When the Homily is about Immunology

More from Bishop Ware and the Orthodox view of Salvation

As I believe I have said before the Orthodox do not give much stage time to the judicial view of sin and salvation. Accordingly, the Fall and Original Sin are not seen as communicating guilt to the progeny of Adam and Eve. (that's me and you, folks). None-the-less we do suffer the effects of the Fall so that we find ourselves in what Bishop Ware calls "an all-embracing state of sinfulness." It is also interesting that in the same sense that salvation is a process, so also is the Fall.

He cites the great work of Saint Athanasios of Alexandria On the Incarnation of the Word (highly recommended) saying that "humans 'moved forward little by little' into an ever-increasing ignorance and corruption...'the rational human being created in the image was being obliterated, and the work created by God was being destroyed.'" And Bishop Ware has us note St. Athanasios' use of the imperfect tense.

"The Fall," says Bishop Ware, "was cumulative."

He then goes on to list a number of the effects of the fall and one of them hit me square on the nose: "It renders us subject to boredom."

nuff said.