Man's state and grace prior to the fall.
As I move into senility I find that some topics which I studied in my youth are not so easily recollectable in my mind. This includes those topics which have not been kept fresh by the need to discuss them in catechumen studies with new converts. So I have gone right back several decades to my theological notes and what I was taught as a young monk in Yugoslavia. Our major sources were Greek theologians, Rhosse, Androutsos, Dyobouniotes, Mesolara...
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In the order of the creation of spiritual beings, man follows the angels, the bodiless beings, of whom some fell by disobedience and became evil spirits. Man was created "with all the physical and spiritual endowments necessary for the fulfillment of the end for which God had foreordained him.' (Androutsos) This is the teaching of both the Fathers and the Holy Scripture.
The words "let us make man in our own image, after our likeness" have always been taken to summarise man's endowment of faculties, powers, and character....."
Rhosse: "image" applies to the endowment of man's nature with reason and free will, both as resident faculties and as functioning energies.
"likeness" expresses the desire and impulse and tendency (spoudi) rightly to develop his innate powers to become like God and achieve, as much as lay in him, actual perfection.
Androutsos: the original state of man is one of perfect harmony in a three-fold relationship - towards himself, towards nature, and towards God. The state of unfallen man was not a complete and perfect thing for it was only potential. It was oriented towards progress in human perfection and not towards deification which was a potential not given to man prior to the advent of the God-man and the union in him of the human and divine natures.
Mesolara: The original state of man was one of potential perfection of body and soul, which could be made actual by the free cooperation man's will with the will and grace of God. towards the realisation of the end for which he was designed. God's grace and cooperation with man was contingent of man's response, and were forfeited through the fall. So man's perfection was not realised until the coming of the Perfect Man.
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Pages and pages more but it is time-consuming to type them out - I am a two finger typist.
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Sanctifying grace, etc. While Roman Catholics divide grace into a large number of categories, sanctifying, habitual, prevenient, co-operating, etc., these categories are not known in Orthodox thought, Adopting RC terminology often makes it difficult to explain and argue for the Orthodox teaching since the use of an RC vocabulary forces, to some extent, the adoption of a Roman Catholic approach.