Text (pages 10-12) [comments in square brackets]

[Now I will put the picture in the last blog into words and think about some of the implications.

The Law (think^divine) puts virtue into context.  Virtue situates conscience^free.  Virtue also situates (trains) dispositions.

Transgressions situate conscience^lacking.  Transgressions also situate natural & philosophical dispositions; or maybe, material and immaterial desires.

This curiously implies that conscience^lacking is opportunistic in selecting transgressions that appeal to one’s dispositions.  By “opportunistic”, I mean “a process like natural selection”.  Natural selection is opportunistic.  Both adaptations and exaptations are opportunistic.

In short, conscience^lacking is looking for ways to tell one’s dispositions “what they want to hear”.  The dispositions are poised to act.  Both conscience^lacking and one’s dispositions are situated by the transgression.

In addition, the exclusive yet interpellating character of conscience^lacking and conscience^free may be foundational in the way that conscience^lacking packages itself as it potentiates transgression.  Conscience^lacking senses the Law in conscience^free’s ordination (like orientation, but including both material and immaterial dimensions).

My guess (which is consistent with Paul’s Letter to the Romans) is that conscience^lacking goes against the Law by revolting against conscience^free, the forbidding yet interpellating other, so that the person is less disposed to “the freedom to seek and align oneself with the truth (which is God’s Law)” and more disposed to “the advantages to me of acting out this transgression”.]