Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 BZ-1
[In Exodus 20:6, God punishes the iniquity produced by the idolatry of the parents.
When does God do this?
He does it in the third and fourth generations.]
Do symbolic orders form “closed systems” that depend on a “buttonholed” meaning that may or may not veil its own history. Can an “institution” be defined as a symbolic order or “language” that rules out mapping onto other symbolic orders or “languages”? This topic is addressed in chapters 7, 8A, 11, 12 and 13.
[In Exodus 20:6, God punishes the iniquity produced by the idolatry of the parents.
When does God do this?
He does it in the third and fourth generations.]
[Thinkdivine is always calling, even in the Multiversities, where a Progressive professoriate propagates this disempowering fraud.
The Multiversities are the temples of the religion that the federal government has established.
Open your eyes and see.]
[As long as the Progressive sovereign is able to compensate these 100,000 or more single woman, acting as a surrogate husband provider and securing their votes through various affirmative actions, the feminist-dictated symbolic order holds.
Yes, it sounds like a sad permutation of the word ‘fidelity’.
As long as this situation lasts, as long as resources are transferred by the sovereign from one segment of society to another for Progressive religious purposes, the libertarian Milton Friedman’s ‘free to choose’ will be excluded.
The consequences of that exclusion will be unseen.
They will be denied.
It is easy to do. The consequences consist in alterations of the realm of possibility. Who can measure that?
100,000 woman cannot find an honest man.
100,000 woman feel that they need the government to take care of them…
… for one feminist professor.]
[Progressives also deny the concrete consequences of undermining the natural course of male-female bonding.
For every 1 feminist professor in the Multiversity, there are at least 100,000 women who are single and have aborted their fetuses. They are the concrete victims of feminist ideologies.
Yet, the professor is undisturbed. She speaks for the 100,000 and expects them to heed her advice.
She talks on Progressive TV. She writes in Progressive print media. In both media, the listener cannot talk back.
She expects ‘liberated women’ to socially construct her abstract symbolic order. 100,000 woman-victims read her words for self-justification or hear them through the echo chambers of Progressive media.
Yes, 100,000 women are victims…
…for one feminist professor.
The dead fetus is her ‘word made flesh’.]
[In feminist language, ‘free to choose’ is a slogan designed to control the situation by manipulating the definitions of words.
‘Freedom’ means ‘freedomabstract’ (that is, without obligation or consequence).
Feminists deny the concrete responsibilities of the fetus to die. The fetus has the responsibility to die for the woman to be free.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 76 and 77
[The irony of the translator’s use of words cannot go unremarked.
Today, in 7816 U0’, 50 years after Schoonenberg’s book was translated into English, the words ‘freedom of choice’ precisely (that is, by definition) veil a particular sin, in order to reduce the capacity of our freedomconcrete to virtuously remedy a situation.
The feminist’s slogan and the title of Milton Friedman’s television series both use the words ‘free to choose’, but the corresponding symbolic orders are radically different. They are talking different languages. Consequently, each cannot comprehend the other.
One must exclude the other using sovereign power. This is what feminism, as an (infra)sovereign religion, does.
Feminism belongs to the Progressive sovereign religion. Milton Friedman’s libertarianism does not.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 76 and 77
[How does sin influence the situation?]
Sin restricts the space and community where one can come to love and practice authentic virtue.
For example, a person, in a situation poisoned by sin, may feel that she is in love with another person, but that love lacks important attributes, such as trust.
A situation poisoned by sin restricts concrete freedom.
The person can never find real love, total self giving, simply because it was never a possibility. The ‘never finding’ does not derive from lack of powers, but from the situation, which on account of sin, both personal and original, blinds us to all our powers, especially our freedom to choose.
[When “man” acts, exercising “his” free will, “he” alters the situation.
Sin does not compromise this freedomconcrete, because as long as a person is alive, “she” can take concrete action.
Sin, however, compromises the situation, restricting the exercise of freedomconcrete.
To me, this seems to match the contrast between the states of grace and self-destruction.]
[Does ‘freedom in the abstract’ have a contrast?
What would the contrast be?
Could it be ‘bondage in the abstract’?
For Schoonenberg, ‘freedom’ or ‘free will’ is located in the concrete situations that we humans face.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 76 and 77
[What does the term ‘freedom’ mean?
Amazingly, current usage means to do whatever you want to do without obligations.
‘Freedom’ is the removal of bounds and restrictions. ‘Freedom’ is the removal of responsibility.
Current use corresponds to Schoonenberg’s freedom in the abstract.]