Summary of text [comment] page 17

[Can the word “sinful” apply to our dispositions in the same way that it might apply to our conscience^specified?  What is the connection between dispositions and conscience^specified?  Since both belong to the monadic realm of possibility, they may be distinguished but not separated.  They play on one another.

Certain complementary pairs of conscience^lacking and dispositions will be situated (and habituated) by sinful acts.  Certain complementary pairs of conscience^free and dispositions will be situated (and habituated) by virtuous acts.

Since dispositions fix on partial goods and since conscience^specified is brought into relation with action through think^{group_or_divine}, partial goods become the focus of sinful and virtuous acts.

This highlights the issue of training the dispositions.]

Summary of text [comment] page 17

Schoonenberg added, that in Scripture, the concept of “the heart” as “the origin of sin” matured.   Both the story of the sin in paradise (Genesis 3) and Job (31) portray sinful thoughts and desires.

Sinful thoughts and wishes are the first steps towards sinful actions.

[To me, Schoonenberg, writing solely in verse, ranges over distinctions that appear in bold in the intersecting nested forms.

“Thoughts and wishes” mark the “conscience and dispositions”.

Without conscience^lacking, sin cannot situate the dispositions.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 16 & 17

Section 3 of Chapter 1 is titled “Sin Proceeds from Our Freedom”.

Sin is a voluntary transgression [that is, it involves conscience].

But this is not evident in the Old Testament, where the focus is on religion, rather than psychology.

Here, “freedom” is a sociological concept, rather a psychological one.

Often, transgressions committed out of ignorance draw punishment.  For example, Uzzah died immediately after accidently touching the Holy Ark (2 Sam 6:6).

With the prophets, the tenor is more personal.  God looks on the heart (Isa 23:13).  “Circumcision of the heart” became a metaphor of “a true heart” [conscience^free].  A hardened heart became a metaphor for a sinful heart [conscience^lacking].

Summary of text [comment] page 15

Schoonenberg condensed the teaching of Jesus on sin into 3 headings:

One: The commandment to love my neighbor

Two: My neighbor is everybody who meets me

Three: A favor done to my neighbor is the same as done to Christ

[The law^essential – the natural philosophical consequences of these teachings – is counter-intuitive from the point of view of dispositions.

Dispositions initially ask: “What about me?”

None of these teachings tells the dispositions what they want to hear.

Perhaps, this indicates that these teachings do not come from a serpent.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 14 & 15

John 3:19-21 [ depicts the impossible relation between law^denial and law^accept].

Law^denial₃(transgression₂(disposition₁)) is “loving the darkness and hating the light”.

For example, imagine wealthy and powerful golden calves, who pay handsome sums to certified people of moral and religious grandeur, in order to properly perform the rituals of worship.  They then go out and oppress the poor.

A golden calf might take offense to that image, saying, “Oppress the poor?  No.  These impure folk are condemned by God Himself for not properly performing the temple rituals.  That is why they are poor.”]

Sin against God Himself is apparent in sins against one’s neighbors.

Summary of text [comment] page 14

[When the “light” is taken as “the object that think^group has, but its detractors cannot possibly have”, then two parties are present: think^{group_is_light} and think^{enemy_is_darkness}.  The former projects the latter.

The exclusion of (the projected) think^{enemy_is_darkness} by think^{group_is_light} creates an atmosphere where think^{group_is_light} illuminates all aspects of the symbolic order of the time (Germans call it “the Zeitgeist”).

Articulation of think^divine is perceived as resistance; that is, criticism of think^{group_is_light}.  Think^light is confounded with think^{enemy_is_darkness}.

There is no escape, until the entire symbolic order (that is, the social construction of society) collapses due to its own consequences (law^essential), consequences that the think^{group_is_light} have long denied (law^denial).]

[The sinful think^group believes it has the light.  If it gains sovereign power, this think^group addresses all subjects as either think^{group_is_light} or think^{enemy_is_darkness}.   Think^{group_is_light} hates think^{enemy_is_darkness}, even though it cannot really tell friend from foe. Think^{group_is_light} denies the consequences of its own (sinful) actions.

Any person of virtue who points out the horrid consequences of think^{group_is_light} is branded as a person who adheres to the malevolent world view of think^{enemy_is_darkness}.  That person becomes a “scapegoat”, an object for hatred.

Think^{group_is_light} rejects the possibility that any alleged “person of virtue” has the capacity to witness to the law^essential that they themselves deny.  Consequently, the prophet is condemned because she does have the proper intelligence, standing, sophistication or credentials.  It is impossible for her to witness to what she plainly sees.

John’s pithy view of “what sin is” points to the core of these issues: The only moral religious perspective where the appearance of law^essential corresponds to its substance is think^divine.

Law^acceptance and think^divine complement one another.

That is why sin is infidelity and hatred against the light, which is Christ. ]

Summary of text [comment] page 14

Schoonenberg summed John’s view of sin.  Sin is infidelity and hatred against the light, which is Christ (John 15:18, 23-25).

[To me, it seems that Christ goes with think^divine, a “way of thought that puts sovereign power into context”.  Think^Christ is a suprasovereign mythos and logos.

“Sin” associates to those think^groups practicing infidelity and hatred against the light of think^Christ.

A think^group that is an infra-sovereign religion does not necessarily hate the light.  However, some do.  The sinful ones do.]

[In order to gain insight into lasting sin, one can guess “what is impossible “.  “What is impossible” forms the unbridgable gap between law^denial and law^acceptance.

For the Jewish establishment at the time of Jesus, I suppose the impossible relation concerned “purity”.

To the Pharisees, Sadducees and Scribes, the common folk could never be pure.  It was impossible.  The Pharisees had a relation of impossibility between {denying the consequences of their actions, through diverse explanations, including a defense of themselves the only practitioners of think^pure} and {accepting the consequences of their actions and attitudes, including their projection of think^impure onto others}.

The Pharisees concluded that a filthy carpenter from Nazareth (yes, the one complaining about the consequences of their actions and attitudes, which were all false allegations, because after all, only they knew how to properly keep the hundreds of ritual obligations of the Law) could not possibly be correct.  He had to be some sort of devil (projected think^impure).

The only moral religious perspective where “law^essential is not denied” corresponds to think^divine.   Law^acceptance and think^divine, then, stand in mutual confirmation.]