Human psychology evolved under in the social milieu of constrained complexity. Currently, humans live in unconstrained complexity. What has this done to our minds? These topics are addressed in various parts of An Archaeology of the Fall, particularly in chapters 8C and 11B.
Summary of text [comment] pages 87 and 88
Grace maintains balance in the heart.
As long as the individual does not admit grace with “his” free choice, thus allowing the Holy Spirit to increase “his” Christian Liberty, the sinner clings to “his” own sinful choices, imprisoning “himself” in the houses of sin, law and death.
He falls into [words and] bondage.
Summary of text [comment] pages 86 and 87
[I, seat of choice3b, virtually situates the mirror of the world3a.]
[Modernism fixates on the rules of non-contradiction.
And now, 50 years after Schoonenberg wrestled with a Zeitgeist full of false dichotomies, the modern way of thought is dying.
Long dismissed religious and philosophical ideas spring to life.
The concept of the nested form may seem new and bizarre.
But it is not new.
The premoderns wrote according to the nested form without explicitly knowing the structure of the nested form.
Soon enough, the category-based nested form will become routine.
Then, people will look back at the divided moderns and wonder:
How could they have been so stupid?]
[Modernism packs every idea into ‘this versus that’.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 86 and 87
[Christian theologians are often on target.
Yet, they will never satisfy the Modern world.
Why?
Moderns recognize only one category, secondness, as valid.
The realm of actuality corresponds to the category of secondness.]
[The Scriptures were invaluable in providing a basis for a specialized theological language. This language probes the realm of possibility.
Theologians search Scripture for meaning, presence and message.
They aim to articulate how each heresy distorts generative, life-giving, relations.]
[Theologians relied on Scripture in ‘their struggles to articulate how heretical distortions were wrong’. The Biblical scriptures are an excellent foundation because they witness relations. They do not name them or analyze them. Scriptures tell relation-filled stories. They present images, advice, poetry, and more. These evoke relational structures.]
[Theologians struggled to clearly articulate how heretical distortions were wrong. In the process, they constructed the ideas that Schoonenberg retells in his book ‘Man and Sin’.]
[Throughout history, Christian believers wrestled with heresies that focused on certain relational elements while ignoring the other elements. These heresies distorted the big picture.
Impressions that something was lacking were confirmed by subsequent events.
For example, many heresies often have a way of making some people look better and others look less.
Subsequent events confirm these impressions.]
[Heresies tend to separate one element in these nested forms from other elements.
In doing so, they misrepresent the relationality that is inherent in virtue, grace, Christian liberty and other theological terms.]
