Thanks for you post. Would you expand on your thought alittle more on why Christ had to die anyway? Because I always thought that it was the corruptible nature from the fall that was the reason for death.
Thanks in advance....Peace be with you...Pam
Well, in fact I pointed out this sentence of St Athanasius because it is VERY unsusal for us.
Anyway the same understanding can be found ad instance in St Ephaim.
Gen 3:19
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
The result of the fall is seen as the "
sweat of your face", not the "
to dust you shall return.", and this because Genesis explains that the "
to dust you shall return." is due to the "
for out of the [ground] you were taken" that typical ALSO of the man before the fall (Gen 2:7
then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground)
So the "
to dust you shall return." is not negative for itsself, nor it is a sign of sin.
And anyway it would be deleyed in the time as far as the man would have been "in the Presence of God" (=without sin)
(Ref St Athanasius §5
they were by nature subject to corruption, the grace of their union with the Word made them capable of escaping from the natural law, provided that they 'retained the beauty of innocence with which they were created. That is to say, the presence of the Word with them shielded them even from natural corruption)
The ECFs saw as further proof of that the reduction of the years lifed by the patriarch. The situation in the Garden was the fullness (1000). Adam fell and so lived only 930 years (something less than 1000), Set lived 912 years (= the man went on in the sin, as St Athanaius stated at §5), Enos only 905 years, and so on.
PS: That is what I've found in this book and in similar ones of the same age, I cannot say if this is a teaching the catholic faith (probably yes, but I'm an engineer, not a theologician).
Here St Thomas of Aquinas:
But God, to Whom every nature is subject, in forming man supplied the defect of nature, and by the gift of original justice, gave the body a certain incorruptibility. (I(2) 85-6 end of paragraph).
This sentence is very similar to the above St Athanisus sentence: the
original justice (beauty of innocence, grace, presence of God) balanced, before the fall, the
defect of nature (natural law, death, return to dust).
Of course with the fall the sin of the man broke this balance, and so the
defect of nature became the ordinary situation: only in this way we can say that the death entered in the world with the sin.
Of course Christ, the second Adam, entered in this world in the situation of Adam before the fall (and Mary as Eve before the fall).
