Text (pages 10-12) [comments in square brackets]

[Now I will put the picture in the last blog into words and think about some of the implications.

The Law (think^divine) puts virtue into context.  Virtue situates conscience^free.  Virtue also situates (trains) dispositions.

Transgressions situate conscience^lacking.  Transgressions also situate natural & philosophical dispositions; or maybe, material and immaterial desires.

This curiously implies that conscience^lacking is opportunistic in selecting transgressions that appeal to one’s dispositions.  By “opportunistic”, I mean “a process like natural selection”.  Natural selection is opportunistic.  Both adaptations and exaptations are opportunistic.

In short, conscience^lacking is looking for ways to tell one’s dispositions “what they want to hear”.  The dispositions are poised to act.  Both conscience^lacking and one’s dispositions are situated by the transgression.

In addition, the exclusive yet interpellating character of conscience^lacking and conscience^free may be foundational in the way that conscience^lacking packages itself as it potentiates transgression.  Conscience^lacking senses the Law in conscience^free’s ordination (like orientation, but including both material and immaterial dimensions).

My guess (which is consistent with Paul’s Letter to the Romans) is that conscience^lacking goes against the Law by revolting against conscience^free, the forbidding yet interpellating other, so that the person is less disposed to “the freedom to seek and align oneself with the truth (which is God’s Law)” and more disposed to “the advantages to me of acting out this transgression”.]

[Let me pull this together with a picture.]

Text (pages 10-12) [comments in square brackets]

[Excluding and interpellating the way of slavery is the way of freedom:

Think^divine₃(virtue₂(conscience^free₁))]

[Thus, Paul describes two intersecting nested forms to sin:

The way of the flesh: law^essential₃(transgression₂(disposition₁))

The way of slavery: think^group₃(transgression₂(conscience^lacking₁))]

[What is going on in the natural philosophical plane?

Conscience^fashion shapes its transgression (the beautiful compass) by confounding two natural dispositions: the disposition to know directions and the disposition to own, hold, and manipulate beautiful things. As the compass became more popular, another disposition, the lemming instinct (so popular on American campuses in 2012), comes into play.

The “missing the mark compass” situates dispositions^{coordinate+pretty+others_say_its_good}.

Law^essential labels the natural and philosophical consequences of this situation.   In the analogy, new constructions are “crooked” with respect to the old constructions.  These consequences cannot be explained within the symbolic order or ‘reality’ of the ever-expanding think^group.  In fact, problems cannot even be articulated because the think^group depends on the transgression.

At the point,when the problems appear to be overwhelming, a detachment ought to take place.  This is precisely what Paul talked about, when he said that the “sin” was responsible for his transgressions, not “Paul himself”.  This detachment must occur, otherwise the person, or here, the city, will self-destruct.

In the story it does.  A person recognizes why the ships are not returning.  They are getting lost because of the compass.]

Text (pages 10-12) [comments in square brackets]

[How would Paul’s ideas in Romans 7:11-13 fit into the intersecting nested form?

Think^divine sets the Law.  In the analogy, the Law would be something like the behavior of ferromagnetic needles in the Earth’s magnetic field.

Enter the beautiful compass.  Conscience^fashion fixes on the law and works on a way to turn it to advantage. Typical of creations of the fashion world, what comes out is attractive, but dysfunctional.

That does not matter, because a think^group forms saying that one can use this beautiful thing with confidence.

Think^group₃(missing the mark₂(conscience^fashion₁)) constitutes a positive feedback loop.]

Text (pages 10-12) [comments in square brackets]

[Consider this analogy. Someone invents a “missing the mark” compass.  It cannot align with the magnetic field, but it looks really beautiful.  It becomes so popular that people use it with confidence.  Buildings go up slightly misaligned with other buildings. New streets do not parallel the old streets.  The sewers do not align, spilling sewage into the boulevards.  The entire city looks out of kilter.

Hundreds of experts are hired to straighten out the works.  They conclude that the beautiful compass should be standard and the old city should be abandoned.  But the ship-owners are losing money and cannot pay for evacuation.  Their ships are going out and not returning.  The city verges on bankruptcy.  Chaos threatens.

Then someone at the shipyards discovers that the popular – mandated – beautiful – compass somehow does not point to the true magnetic pole.  That is why the ships are getting lost and not returning.  That person is subjected to persecution.  ‘He’ hates the beautiful.]

[Let me step back and present Schoonenberg’s comments in a single nested form.

The “law₃” puts “transgressions of the law, or sin₂” into context.

The “law₃” brings “transgressions of the law, or sin₂” into relation with “the possibilities inherent in ordination₁“.  Among these possibilities are “fixations₁” or “sins that precede the transgression of the Law₁” or “ways of disordination₁“.

For Schoonenberg, following Paul, these “ways of disordination₁“, which exist in the realm of possibility in this nested form, may be regarded actual in another nested form.

In these blogs, however, I resist any impulse to reify.  Perhaps, that may come later.

Consequently, these “ways of disordination₁” corresponds, to a greater or lesser extent, to conscience^lacking₁.  “Lacking” here, refers to the “inability to orient (or ordinate) without fixation”.]

Text (pages 10-12) [comments in square brackets]

[Paul argued that “sin” preceded “transgression of the Law”.

At the same time, the Law made “sin”, “the transgression of the Law”, possible by serving as a site for “sin” to fixate.

If “sin” is “disordination”, (where did Schoonenberg get that word?) then “sin misaligns with the Law”, resulting in an increase in certain types of transgressions.  The increase may steamroll as the other sins – other “ways of disordination” – join the prevailing disordination.

In short, sin misuses the Law in order to shape its transgressions.

One shape coordinates with other shapes.

A disordination “in the wind” becomes the Zeitgeist.

Then we cry to God for the grace to let the air out of the spirit of the times.]

[By the time that Jesus was born, the Pharisees’, Sadducees’, and Scribes’ sovereign^infra was as disempowering of the subject as the kings of the first Temple.

The disciples writing the NT did not see “sin” as “standing in opposition to the Law” as much as “opposition to God’s grace”.  This means more than the formula that God’s grace comes from accepting Christ [think^divine] and speaks to the heart [conscience^{free = independent}].  Grace is God’s answer to the public humiliation that comes from accusations from others [projections of think^anti-object].