[In the time of Jesus, the exterior cultivation of ritual purity constituted a thinkpro-obect. It exhibited the relations of a thinkgolden_calf to a (projected) thinkscapegoat . It spoke a language that maintained the mask of lawdenial.
The take home lesson is that the sinner’s dispositions are situated by transgressions through both thinkpro-object and lawdenial.
The sinner hears what ‘he’ wants to hear.]
Summary of text [comment] page 18
Jesus places ‘man’s’ heart before God. The person’s free decision is the foundation of religion and morality.
The New Testament further develops that doctrine by pointing to the primacy of love (1 Cor 13).
[The hypocrite must establish that the cause lies elsewhere.
This is precisely why Rene Girard’s observations of the sociological importance of the scapegoat have such pertinence.
The hypocritical golden calf preserves ‘his’ innocence through the creation of a scapegoat.
The charade lasts until the moment when lawessential can no longer be denied and the kingdom collapses.]
[Hypocrisy follows a roundabout pathway to denial.
The hypocrite engages in transgressions. These transgressions can be described on the moral religious axis as thinkgroup3(sin2(consciencelacking1)). The hypocritice does not proselytize ‘his’ thinkgroup.
Why?
‘His’ thinkgroup is parasitic to a sovereign that thinkdivine has empowered. The hypocrite does not pay the price for ‘his’ actions and directs resources to ‘himself’.]
As the consequences of the transgressions (of hypocrites) become more and more apparent, the sovereign may face a choice. The sovereign may recognize that the hypocrites saps ‘his’ ability to maintain sovereign functions or ‘he’ may fail to recognize what is happening. Either way, members of a parasitic thinkgroup will insist that they are not responsible.
Moreover, they will insist that the cause of the problems cannot be understood as lawessential3(transgressions2(dispositions1)). Thus, the denial of lawessential underlies hypocrisy.]
Summary of text [comment] page 18
[What characterizes “the hypocrite”?
The hypocrite preaches one way but does the other. The interpellation between the parallel nested forms becomes a charade. The hypocrite pays lip service to thinkdivine but acts according to thinkgroup.]
Summary of text [comment] page 18
In addition to saying that evil thoughts in the heart produce sin, Jesus said that “all these evil things come from within and they defile the man (Mark 7:21).”
[ Notably, thinkgroup3(sin2(consciencelacking1)) denies the natural consequences, the lawessential3, that contextualizes transgressions. Lawdenial3 brings sin2 into relation with dispositions1. The moral religious nested form empowers the natural philosophic nested form.
Does the denial of lawessential3 and the resulting trained dispositions equate to “defilement”?
Consider leprosy, a classic Scriptural sign of defilement. Some types of leprosy consist in “the loss of the feeling of touch” through disease. The person is not aware ‘he’ is injuring ‘himself’. So injuries continue until tissue breaks down.
In parallel, the sinner loses ‘his’ “sense of touch” by habitually denying lawessential.
The sinner loses touch with thinkdivine3( virtue2( consciencefree1)).]
Summary of text [comment] page 18
Jesus demands that the Law of God be observed. He also wants us to interiorize it. Jesus equates hatred and impure desires with murder and adultery (Mark 7:21).
[Thinkgroup3(__2(consciencelacking1)) opportunistically seeks situations that strongly appeals to our dispositions1. Some dispositions will react so strongly, that we cannot help but hear what “we want to hear”, just like Life Woman in An Archaeology of the Fall.
These dispositions are as varied as the transgressions that situate them.
Consequently, for Scripture, hatred and impure desires are not merely dispositions. They are dispositions coupled with thinkgroup3(sin2(consciencelacking1)).
They are trained dispositions.]
Summary of text [comment] page 17
[Can the word “sinful” apply to our dispositions in the same way that it might apply to our consciencespecified? What is the connection between dispositions and consciencespecified? Since both belong to the monadic realm of possibility, they may be distinguished but not separated. They play on one another.
Certain complementary pairs of consciencelacking and dispositions will be situated (and habituated) by sinful acts. Certain complementary pairs of consciencefree and dispositions will be situated (and habituated) by virtuous acts.
Since dispositions fix on partial goods and since consciencespecified is brought into relation with action through thinkgroup_or_divine, partial goods become the focus of sinful and virtuous acts.
This highlights the issue of training the dispositions.]
Summary of text [comment] page 17
Schoonenberg added, that in Scripture, the concept of “the heart” as “the origin of sin” matured. Both the story of the sin in paradise (Genesis 3) and Job (31) portray sinful thoughts and desires.
Sinful thoughts and wishes are the first steps towards sinful actions.
[To me, Schoonenberg, writing solely in verse, ranges over distinctions that appear in bold in the intersecting nested forms.
“Thoughts and wishes” mark the “conscience and dispositions”.
Without consciencelacking, sin cannot situate the dispositions.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 16 & 17
Section 3 of Chapter 1 is titled “Sin Proceeds from Our Freedom”.
Sin is a voluntary transgression [that is, it involves conscience].
But this is not evident in the Old Testament, where the focus is on religion, rather than psychology.
Here, “freedom” is a sociological concept, rather a psychological one.
Often, transgressions committed out of ignorance draw punishment. For example, Uzzah died immediately after accidently touching the Holy Ark (2 Sam 6:6).
With the prophets, the tenor is more personal. God looks on the heart (Isa 23:13). “Circumcision of the heart” became a metaphor of “a true heart” [consciencefree]. A hardened heart became a metaphor for a sinful heart [consciencelacking].
