[The sinner declares: “I am righteous. I am an advocate of social justice.”
Then, the sinner promotes Progressive sovereign legislation, building the central state into an all-encompassing temple of multitudes of organizational objectives.
Organization objectives support bureaucracies that treat human beings as subjects to organize according to the desired objectives.
How inhumane.]
[St. Paul’s admission that ‘the law induces sin’ cuts many ways. Prohibition may awaken the desire for sin. Sin may awaken the desire for prohibition.]
[Law-filled thoughts may justify cruelty, self-dealing, anxiety-relief and lack of faith. The law washes these monstrosities over with perfection of the letter of the law.
Law fixates on the rules. The rules may be misconstrued in order to rendezvous with the sinful attractor in my dying heart. The way that I fulfill the rules may provide me with the pleasures that I crave.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 84 and 85
[When thoughts3V(2 are made rigid by scruples, then deeds2(1V)) freeze the heart in a fixation on what must not be done.
Failure seems to be unavoidable. My own deeds violate my conscience. They can never be perfect. They can never fulfill the command.
I do the deeds that I do not want to do even as I do the deeds that I do.]
Sin-filled words blaspheme, self-justify, and express pride. Sin, illuminated in the mirror of the world, attracts. I am drawn to look into the mirror. Sin is glamorous and fashionable.
[Responsibility tends to exclude the normal context belonging to words, and visa versa.]
[Freedom and bondage are exclusively opposed even though they are both exercises of the heart2(1H).
What does this imply?
Since exclusion is a property of the realm of normal context, each of these terms co-oppose an independent normal context.
Freedom2(1H)) co-opposes responsibility3H(2.
Bondage2(1H)) co-opposes words3H(2.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 84 and 85
Schoonenberg joins the term “heart” with the terms “free” and “bondage”. The heart may be free or in bondage to sin, law or death.
Is there a difference between the terms free will and free choice?
Augustine wrote of a free will in contrast to a slave will, even though both retained free choice.
Anselm contrasted simple choice (arbitrium) and Christian liberty (libertas). This does not quite fit Augustine’s opposition of free and slave wills.
Summary of text [comment] pages 84 and 85
Scriptures tell of the ‘heart’. Church doctrine tells of ‘free will’.
In the pagan Greek and Roman world, the ‘heart’ had ‘free choice’ (libertum arbitrium).
So, the terms became confused.
