[For example, let us say that an administrator conveys a false sense of ‘victimhood’ onto someone in order to ‘save the victim’ through sovereign power.

The rescued victim may find that the administrator is using “him” to validate the administrator’s exercise of disciplinary power.

The administrator’s limited good is self-serving.

The opportunity to exhibit how I am more righteous than others offers just as much a temptation for some as alcohol offers for others.]

Summary of text [comment] page 77

Under sinful circumstances, a sinner may choose a good on “his” own, but not the moral good that is the object of virtue. “He” can choose only limited goods, provided, of course, that “his” dispositions have not already been trained by sinful habitual actions.

[Here, the model of intersecting nested forms assists.

Even when conscience^lacking has made the person unfree (that is, dependent on the think^group), the parallel vertical nested form of think^divine still interpellates.]

[Schoonenberg’s comments can be portrayed through a familiar intersection, the message underlying the word ‘religion’.

Sin and virtue are actualities that both situate and emerge from our dispositions and conscience (free will). The physical ability to love goes with the dispositions. The moral ability (or inability) to love goes with conscience.

I label ‘the moral ability to love’ ‘conscience^free’.

Here, ‘free’ means freedom from a think^group that makes you a slave to a sinful behavior.

The ‘moral inability to love’, corresponds to ‘conscience^lacking’, which means a conscience lacking in freedom.]

Summary of text [comment] page 77

Consider the distinction, found in theology, between a sinner’s physical ability to love and his moral inability for love.

The sinful man possesses both.

[But what are the meanings, presences and messages underlying the word ‘love’?

Eros? Agape? Does ‘love’ mean whatever I want it to mean? Is it whatever our flawed imaginations project onto the word?

Schoonenberg argued that, since we are born into sinful situations, our choices are constrained by conditions. We do not know any different. If our world does not fashion full love or complete virtue, how are we to choose them?

In short, we are ‘free to choose’ but ‘true love’ and ‘true virtue’ do not appear to be options.]

Summary of text [comment] page 77

How did we get to the situation of sin?

Is there a trait, a flaw, that favors it?

Summary of text [comment] page 77

On the one hand, considering our nature as human beings, our powers are radically unimpaired. Considering the situation in which we exist, we appear powerless.

On the other hand, it seems as if the situation itself impairs us.

If our powers are radically unimpaired, how did we end up in a situation that renders us powerless?

The consequences of sin have taken their toll. They have altered the situation, restricting the space and community where one can find love and practice authentic virtue.