Only by taking into serious consideration the biblical and Greek patristic concept of the original destiny or theosis of man can we gain a deeper understanding of how badly the West's theologians have misunderstood Eastern theology's focus on man's redemption from death and corruptibility.
Having eudaemonistic conceptions of human destiny and believing death to be from God, the West is unable to grasp the moral significance of the patristic doctrine of salvation from death.
This is to be expected, however, since the West's theologians view man's inclination to self-satisfaction as natural.
And since death is the underpinning of that inclination, they do not understand how death could be a moral obstruction to man's living in accordance with the Western notion of his original destiny, that is, selfish eudaemonia.
When we take into account the fact that man was created to become perfect in freedom and love as God is perfect, that is, to love God and his neighbor in the same unselfish way that God loves the world, it becomes apparent that the death of the soul, that is, the loss of divine grace, and the corruption of the body have rendered such a life of perfection impossible.
In the first place, the deprivation of divine grace impairs the mental powers of the newborn infant; thus, the mind of man has a tendency toward evil from the beginning.
This tendency grows strong when the ruling force of corruption becomes perceptible in the body.
Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in man gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival.
Thus, Satan manipulates man's fear and his desire for self-satisfaction, raising up sin in him, in other words, transgression against the divine will regarding unselfish love, and provoking man to stray from his original destiny.
Because of death, man must first attend to the necessities of life in order to stay alive.
In this struggle, self-interests are unavoidable.
Thus, man is unable to live in accordance with his original destiny of unselfish love.
This state of subjection under the reign of death is the root of man's weaknesses in which he becomes entangled in sin at the urging of the demons and by his own consent.
Resting in the hands of the devil, the power of the fear of death is the root from which self-aggrandizement, egotism, hatred, envy, and other similar passions spring up.
In addition to the fact that man "subjects himself to anything in order to avoid dying," he constantly fears that his life is without meaning.
Thus, he is strives to demonstrate to himself and to others that it has worth.
He loves flatterers and hates his detractors.
He seeks his own and envies the success of others.
He loves those who love him and hates those who hate him.
He seeks security and happiness in wealth, glory, bodily pleasures, and he may even imagine that his destiny is a self-seeking eudaemonistic and passionless enjoyment of the presence of God regardless of whether or not he has true, active, unselfish love for others.
Fear and anxiety render man an individualist.
And when he identifies himself with a communal or social ideology it, too, is out of individualistic, self-seeking motives because he perceives his self-satisfaction and eudaemonia as his destiny.
Indeed, it is possible for him to be moved by ideological principles of vague love for mankind despite the fact that mortal hatred for his neighbor nests in his heart.
These are the works of the "flesh" under the sway of death and Satan.
Ancestral Sin
John Romanides
