[In place of the myth of Genesis, Enlightenment thinkers propose (what they think is) a true (as opposed to false) scenario.

It goes something like this:

Humans are naturally good and well-intentioned.

Then, civilization came along with the concept of property. The self-centering condition of ownership blocks their good and well-intended natures.

Hence the slogan from the French Revolution goes like this:

Liberty (from property)

Equality (of property for all)

Fraternity (through our good and well-intended natures)]

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[Enlightenment doctrine holds. Genesis is mythology. Mythology is false.

But is it deceptive?]

[Moderns insist. The stories of Genesis are mythology. Why? They wanted people to convert. They wanted them to abandon their Christian mythologies.

For the modern, the stories of Adam and Eve are false.

Original Sin, a doctrine relying on the stories of Adam and Eve, is also false.]

[Today, 50 years after Schoonenberg published, I may delineate threads that link the themes.

First, let me start with the idea that Modernism was built on mythologies.

For the modern, mythology associates with the word: “False”. The dichotomy is true versus false. Mythology is false.

For the premodern Christian, mythology associates with the word: “Deception”. The dichotomy is true versus deception. Pagan myth is deceptive.

Why?

The original Christians are all converts. They abandon their Greek, German, Roman and other mythologies. Yet, those religions still call them to return.]

[Does Schoonenberg’s proposal integrate with established doctrine in some fashion?

He does not know how, because he does not have a postmodern way to mythologize the Story of the Fall.

He does not have a postmodern way to show that Modernism itself is built on mythologies.]

[Slavoj Zizek coined a word for ‘the exhibition of the passions of self-justification’.

He called it ‘perversion’.

Hmmm. Now, that sounds like the Church’s doctrine on Original Sin.]

[Once self-justification becomes the normal context of concupiscence, the passions once again enter into the picture.

Cruelty arises from the potential inherent in self-justification.

Cruelty puts self-justification into context.

Cruelty answers the question: Are you willing to use your self-justifications in order to dehumanize other humans?

Cruelty is a powerful and passionate affirmation.

Self-justification never felt so good.]

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[Schoonenberg’s proposed doctrine on concupiscence differs from the Church’s doctrine on concupiscence. It is also a critique of the Church’s doctrine.

Yet, it is not so different. Schoonenberg surveys the same world as the Church.

Ambition and power demands that we are the ones who put ourselves into perspective.

The signal we broadcast to ourselves, when received by reason, facilitates self-justification.

Self-justification is the normal context of concupiscence.]

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[The signal that we broadcast to ourselves may call to our passions.

This corresponds to one reading of Church doctrine.

Original sin calls the flesh as opposed to reason.

The Church calls us to reason.

But what if, as Schoonenberg pointed out, original sin calls the flesh and the reason as opposed to the spirit?

Then we must take caution.

The Church’s call to reason may be subject to interference, if not substitution, by the serpent’s calls to passion or reason or whatever part of us that listens.]