witchy-dabblings:

Question: To those who know of it, how do y’all feel about Pelagianism?

It sounds nice, but it fundamentally misunderstands what salvation is.

Pelagianism,as it is constructed and criticized by Augustine*, teaches that one does not need grace to perfectly obey God’s commandments, and (further) that one’s salvation is determined by one’s actions in this life, and those actions alone. The latter point especially is simply not feasible with the Catholic-Orthodox perspective of what salvation is - it’s not just some happy reward for those who do good things, but a very share in the life of God. And because of that, salvation is of necessity something that requires God’s intervention.

Human beings are not divine; there is absolutely nothing that human beings can do, in and of themselves, that will give them divinity. It must be given to us; that’s what grace is, the gifting of God’s very Self into our own selves.

And, frankly, that’s a good thing. We’re always talking about how we’re human, and that’s a good thing; how we mess up sometimes, how we’re not always going to be perfect. Pelagianism doesn’t really allow for that; if Pelagianism is true, if we are not drawn to sin, well, what is your excuse? Why do we sin? I very much believe that “human nature is flawed” is probably one of the most verifiable doctrines of the Christian faith; we stumble all the time. We have character flaws that predispose us to certain bad choices; do you really think you have the absolute freedom to do good in every situation that you’re in? And if you do genuinely believe that, why don’t you do the best in every situation you’re in?

Pelagianism is an attractive heresy because it assumes the absolute best of human nature, but in doing so it places an impossibly heavy burden on human nature; it makes God a Judge first and foremost, and not a Savior. And, worst of all, it encourages us to look in ourselves as the ultimate solution to our problems, rather than realizing that we are creatures meant to subsist in and coexist with others.

(*I phrase it this way because Pelagianism as we understand it probably did not exist; Augustine brought a bunch of different ideas associated with Pelagius together, and condemned them as if they were a formal and coherent system of theological thought. Poor Pelagius, condemned for these ideas, might not have even subscribed to them)

fvmilivr:

cursebearing hips

…Immediately after the sin of Adam and Eve is narrated, the Torah declares that man can master his passionate lust for sin. God turns to Cain and warns him, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? If, though, you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you shall master over it.” (Genesis 4:6-7) For the architects of Christian theology, [who preached a new doctrine of inherent, unconquerable depravity, one wonders if] this [divine] declaration of man’s ability to restrain and govern his lust for sin [would be judged, ironically, as] nothing short of heresy. [On the contrary], the fact that the Torah places the comforting promise immediately following the sin in the Garden of Eden [should be] profoundly [reassuring] for [all who hear it, and celebrated by Christians as well as Jews].

Rabbi Tovia Singer

What has Adam’s guilt got to do with us? Why are we held responsible for his sin, when we were not even born when he committed it? Did not God say: “The parents will not die for the children, nor the children for the parents, but the soul which has sinned, it shall die.” How, then, shall we defend this doctrine [of original sin? Let us begin by affirming that] the soul [which] has sinned [shall] die. We [all] have become sinners because of Adam’s disobedience in the following manner: After he fell into sin and surrendered to corruption, impure lusts invaded the nature of his flesh, and at the same time [his nature was infected,] the ‘evil law’ of [all future mankind’s] members was born. For our nature contracted the disease of sin because of the disobedience of one man, that is, Adam, and thus many became sinners [by nature]. This was not because they sinned along with Adam, because they did not then exist, but because they had the same nature as Adam, which, [by failing to honor the law of God,] fell under the law of sin. Thus, just as human nature acquired the weakness of corruption 'in’ Adam because of [his] disobedience, [whereupon] evil desires invaded it, so the same nature was later set free by Christ, who was obedient to God the Father and did not commit sin– [restoring & preserving forever, through His sharing in human nature, the righteous purity that Adam lost].

Saint Cyril of Alexandria

When a man is born, he is already born with death, because he contracts sin from Adam. [Thus] everyone, even little children, have ‘broken God’s covenant’, not indeed in virtue of any personal action, but in virtue of mankind’s common origin in that single ancestor, in [whose corrupted nature] all have sinned. As infants cannot help being descended from Adam, so they cannot help being touched by the same sin, unless they are set free from its guilt by the baptism of Christ, [the new Adam]. All men for whom Christ died, died in the sin of the first Adam, and all who are baptized into Christ die to sin, [and to that carnal life ruled by it]. No one is born without the intervention of carnal concupiscence, which is inherited from the first Man, who is Adam; and no one is reborn without the intervention of spiritual grace, which is given by the second Man, who is Christ.

Saint Augustine of Hippo; Commentary on Romans 5

halhavoc:

Forbidden love in Eden

Marvel EIC Axel Alonso teases a bit about the Young Avengers story in the Original Sins mini: “There’s a Young Avengers story from Ryan North and Ramon Villalobos that reveals that one of the Young Avengers has a deep personal connection with the events of Jason and Mike’s series.”
“Jason and Mike’s series” refers to Marvel’s summer event comic Original Sin, in which someone murders Uatu the Watcher of Earth.
Let the speculation begin!

In Marvel comics, Hela, the godess of death, and her wolf Fenris, are in fact the children of Loki. He is able to have these children through his shape shifting abilities. This is in line with actual Norse mythology. In Marvel Studio’s Thor: Ragnarok, Hela is instead his sister. This models itself more after the character Angela, who is the long lost daughter of Odin and sister to Thor and Loki, raised by angels her whole life (As explained in Original Sin: Thor and Loki: The Tenth Realm).

old tokens now that these npcs have been revealed