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

[Consider this analogy. Someone invents a “missing the mark” compass.  It cannot align with the magnetic field, but it looks really beautiful.  It becomes so popular that people use it with confidence.  Buildings go up slightly misaligned with other buildings. New streets do not parallel the old streets.  The sewers do not align, spilling sewage into the boulevards.  The entire city looks out of kilter.

Hundreds of experts are hired to straighten out the works.  They conclude that the beautiful compass should be standard and the old city should be abandoned.  But the ship-owners are losing money and cannot pay for evacuation.  Their ships are going out and not returning.  The city verges on bankruptcy.  Chaos threatens.

Then someone at the shipyards discovers that the popular – mandated – beautiful – compass somehow does not point to the true magnetic pole.  That is why the ships are getting lost and not returning.  That person is subjected to persecution.  ‘He’ hates the beautiful.]

[Let me step back and present Schoonenberg’s comments in a single nested form.

The “law₃” puts “transgressions of the law, or sin₂” into context.

The “law₃” brings “transgressions of the law, or sin₂” into relation with “the possibilities inherent in ordination₁“.  Among these possibilities are “fixations₁” or “sins that precede the transgression of the Law₁” or “ways of disordination₁“.

For Schoonenberg, following Paul, these “ways of disordination₁“, which exist in the realm of possibility in this nested form, may be regarded actual in another nested form.

In these blogs, however, I resist any impulse to reify.  Perhaps, that may come later.

Consequently, these “ways of disordination₁” corresponds, to a greater or lesser extent, to conscience^lacking₁.  “Lacking” here, refers to the “inability to orient (or ordinate) without fixation”.]

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

[Paul argued that “sin” preceded “transgression of the Law”.

At the same time, the Law made “sin”, “the transgression of the Law”, possible by serving as a site for “sin” to fixate.

If “sin” is “disordination”, (where did Schoonenberg get that word?) then “sin misaligns with the Law”, resulting in an increase in certain types of transgressions.  The increase may steamroll as the other sins – other “ways of disordination” – join the prevailing disordination.

In short, sin misuses the Law in order to shape its transgressions.

One shape coordinates with other shapes.

A disordination “in the wind” becomes the Zeitgeist.

Then we cry to God for the grace to let the air out of the spirit of the times.]

[By the time that Jesus was born, the Pharisees’, Sadducees’, and Scribes’ sovereign^infra was as disempowering of the subject as the kings of the first Temple.

The disciples writing the NT did not see “sin” as “standing in opposition to the Law” as much as “opposition to God’s grace”.  This means more than the formula that God’s grace comes from accepting Christ [think^divine] and speaks to the heart [conscience^{free = independent}].  Grace is God’s answer to the public humiliation that comes from accusations from others [projections of think^anti-object].

[“Idolatry” matches “think^group“.  “Sinful attitudes” matches “conscience^lacking“.  The prophets stood in the place of the suprasovereign religion.   They placed the sovereign^infra into context.  They criticized think^pro-object and were accused of think^anti-object.

However, the prophets of old turned out to be correct.  Their correct predictions were thus recorded, incorporated into the Torah, when the exiles returned.  On this slippery foundation, the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes stood.]

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

The OT prophets challenged an empowered cult.

[This means that an infrasovereign religion, a particular type of think^group, had gained sovereign power and divided into think^pro-object and think^anti-object.  The sovereign^infra promoted think^pro-object.]

The prophets identified “idolatry” as “the root of all sin” and “Yahweh” as “the foundation of the morally good attitude of man”.

The prophets made explicit the complementarity of idolatrous thinking and sinful attitudes.]

[The Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes were as close to sovereign power as any non-Roman could get in the Roman Empire.

Their sovereign^infra focused on “knowing how to fulfill the letter of the covenant”, thus generating two (vertical intersecting) nested forms headed by think^law-filled₃ and think^unlawful₃.

The normal context of think^unlawful₃ was projected onto almost everyone who was not a member or a supporter.  Political resistance was interpreted as disobedience to the Laws of Moses.  Political resistors were tagged as holding “unlawful views”; that is, think^unlawful₃; and having a “bad conscience”; that is, a conscience^unlawful₁.

The accusers, the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes, could not be accused.  They were “golden calves” in contrast to the “scapegoated” prophets.  Sovereign power was used by the Pharisees to close the language, so that everything could be defined as either “lawful” or “unlawful”.  As soon as any debate was phrased in the language of the Pharisees, the debate was over.

The prophets had to step out of the established framework.  They had to withdraw.  They went into the desert.

Both John the Baptist and Jesus went into the desert.  John baptized in the wilderness.  Jesus taught in parables.  Both stepped out of the totalizing paradigm of the sovereign^infra religion of the Second Temple.]

Comments on page 7 is in brackets.

[Infrasovereign religions are often insistent because they (sometimes unconsciously, sometimes consciously) aim to impose their (infrasovereign) religion universally through the use of sovereign power.

When this happens, the infra-sovereign religious think^group₃ usurps the position of think^divine₃ and projects a malign think^antigroup₃ nested form (complete with its own forms of “sin^anti-group₂” and conscience^{lacking_pro-object}₁) onto whoever opposes them – or – whoever even appears to oppose them.

The world closes as these two ways of thought (think^pro-object and projected think^anti-object) come to dominate every discourse.  At this point, the infrasovereign religion becomes a sovereign^infra (or an (infra)sovereign) religion.]

[The latest development, God in relation to a sovereign, points to another criteria that defines “religion” (in addition to “having the structure of a relation between think^group₃ and think^divine₃ along the moral religious axis of the intersecting nested forms”): All religions relate to sovereign power.

Religions relate to sovereign power as a nested form:

normal context₃(actuality or situation₂(potential or possibility₁).

Let me start with the sovereign.  The sovereign claims the exclusive use of “power”, that is, “violence”.   “Violence” belongs to the realm of actuality₂.

What about religion?  The nested form predicts two types of religion, suprasovereign₃ and infrasovereign₁.  That is:

religion^{suprasovereign}₃( sovereign₂( religion^{infrasovereign}₁)

Suprasovereign religions put the exercise of sovereign power into context.  In a sense, any particular sovereign is either justified or not justified by the Other: think^divine.  This stance matches the ancient prophets of Israel.

“Religion^{suprasovereign}₃” brings “sovereign₂” into relation with “the possibilities inherent in religions^{infrasovereign}₁“.

Through “religion^{suprasovereign}₃“,”sovereign₂” emerges from “the possibilities inherent in religions^{infrasovereign}₁“.

Infrasovereign religions are situated through the exercise and control of sovereign power.   In a sense, any particular “sovereign₂” is always being either subverted or supported by “infrasovereign Others: think^groups”.

Even more, some infrasovereign religions seeks to attain sovereign power in order to establish its “object” as “law”.  This stance matches the Sadducees at the time of Christ.]

Comments on page 7 is in brackets.

[In many ways, the change from a legal perspective (obey these commandments) to a personal perspective (circumcise your heart), fleshes out awareness of the complexity of religion.

Think^divine₃ developed, in the traditions of Abraham, then Moses, then David, from an almost personal promise, to a God in a world filled with gods, to a God in relation to a sovereign.

Conscience, too, developed from a personal belief in the “One Who Promised”, to the dedicated fulfillment of the Laws of Moses, to a battle between sovereign and subject on the meaning of the Law.]