[Our individual success depends on the dynamics of the spontaneous order. We are experiments. The outcome of each experiment is not predetermined.

From this point of view, our “lack of self-esteem” reflects “our emotional reactions to the tentative world of a social spontaneous order”. Life is scary. We are limited creatures. The challenges are abundant.

The cure for our fears does not rest in the spontaneous order. Nor does it reside, as Progressives will never tire in saying, in making the world “more fair” (that is, more lifeless). It becomes apparent when looking through the spontaneous order towards “the actuality that conditions the existence of the spontaneous order itself”.

I look through the spontaneous order toward the attractor. The attractor is contiguous with the unseen design.

Here is a parallel way of saying this. This parallel way leads to certainty:

I look through Jesus the Son of Man (who I know and image within my own unique actuality) to see Jesus the Christ (the attractor), who sits at the right hand of the Father (the unseen design, encompassing all the ways we engage in desire for God).

This is why, when one person dies, an entire world is lost. Each person is the most valuable of God’s creations.]

[Our dynamic spontaneous orders exist because we are different. Differences provide the potential. Order spontaneously forms.

Our limitations come from “the accidents of our own coming into actuality”, as well as “the accidents of our capabilities and the capabilities of others”.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 67 and 68

[Why fixate on our lack of self-esteem?

We humans exist in spontaneous cultural orders generated by “God Recognizing Himself”. Our cultural orders emerge from the realm of possibility.

However, “the possibility inherent in God” (the former) is not the same as “the possibilities that support our particular spontaneous cultural orders” (the latter).

The latter are historical and finite. The former are ahistorical and infinite.

The former conditions the latter.

Our limitations speak to the latter. We are limited because “we are experiments within the spontaneous order”. Each experiment cannot avail itself to all the potential in a historical and finite system.

Nor can we fairly or reasonably apportion the potential of the system. Why? The potential of the system arises due to our variations. If all “the variation that is ourselves” produced the same outcomes, the spontaneous order would cease to exist.

Summary of text [comment] pages 67 and 68

[Here is a statement from 7815 U0′:

Progressive Americans have a fixation on self esteem.

This raises a question:

Does “we lack self-esteem” resonate with “I recognize myself” and “both I and myself emerge from finite potential”?]

Summary of text [comment] page 67

[“The normal context through which I recognize myself” entails “an object that brings me into relation with everyone else”.

So the question is: What is the nature of this object?

If this object is not Love, the Word, the Father’s Recognition, or Divine Creativity, it is a fixation, an idol, “an object that brings individuals into organization.”

Object^org replaces or eclipses object^rel.

The object that illuminates “I recognize myself” grounds “the normal context that brings ‘I’ and ‘what I recognize as myself’ into contiguity”.

This object will always be either a grace-filled inspiration or a hollow parody of the Triune God.

Schoonenberg said, “sin is its own punishment”. Within his claim lives the pathos of the sinner clinging, desperately, longingly, to ‘his’ idol.]

[Is there a positive way to state this?

Yes.

When “the normal context through which I recognize myself” is an organizational object, then “I can become an organizational person”.

Think^organization sets my horizons.

I do not need to think outside the box.]

[IF I refuse to see myself as “a person who is an image of God”,

THEN, in actuality, instead of seeing myself, I see only those aspects of me that conform to a limited normal context. I do not feel God’s Omnipotence in myself. Both I and myself emerge from “a potency that does not encompass all other human beings”.

In sin, both “I” and “what I recognize, that is myself”, corrode my participation in the divine economy. Misrecognition and arrogance correspond to refusal and usurpation.]

Summary of text [comment] page 67

[Finally, let me consider the sinner.

The sinner’s statement, “I recognize myself (irrespective of God)”, locates the normal context (the sinner ‘himself’) outside of think^divine.

The sinner simultaneously refuses and usurps the statement that represents acceptance and openness.

“I recognize God, as the only way to recognize myself.”, is fundamentally transformed into something like “I recognize some mediator (perhaps, me, my gender, my race, my lover, my social role, my family, my tribe, my ethnicity, my nation, my ideology, my society) as the only way to recognize myself.”

This mediator is no different than an idol.

Sin replaces God with an idol.

Also, I cannot love myself as myself. I can only idolize that aspect of me that resonates with the limited normal context.

Consequently, as a sinner, I am always alienated from my true self. I can never be myself.

Plus, I cannot figure out why.]

Summary of text [comment] page 67

[Let me consider the person.

When someone says, “I recognize God, as the only way to recognize myself.”, that person accepts and is open to the formative designs that we encounter in the Holy Spirit.

I want The Father to recognize, in myself, the same character that He Sees in The Son.

In this way, I find myself desiring what the Creator loves.

The Son brings us into relation with our selves, our fellow humans and our God. The Son brings us into relation with all creation.]