01/5/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.1CR

Summary of text [comment] pages 67 and 68

[When ‘I recognize myself as an image of God’, I glimpse God’s Omnipotence.

Sanctifying grace is an interpellation by the Holy Spirit.

Sanctifying grace cleanses ‘my lack of self-esteem’.

‘The realization of my own self-esteem through the image of God’ inspires me to join various organizations. These institutions strive to address the material limitations of other children of God. They have an objectorganization to give. The objectorg is a gift, not a demand. The objectorg offers a trade, not a tax.

This striving grows the entire spontaneous order.

In that growth, I feel the amazing mystery of God.]

12/6/15

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 DP-1

[In God, all things are possible, which means that opportunities exist.

All we have to do is exercise our freedomconcrete.

Our consciencefree is always ready.

Here, ‘free’ means free from the dictates of a professor who insists that ‘free to choose’ means a woman’s right to abort that “thing” that will bond a woman to her husband and expect that husband to provide.

That “thing” is a human being.]

12/2/15

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.1CP

Summary of text [comment] pages 67 and 68

[Self-esteem arises from the realization that “I am an image of God”.

“Recognizing myself as an image of God” may be described as “my covenant with God”.

Compare this to “self-recognition based on mundane normal contexts (family, income, status, tribal affiliation, national citizenship)”. I participate within this spontaneous order in limited ways (due to these normal contexts “determining who I am”).

My covenant is to a mundane normal context, not to the attractor of the spontaneous order.

My covenant is to a mundane normal context, not to God.]

11/30/15

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.1CN

[Hmmm. Were the last few blogs a red herring?

Does my self-esteem reflect my fears as a limited creature in a cultural spontaneous order?

Or does my self-esteem express the nature of the self-reflective creature?

Or does my self-esteem arise when “I recognize myself” as “within a spontaneous order that realizes itself through an attractor that is contiguous with God’s design”?

Nature speaks to the wonder of God.

“I do not lack self-esteem” when “I recognize myself as an image of God”.]

11/26/15

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.1CL

[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.]

11/24/15

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.1CJ2

[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”.]