who post here as Orthodox Christians with the language and concerns that are found on so many other forums where non-Christians post I think it is possible to see that there is more than a difference of habit, but that something truly and genuinely takes place in the heart of one who gives themselves over wholeheartedly to God. The Holy Spirit does make a difference, and those who truly seek Christ experience now some foretaste of the life in Paradise which God has promised those who love him.
Comments
The original book was written IN GREEK. So there are many translations.
http://www.spurgeon.org/~phil/history/ath-inc.htm#ch_4
Can you read through this and see if it answers your question any better?
Let me know. I don't want to write reams of material that miss the point, which seems to be the narrow one of 'Why the cross?'.
I will add, as comment on some posts in this thread, that St Athanasius, St Cyril and St Severus do not speak of God's wrath and His being offended with an infinite offence. Rather they write with a great sense of the love of God, and His desire to save man who had fallen away from life.
These Fathers do not believe that the nature of man was made corrupt in the Fall, rather that man lost the grace of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and was left in his natural mortal and corruptible state. Each of us, they teach, is born corruptible, but not sinful or corrupt. Each of us is born without grace, but not because we are ourselves born sinners, rather because we are also subject to that loss of Divine grace which came upon all mankind because of Adam's fault.
We become sinners and corrupt ourselves through our own sinful choices. Indeed they are clear that sin has no existence at all. It is not a reality in itself, rather it is the wrong exercise of our human will. A turning away from God to our own pleasure.
Left without the grace of God mankind faces an increasing dissolution since from dust we came and to dust we return. But God did not will that His creation should face such an end and Himself became man in our condition, mortal and corruptible (though not corrupt), so that He could renew the relationship of man with God, and receive the Holy Spirit back into union with man. Death is the enemy not man. Christ sacrifices Himself for man's sake, not to satisfy an angry God - for God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.
Why the cross? St Athanasius makes some suggestions. Try and read the version I linked to.
Father Peter
I think the translation I had was really poorly done.
The one you sent makes it much clearer to read.
http://www.archive.org/details/AthanasiusIncarnation
together with many other patristic texts also in freely available audio format.
God bless
Father Peter
Can I ask you also to view this:
I feel that Dr. Mikhail has gone beyond looking at Christ's death as merely a penal substitution, yet he has stressed in his videos the need for us to be given life through Christ's death. Again, I do NOT entirely understand his point about how Christ's death (from his videos) gives us life OTHER than paying the Divine Justice (as expressed by St Athanasious's works).
Could you kindly go through the videos and tell me what you think??
I know that this is a contentious issue, but I really want to understand this topic well. (thanks for your patience by the way!).
I know also, despite my ignorance in Theology, that the Greek Orthodox Church would tend to agree with Dr. Mikhail. I know this, because I've asked Greek Orthodox Theologians. (I mean, REAL Theologians).
They seem to take the same view of salvation as Dr. Mikhail: That Christ's suffering was MORE than just penal substitution - it was to give us "an injection of life". How??? I DO NOT KNOW.
Why did Dr. Mikhail make this video??? (or videoS)?? he made them to respond against "Medievil" (as he puts it) philosophy in our Church that came from Anselm: i.e. that Christ's death and suffering was SOLELY to repay the Divine Justice (as if God the Father needed to see blood to forgive).
Now, I'm no theologian, but this is REALLY inherent in our faith to understand and to get to grips with basic theology: WHY CHRIST CAME TO DIE.
Every Christian should know this. However, having said this, although I do not understand COMPLETELY dr. Mikhail's perspective (probably due to my ignorance and impatience in listening to EVERY video), I do prefer his viewpoint than what we have been given by the Orthodox Church: That Christ's death was solely there to repay the debt to the Father. That the punishment had to be proportional to the offended party's status. (Anselm).
He also quotes from St. Athanasious in his video, yet he draws different conclusions... and frankly, this entire topic is not only interesting, but it is REALLY mind-boggling.
I really trust your opinion Fr Peter, and I really value your input.
((( Oh!! I forgot to mention: Now, I know that Dr. Mina talks about Theosis... that's a huge topic. I am not going to delve into that in this thread... I'm still trying to grapple with Why Christ died on the Cross. Please therefore, whether you agree/disagree with him about Theosis, can we just focus on the issue at hand)))?
Thanks
Mark 8:31 (NKJV): Jesus Predicts His Death and Resurrection.
31 And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
Trying to express this as I understand it:
In essence Christ is the Word incarnate (Son and man). He is God, and because He is infinite as a direct consequence His suffering and death are also infinite thus encompassing and benefiting all human beings (past, present and future) who believe in Him.
As God is infinitely just and He is Truth, without His Salvation we are all surely sanctioned to perish, carrying this corrupted sinful human nature of ours. He passed over our corrupted nature and renewed it. He trampled death by His death and His resurrection. He set us free from death and from the curse of being indefinitely apart from God, i.e. under the dominion of evil and its cursed prince.
Romans 6:10
For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
2 Corinthians 5:14
For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;
1 Corinthians 15:3
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ..
1 Corinthians 15:22
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
2 Corinthians 5:15
..and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
The Lamb of God, the perfectly Holy and Life Giver Word has died instead of man and rose from death for everyone. He reconciled us with the Holy Trinity, renewed us and changed our nature (body and spirit) to be candidate for the ultimate everlasting heavenly state, and has reopened the door of Heaven, to the newer and glorious Heavenly Jerusalem.
1 Corinthians 2:9
But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
There are definitely huge amounts of sermons and explanations on this very important matter throughout human history BC and AD in all ages. Only God Himself could save the humanity He created on His image and out of infinite Love He did. It is indeed the greatest of all works of God.
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
GBU
Your post, although I appreciate your response, is not focusing on the question I have asked.
It really does not add anything to the discussion, and it is what we already know. Although Saint Athanasious does mention WHY Christ suffered, and why He was punished, we are now looking at the videos on Divine Justice that argue that there was MORE to Christ's death than just PENAL SUBSTITUTION.
All the information you provide was related to Penal Substitution. It was / how we were taught in Church.
The videos from Mr Mikhail argue that Christ's death was MORE than this. I did not understand from his videos what exactly is extra about Christ's death OTHER than Penal Substitution, but it so happens that his understanding is completely in accordance with the Greek Orthodox Church.
As far as I am aware, the Greek Orthodox Church does not nullify the fact that Justice had to be served, but it does not use Anselm, nor really believe in it (please correct me if I'm wrong).
And what Mr Mikhail is suggesting is that our Orthodox faith WAS not based on Anselm, we only adopted this philosophy to explain something that was BETTER explained before Anselm's period.
I still yet have not completely understood from Mr Mikhail's videos where/how/why Christ's death gives us life. Perhaps I've missed the point, or perhaps I need to re-view the videos again.
I appreciate Fr. Peter's link to the works of St. Athanasious on the Incarnation of the Word. This is truely helpful as the translation I had was pretty much worthless. I can see from St Athnasious that there are reasons (good reasons) why Christ chose to die on the cross. However, all these reasons are related to penal substitution.
Therefore, before I conclude that Christ's death was SOLELY to pay the Divine Justice, can you see Mr Mikhail's videos and tell me that there is nothing else missing from this belief?
Thanks
I'll see if I can watch the videos by Dr Mikhail.
It seems to me, from my study of St Cyril and St Severus (which I am not suggesting is comprehensive), that the Anselmian notion of Penal Substitution is very far from their own Orthodox teaching. Indeed I do not believe it is Orthodox at all.
This does not mean that there is not a place for an understanding of God's just and righteous judgement against sin, his hatred and condemnation of sin, his punishment of those who turn to darkness and harden their hearts. But this is not what Anselm teaches. The more I study our own Orthodox Fathers - St Athanasius, St Cyril and St Severus - the more I am filled with their own sense of the deep and abiding love of God for mankind, and the sense that the whole of the Holy Trinity is involved in earnestly desiring the renewal of mankind in life above all else. The idea that one of the Holy Trinity had to somehow become an object of hatred by another is far, far from Orthodox.
I will not fill this forum with extensive passages from the Fathers, but I can do if necessary, and perhaps I will write a paper explaining my understanding. I need to write something for the next edition of the British Orthodox Glastonbury Review in any case. But I will try to summarise my understanding.
God, the Holy Trinity, created man as the object of divine love. Looking upon Adam and Eve He said that what He had created was good. Man was created from dust, and like all created beings was naturally mortal and corruptible (corruptible is not the same as corrupt). But Adam and Eve received the breath of life, the Holy Spirit, who was breathed into them and granted them the gift of immortality and incorruptibility. This blessed life in the Garden of Eden was contingent upon one thing only, that the law of God which said 'you shall not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil' was not broken. As long as Adam and Eve preserved themselves in obedience they retained the gift of the Holy Spirit, and would have lived for ever in a state of happiness with God.
But Adam and Eve were tempted, and by the exercise of their own free will they chose to satisfy their own pleasure, and by choosing other than God's will they fell into sin. Sin is nothing other than the exercise of the human will apart from God. The Fathers are very clear that sin has no existence at all. It is a wrong choice. A choice for self and not for God. When Adam and Eve chose other than God they broke the one command they had been given, and the curse fell upon them. Dust you are and to dust you shall return.
The Holy Spirit withdrew from Adam and Eve, it cannot dwell where there is sin. Adam and Eve found themselves left in their own human nature - mortal and corruptible. Human nature was not changed. St Cyril and St Severus are absolutely insistent that our human nature has not become corrupted. But our hearts are without the stabilising grace of the Holy Spirit and our wills are shot to pieces, choosing other than God all the time. Yet even when the curse fell upon Adam and Eve our Fathers teach us that this was an exercise of God's mercy and love. It would have been a terrible thing if mankind was allowed an immortality in sin, and so the length of a man's life was cut short by his natural mortality. Even more, God granted that the soul of a man might retain the gift of immortality so that it would always be drawn beyond itself to the spiritual heights of heaven - which is why every man is filled with a yearning for that which is eternal.
Cast out of Eden, man was doomed to suffer, to hunger and thirst, and eventually to suffer a bodily death. Yet there was a greater doom, since having lost the Holy Spirit he was already in a state of absolute death, of separation from God.
Each of us is born into this condition of mortality and corruptibility. But we are not born sinners. We are not born corrupt. Our human nature is as it was when God created it and saw that it was good. Yet because we lack grace and the Holy Spirit we all of us find that our will is turned this way and that and quickly finds itself bound by sinful habit, ignorance and self-love. We are born mortal, but not sinners. We choose to sin.
Yet we are still under the curse and in the power of death. Not even so much the death of our bodies but the death of separation from Life, from God Himself who was the true life of Adam and desired to be the true life of all mankind. The ultimate problem which mankind faces is the righteous judgement laid upon Adam which we all suffer the consequences of. Even if each one of us stopped sinning, or somehow had never sinned throughout our whole lives we would still be lost, not because our humanity is corrupt and sinful - this is absolutely rejected by the Orthodox Fathers - but because we are all in a state of gracelessness, and we all naturally lack the Holy Spirit. Even a sinless man would suffer all of our human frailities and would die. Even a sinless man would be left apart from God for eternity, because all of mankind is in the state in which God's judgement upon Adam left us - we are mortal and corruptible and do not have the breath of Life in us.
When the Holy Trinity willed to save mankind from this state it was not possible that the curse be lifted simply as an exercise of mercy. As has been said elsewhere in this thread, the mercy and righteousness of God must both be satisfied. But the Fathers do not teach that God was so angry, or filled with such wrath, that only a divine sacrifice could appease Him. Far from it. The work of salvation is the will of the whole Trinity, which loves man and wished his salvation.
No mere man could save man, because even a perfectly holy life could not take away the curse which was justly spoken. Rather, it was necessary that a new humanity be created, not by changing the substance of our humanity, but by renewing the divine relationship with man so that the Holy Spirit could once more take up a habitation in our hearts and souls.
The Word Himself became man as we are, save for sin. This means that he took our own humanity from the Virgin Mary, a humanity which was mortal and corruptible, but not corrupt. It was liable to suffer, to hunger and thirst, and to die. If he was to save mankind then he must unite our own humanity to himself, and not some other humanity that was not in our situation. Being mortal and corruptible it was found in the state of being under the curse of God. He shared our own condition, caused by sin, by Adam's sin, but he never chose other than the will of God, and therefore there was never any sin in him, and though his body was physically corruptible and liable to suffering and blamesless passions such as hunger, there was never any trace of the moral passions which we allow to grow and flourish in our own hearts.
The Fathers teach us that one of the reasons why our Lord took our humanity by means of a Virgin Birth was not because he had anything but the highest regard for the sancitity and holiness of marriage, but because he wanted to show that he was the firstfruits, the founder, of a new spiritual humanity in which those who were to be united with him would be sons and daughters of God.
What did the Word do in his incarnation? The Fathers teach us that it was necessary that he lived out our human life in obedience. He is described many times as 'taking up the fight which Adam lost'. So we must understand the incarnation as replaying what happened in Eden. In the Garden, Adam, the man who held our human destiny in his hands, blew it in a big way. Now in his earthly life, and clearly in the Garden of Gethsemane, the same contest happens again, but this time Christ, the Word Incarnate says 'Your will be done'. The failure of Adam had been redeemed in the obedience of Christ.
But this was not enough. A perfect human life had been lived in obedience, which was the basis for the renewal of man's relationship with God. But the curse remained. The curse was not an act if God's implacable anger, but a necessary provision for the salvation of man. Therefore it was necessary that the power of death, true death, be broken by an exercise of power by the one who is true life. Death needed to be destroyed from within. And to be destroyed from within it needed to be experienced by one who was mortal and subject to death, therefore the Word became mortal in our own humanity.
We see several features in his death. He died on the cross, which the Holy Spirit had inspired the prophets to speak of as a cursed manner of death. He was lifted up into the air, as Moses lifted up the golden serpent in the desert for the healing of the people. He was unjustly accused of sin when there was no sin in him at all. Even in his burial he was laid in a borrowed tomb, signifiying that the death he endured was not his own but was that which was due to us.
If he sacrificed himself, and he said, 'No-one takes my life, but I lay it down', then who did he sacrifice himself to? Certainly not the Father, who had sent him to do this work of salvation - for God so loved the world. Certainly not to the Devil - the prince of this world has nothing in me. But surely he offered himself as a sacrifice of love for us. He did not die INSTEAD of us - because we were already dead. But he died WITH us so that we might live, might experience his life.
What happened when He died? In the first place he experienced that separation of body and soul which we call death. His soul descended to Hades (which I will not attempt to define) and brought out the souls of the righteous to Paradise (which I will not attempt to define). His body was preserved free from corruption - as the Fathers teach us - and as it is written in the Psalms. Then on the third day, by an exercise of his power, he destroyed death. A holy man destroyed the power of death. The curse had not been taken away, in the sense of being quietly forgotten. Rather the Word Incarnate, as a mortal man, died and then came out the other side.
A holy man, a perfect man, could not achieve this. The best he could have achieved was a sad commendation by God, well done, but sorry you are still cursed, you are still separated from God by true death. But the Word Incarnate could not only live a holy life, but he could die, and more than that he could raise himself from death.
But what does it mean for us? It means that a man, the Divine man, representing all of mankind, has made a way through death to life for us all. This Divine man has a humanity which is filled with resurrection life, true Life, and with the Holy Spirit. Now we can be united with this man and be born again into a new humanity. His life becomes our own. We participate in this life by faith and by the sacraments. These renew in us the presence of the Holy Spirit. He dwells in us not because we are perfect and holy but because Christ is and we belong to Christ. By faith we cast ourselves in humility before God alone and ask Him to have mercy on us. By baptism and chrismation God unites us to Christ and we receive the benefits which He has won for mankind. We receive the Holy Spirit who is our life, our true life. Death is overcome for us and in us. Our turning to God in faith and repentance allows God to forgive our sins, but forgiveness of sins is not all that we need. We need both forgiveness AND the life of the Holy Spirit. Our sins are forgiven because Christ, the Word Incarnate, has taken upon himself our death and in swallowing up the power of death over us he has taken away the power of the curse and has made it possible for our sins to be forgiven. He has lived an obedient life on our behalf - as Adam could have done but did not. And so we are able to say - do not look at my sins, Lord, but look at the obedience and holiness of your own son.
So why do we still die? Well the curse has not gone away. It was and is a righteous judgement against sin and against man who sins. It had an effect because of Adam, and that effect persists. We are mortal and die as mortals. But by faith and the sacraments we are united with God and follow Christ through mortal death to life. We have already received the Holy Spirit as a guarantee that we will rise to true life, because the Holy Spirit does not dwell in those who are subject to death. If we have any experience of the Holy Spirit at all then we can have faith that what has been begun will come to fulness and fruition in the life beyond death. Our sins have been forgiven because Christ has offered himself as a man who has done no sin, and who bears the consequences of our sin himself. He entered our death and took it upon himself.
But Christ has made a way for us through death to life. We follow in his footsteps. We are baptised, we fast and pray, we allow ourselves to be despised and treated as dead in the eyes of the world, we suffer and eventually we die. But this is not the end, it is the means of passing beyond the power of the just judgement of God and being restored to the place of blessing and life.
Christ did not die to satisfy God's anger. He died to manifest God's love. He died for us all, not standing in our place in the face of an infinite wrath, though we must not forget that God is indeed angered by our sin, and did indeed bring a just judgement and chastisement upon Adam and us all, but even before the judgement was made God had already - as our Fathers clearly teach - prepared a way of salvation to deal with the outcome of Adam's sin, which he forsaw. He has always acted in love towards us, even before he created us, and even when Adam sinned.
If we are found in Christ then mortal death holds no fears. It is the path to life. It frees us from the power of the curse and brings us to the place of promise. We can experience this now, if we are faithful. Life in the midst of death. Life in the face of death. Life with power over death. If I die surely I will live.
The teaching of Anselm reminds us that we should not diminish the offence of sin in the eyes of God. It is death to us. It is the opposite of life and therefore is anti-God. It repels God. But we should not turn to Anselm to remind ourselves of the cost of our sin, and its offensiveness. He is not Orthodox. He teaches a deformed Christianity. We must always turn back to our own Orthodox and trusted Fathers and see how they explain these things. And we can find much in our own Fathers about the seriousness of sin. We should not base our theology on a Roman Catholic teacher, this will lead to imbalance.
No mere man could save us. The judgement of God against us was indeed an infinite judgement which could not be overturned. But it was always the judgement of a loving Father, not an angry, wrathful and distant deity. Only the Word Incarnate could overcome the divine judgement by participating with us in the outcome of that judgement, by living with us and for us, by dying with us and for us, and by rising to new life in the Holy Spirit for us. God is love, not wrath. 'God so loved the world', not was 'so angry with the world'.
My every sin deserves death and is a slap in God's face. But God knows what I am like. Christ knows what I am like. Yet still I am offered new life in Christ. He allows me to share in his renewed humanity though there is nothing in me that warrants such kindness. All of this demonstrates to me the overwhelming love of God towards us.
Penal substitution as popularly taught does not do justice to God's love, nor is it rooted in the teaching of the true and Orthodox Fathers. This is not the teaching of St Athanasius, St Cyril or St Severus. Justice indeed had to be served, and the Fathers are constant in this theme, God could not simply overturn His judgement, but this is never because he is so angry, or because he is offended. He knew what we were like before he made us, nothing is a surprise. Even his judgement is a mercy, as St Severus and St Cyril teach us. And even while he was angry with a righteous indignation against Adam and Eve, and against each one of us who follows them in sin, nevertheless he was always loving with a perfect love towards those he had created and chastised them and us rather than punishing us as we truly deserved.
I could write much more, but I hope that this short summary explains at least my own understanding of these things.
God bless all who seek to understand the truth, may the Holy Spirit lead us into truth
Father Peter
Thanks Fr. Peter. Please see the videos of Mr. Mikhail, and tell me what you think. Your explanation is brilliant and what I was looking for and is not clearly talked about.
I think I am beginning to understand better now the ideas of Mr Mikhail.
Cheers
Why were we born with the curse that was the result of Adam's sin?
Why don't we all get the chance/choice to reject God's will and LOSE the grace of the indwelling Holy Spirit as Adam did?
Also, you mentioned that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit made Adam and Eve immortal and incorruptible (you must mean physically incorruptible, because morally they had to remain corruptible, otherwise there would have been no free will) , once they lost this grace, they became mortal and corruptible...
1. what exactly is the difference between being (physically) corruptible and being mortal?
2. in the quote I gave below you mention a consequence of us losing the indwelling of the Holy Spriti (our wills choosing that which is not according to God) yet Adam did that while he STILL had the Holy Spirit.
So if our human nature didn't change, and we simply became separated from God, what exactly happens to our will? our freedom? does it become weaker? (what about after we regain the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? (through baptism and chrismation wit Myron oil)
"But our hearts are without the stabilising grace of the Holy Spirit and our wills are shot to pieces, choosing other than God all the time."
Thanks
These are good questions.
We are born under the curse that was the result of Adam's sin because we are subject to the consequences of our fore-father's actions. This is something which is the case for all of us as humans living in human families. My own ancestor was born in France and left that country in about 1845. I live with the consequences of his choice and I am English. I cannot say, 'Why can't I be French', because the fact that my ancestor left France 150 years ago has consequences I must live with.
We can imagine a man who is an important official in a king's court. He is very wealthy and lives in luxury. The king trusts him with all that he owns, and he is able to come into the king's presence whenever he chooses. Let us say that this official commits some act which causes the king to cast him out from the court and exile him in a small village far from civilisation. He loses all of his wealth and when he tries to enter into the king's presence one last time the soldiers on guard no longer step aside but brandish their swords.
Now after many years the descendants of this official are still living in poverty in their remote village, but they remember that one of their ancestors was once very wealthy. Now it would not be reasonable for them to insist that they should have inherited the wealth and important position which their ancestor had lost. It has been lost and they have been born into a world changed by his actions and face the consequences which he caused.
We might say that we would have been a better servant of the king and should be given a chance to prove ourselves, but the king is under no obligation to allow each one of us to enjoy the position which our forefather had lost. He brought poverty upon his whole family. Indeed when we make the difficult journey to the court and seek to approach the king we are not allowed access because we are not officials of the court but are poor, dirty and ignorant peasants and have no place in the court.
Surely this is the same for all of us in regard to Adam's sin? He is our fore-father and the world has changed because of what he did.
Also I am not sure that 'curse' is the best word. Though I used it myself. The Fathers speak rather of a judgement or sentence. God cursed the ground so that Adam would have to work hard, but he did not curse Adam in Genesis 3. But God did issue a judgement which changed the universe. We are the children of our father Adam and so we are born into the situation he caused. If he brought us to poverty then that is not our fault but it is the situation we are born into.
We don't get the chance to replay the Garden of Eden because it is too late. The Holy Spirit has departed. Each of us is born without the breath of life. If we ask why then the answer is because our father Adam threw away the gift that he had been given. Our father Adam squandered the riches which might have been our inheritance. It is not our fault, but it is the condition we find ourselves in.
I am not sure that Adam and Eve were not granted moral incorruptibility by the presence of the Holy Spirit. It seems to me, and this point is my own opinion at present, I will need to study more, but it seems to me that moral incorruptibility does not preclude free will, which I think is essential to human nature. I wonder rather if the Holy Spirit reinforces the choice for God and that the gift of the Holy Spirit makes possible a moral incorruptibility, a preservation of moral purity. Indeed the Fathers do teach that had Adam and Eve remained in the will of God they would have always enjoyed the blessing of Paradise. It was therefore possible that by the Holy Spirit Adam and Eve could have remained without sin and that the Holy Spirit would have reinforced this choice for God so that it became habitual without denying free will. In fact we see that they were granted immortality, but this also was not absolute, and they lost this immortality when they sinned.
The great saints come more and more to give over their whole lives to obedience and enter as far as is possible into the experience of moral incorruptibility, which seems to me to mean that their wills are set to be habitually obedient, yet this does not mean that it is not possible for them to sin, their moral incorruptibility is not absolute but is a function of their co-operation with the Holy Spirit. To him who has, more will be given. I think this applies to the one who gives himself or herself in obedience. The first steps of obedience are rewarded with grace to be more obedient.
As to the other questions, I think that being physically corruptible is a characteristic of being mortal, and being mortal is a characteristic of all created physical beings. To be corruptible means to be liable to physical weakness and necessity. Because we are mortal and physically corruptible we hunger, thirst, grow tired, are afraid etc etc. Because we are mortal we are slowing falling to pieces and we return to the dust from which we came.
If Adam chose evil when he had the Holy Spirit then our own wills are in a much more weakened state. Indeed the Fathers speak about how through our senses the will is led astray in all manner of directions. When we see things we lust after them, when we smell and taste things we become gluttons. It is very hard for a man without the Holy Spirit to choose what is good let alone to be constant in desiring the will of God. We only have to look at the world around us to see what humanity without God is like.
But you are right, when we receive the Holy Spirit in baptism and chrismation, and in the eucharist, we have the possibility of growing into moral incorruptibility. Though we are not in the same situation as Adam because we have a body that is still mortal and weakened in many ways. If we read the lives of the Desert Fathers and Mothers then we can see what is possible. By the grace of the Holy Spirit we can be obedient. We can turn our wills towards God if we ask for grace, we cannot do it in our own strength. It is a process that begins with baptism (even before baptism for those who are converts) and continues through our mortal death into resurrection. We may only experience the fulness of resurrection in a partial way this side of our own resurrection, but we can genuinely experience a growth in the stability of our will by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Indeed the more we turn to God the more we experience true freedom of will. Free will is not choosing sin, but choosing God. To choose God always is to enter into the freedom of moral incorruptibility.
Without judging others I think that if we consider the concerns of those who post here as Orthodox Christians with the language and concerns that are found on so many other forums where non-Christians post I think it is possible to see that there is more than a difference of habit, but that something truly and genuinely takes place in the heart of one who gives themselves over wholeheartedly to God. The Holy Spirit does make a difference, and those who truly seek Christ experience now some foretaste of the life in Paradise which God has promised those who love him.
God bless
Father Peter