[Does the intersecting nested form of recognition and participation capture Schoonenberg’s dichotomy of ‘the whole person and the whole of reality’?

Does it also capture the dichotomy of ‘grace as opposed to nature’?

So far, ‘grace’ is opposed to ‘self-destruction’ as two contradicting ‘states of existence’. The opportunity to love enters the tension between recognition and participation.

Can I formulate a dichotomy of ‘grace in contrast to nature’ from this?]

Summary of text [comment] page 71

What about the sinner who falls in love?

In this example, love must mean eros, rather than agape.

Is it possible for a sinner to become enamored of another?

Yes, but love must involve the whole person.

Love is a positive stand of the whole person with respect to the whole of reality. Love comes from one’s whole heart or it is not love.

[Here, it is clear that Schoonenberg packs more than one definition into the term ‘whole person’.

He has no model that shows how natural and supernatural love implicate one another.

He used the word ‘levels’, as if the two were hierarchical.]

Summary of text [comment] page 70

[If the model of the nested form carries any lesson it is this:

Independent entities are rarely simple actualities.

Actualities occur in nested forms. They emerge from possibility. They are put into some normal context.

Plus, the actuality may be an intersection. Two actualities combine into one.

If grace and nature are actualities, then what would be their intersection?

Would it be ‘the person’?]

Summary of text [comment] page 70

Schoonenberg noted that neither grace nor nature exist as independent entities, only the person does.

[The person lives in states of grace or self-destruction. However, the person is more than this.

Do nested forms model the concept of person as an ‘individual in community’?

Indeed, they do.]

Summary of text [comment] page 70

Schoonenberg wrote that sin is the opposite of love. Sin, in its fullness, is a loss of the life of grace, hence it excludes supernatural love. The unity of nature [disposition] and grace [person, conscience] also means that sin excludes human natural love.

Natural love always welcomes the offer of grace and is assumed into supernatural love.

[How to appreciate this? Perhaps the intersection of recognition and participation affords the model.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 69 through 71

Thus, Schoonenberg concluded section 1 (Sin Itself as Punishment), of chapter 2, (The Sequels of Sin).

[Perhaps, self-destruction starts with the way the person recognizes “herself”. Yet, this process trains one’s nature as well.

Or maybe self-destruction starts with a change in human habits and dispositions. Then, this change alters conscience.

Both conscience and dispositions are required for ‘the state of grace’ as well as ‘the state of self-destruction’.

Both conscience and dispositions belong to the realm of possibility. They are often hard to distinguish. They may be distinct but they are inseparable. The realm of possibility is monadic.

Consequently, it is no surprise that, after Schoonenberg emphasized the influence of grace on the person, he immediately turned to a discussion of one particular effect of sin on our nature: the inability to love.]