[How about this metaphor?
The person’s psyche is like a steam engine.
Perhaps, the normal contexts of think and law act like regulators. Conscience and dispositions act like fuel.
Sigmund Freud, one of the founders of psychoanalysis, started with a picture of the unconscious as a steam engine powering a locomotive.
Freud wrote between 1890 and 1950 AD (7690-7750 U0′).]
Summary of text [comment] page 80
[This raises the question: Do the models built of interscoping and intersecting nested forms apply to the development of the hardened heart?
Hmmm.
Come to think of it, most other models of the hardened heart are metaphors.
So do the models built of interscoping and intersecting nested forms apply to these metaphors?]
Summary of text [comment] page 80
The inclination to evil is a sequel to sin. The human (who was not undergone an interior conversion under the influence of grace) will always be self-centered and selfish. These will guide his first actions. These actions will have consequences. The person will look for some way out. His heart will then harden into pride and despair.
[How does the term, our powerlessness for the good, summarize the previous discussion on the sequels to sin?
Our inability to love is a sequel to sin. Its main effect is to generate a feedback loop where sinful acts are contextualized by narrow mindedness and denial. Sinful acts situate feelings of arrogance and self-indulgence, self-centeredness and selfishness.
We are powerless to stop the feedback loop once it starts, simply because we have no contradicting contexts. We are powerless to do good.
Also, punishment is a sequel to sin. Even though one denies the consequences, consequences occur. This aspect of the feedback loop reinforces the idea that ‘sin itself becomes its punishment’.]
Summary of text [comment] page 79
Section 3 of chapter 2, is titled The Inclination to Evil.
Schoonenberg started by claiming that our powerlessness for the good is not the only sequel to sin.
Summary of text [comment] pages 78 and 79
[So let me return to that quote. “By his nature, man is for himself a chaotic datum in need of integration through love.”
For the intersecting nested forms, the divine call to love invokes an openness to thinkdivine, an honesty that admits lawessential, an integrity to consciencefree and an awareness of one’s dispositions.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 78 and 79
[What are some consequences for the social system?
The inability to love produces failure through a feedback mechanism that dissipates potential energy rather than coupling it to constructive purpose.
In effect, the ‘inability to love’ is parasitic. Like all parasitic structures, the energy that it uses to sustain itself reduces the energy available to others in the system.
The entire spontaneous order becomes impoverished.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 78 and 79
[At the end of section 2.2 ( The Inability to Love), Schoonenberg described a failure to integrate, to achieve harmony, to order ourselves, and to find goodness.
Schoonenberg did not describe a positive feedback loop where sinful acts are contextualized through perverse justifications (thinkgroup) and the denial of consequences (lawdenial). Nor did he describe sinful acts situating a narrowing band of attitudes (consciencelacking) and fixations (dispositions).
In sin, the individual’s potential, the range of possibilities inherent in conscience and dispositions, shrinks. Human recognition, the openness of one’s morality and the honest assessment of outcomes, constricts.
The sinner exhibits narrow-mindedness and arrogance, the foundations of bigotry and hubris. The sinner acts like an elitist.]
[In the pursuit of partial goods, denying the consequences becomes part of the game of establishing harmonyapparent.
Lawessential falls under the spell of lawdenial, a network of excuses that brings sinful actions into relation with a narrowing range of attitudes and emotional needs.
Lawdenial characterizes sovereign religions.
So ironically, some sort of harmony is achieved by sin.
However, harmonyapparent includes deception as an essential part of its functioning.
Harmonyapparent integrates lawdenial.
Harmonyapparent comes at the expense of harmonyfull.]
[Lawessential witnesses and records the negative consequences.
But, if the consequences are denied, then integration may occur under lawdenial.]
