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.]

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[The person acts as an antenna for the dual vertical axis intersecting nested form. The signal is absorbed completely.

The signal brings what we humans can be into relation with our own actualities.

It seems to us that there no distance. The message is here already.]

[Can we say to ourselves: We are the ones who put ourselves into perspective?

Can we say to ourselves: We are the ones who we have been waiting for?

What is the message?

We know better than God.

Yet, unlike God, we need an apparatus to broadcast to ourselves. We need a tower of power. We need someone outside of ourselves to tell us that we are the ones who we have been waiting for.

The serpent waits, ready to reply:

“I will tell you what you already suspect.

You know better than God.”]

[Is there a flaw in these metaphors?

Can we regard ourselves from a distance of our own making?

Can we broadcast the signal that we want to receive?

Consider Eve.

She needed the serpent to broadcast her own thoughts.]

[Photon absorption serves as a metaphor for interpellation.

A person receives (absorbs) a broadcast message. The message interpellates the whole person. When the person receives the signal, “she” hears a call.

It is as if ‘religion’ broadcasts a waveform that matches the receiver of the human mind.

Religion addresses us from a distance.

In order to do this, there must be a distance.

This is where God, the Other, comes in.

God provides the space for regarding ourselves.]

[The message underlying the word ‘religion’ resonates with the whole person as modeled by the intersecting nested form. It is like a broadcast composed of an electromagnetic signal.

Electrical and magnetic fields alternate at right angles. As one field becomes actual, the other becomes potential.

The photon moves at the speed of light.

Then a receiver absorbs its energy. The receiver receives the information of the photon’s existence.]

[Would Schoonenberg have labeled the same actuality: the whole person?

The conflict between the whole person and God’s revelation is manifest in the double vertical axes.

The horizontal axis remains one. Its normal context is law^essential.

However, one may denote the horizontal axis according to the conditions of the intersecting vertical axis. One can write of law^acceptance or law^denial, depending on dominance of one or the other vertical axis.]

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[Does Schoonenberg’s speculation cohere with Augustine’s concept of original sin?

An Archaeology of the Fall describes one consistency.

Eve, like the rest of us, heard what she wanted to hear.

What did she want to hear?

The serpent talked as if it were a projection of Eve’s unconscious mind.

Does the difference between flesh (passion) and reason capture the serpent’s words?

Or is ‘flesh and reason’ opposed to ‘the spirit of God’s command’?

To me, the latter option prevails.

First, it seems that the latter difference matches the serpent itself. ‘Flesh (presence) and reason (meaning)’ reflect the message underlying ‘the image of a talking serpent’.

Second, consider way the serpent seduced Eve. It started with sensuality and ended with reason.]