Monthly Archives: September 2017

09/14/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 FE

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[At present, 50 years after Schoonenberg, we glimpse how Schoonenberg was on target.

The idea of concupiscence includes both flesh and reason. Both were corrupted in the Story of the Fall. Both belong to Original Sin.

The historic emphasis in Church doctrine on concupiscence elevates the idea that flesh is redeemable because reason (fortified by grace) could rule.

However, whenever the comment in the parenthesis is ignored or forgotten, then Pelagius, a Stoic disguised as a Christian, takes the stage.]

09/13/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 FD

[Infant baptism introduces a state of grace that rights reason by lifting the burden of material evil … I mean, Original Sin … from the baby.

This short-circuited the Manichean agenda.

Rather than asking reason to memorize secret knowledge in order to escape the burden of matterevil, Augustine asked reason to accept the historic configuration of Original Sinevil.

Once the latter was regarded as plausible, baptism could remove the evil, leaving the believer in a world infused with Original Sin, yet, at the same time, liberated from the necessity of escape.]

09/8/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 FA

[Speculative reason was obviously superior to practical reason.

Augustine started as a Manichean because it was the philosophy of those who considered themselves better the common folk.

Then, Augustine experienced a change of heart.

In doing so, he ultimately placed the speculations of the Manicheans in the same inferior position as Manicheans put common folk.

The interscope of Manichean speculation became the intersection of Augustine’s heart.]

09/6/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 EY

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[The prior interscopes also suggest this: The Manichean solution arrived after the stoical common folk interscope turned into an intersection.

Speculative reason resolved the intersection.

Thus, the speculative reason of the Manichean was born through detachment from the practical reason of stoical common folk.]

09/5/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 EX

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[The identical situation, where our good spiritual being was trapped within the matrix of evil material, emerges from two types of reason.

The stoicism of the common folk rely on one type of reason.

The enlightenment of the Manicheans rely on the other.

In both cases, reason serves as evidence for the spark of spiritual good.

Both types of reason produce content that could be situated within the situation.]

09/1/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 EV

[The faculty of reason solved practical problems.

The same faculty of reason allowed the possibility to escape slavery to the material world.

Reason could learn (recognize) the secret knowledge (gnosis) that would liberate the spirit from its material impediments.

Reason could learn the incantations to recite after death, when the spirit migrated back to the source.]