12/28/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 EB

[Consider the unity of human thought and human action.

Seek pleasure. I mean, seek the pleasure that is offered by the thinkgroup. Belonging may be one of those pleasures. If the mob is doing it, I can do it too.

Avoid pain. I mean, avoid the pain that is threatened by the thinkgroup. Perhaps, a thinkgroup may offer ways to shift pain to others. Don’t be the scapegoat. Scapegoat others to shift blame from yourself.

Sinful behavior, emerging from and situating consciencelacking, plus one’s disposition to seek pleasure and avoid pain, has consequences.

These consequences, of course, are unintended.

They are ignored in lawdenial.

The great tradition of natural law, lawessential, remembers ‘those unintended consequences’.

Lawacceptance serves to keep those memories alive. Their maxims constitute the laws of nature that Schoonenberg refers to.

Thus sinful ‘man’ is unable to keep commandments of the natural law.]

12/27/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 EA

Summary of text [comment] page 78

[Sin and virtue in this model label the single actuality composed of two nested forms; one pertaining to human actions and one pertaining to human thoughts.

Schoonenberg conflates ‘the commandments of the natural law’ with ‘the divine way’?

How does this work?

The sinner develops or adopts a thinkgroup that deviates from thinkdivine. It is easy to do because thinkgroups belong to the Zeitgeist.

Many thinkgroups bring sinful acts into relation with the conscience. In doing so, thinkgroup justifies sin in a way that favors certain pleasures or avoids certain pains.

What body would resist?

Consciencelacking is directly trained by the normal context of thinkgroup.

The dispositions are indirectly habituated through each transgression.]

12/23/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 DY

Summary of text [comment] page 78

The limited goods (that a sinful person chooses) have a tendency to slip away. A sinful person may cling to a shred of virtue. But only for so long.

Schoonenberg wrote that fallen man is unable, without grace, to keep the commandments of the natural law for a long time.

[Why did Schoonenberg refer to ‘the commandments of the natural law’ and not ‘the divine law’?

Does Schoonenberg conflate thinkdivine and lawessential?

Or does his intuition implicitly comply with the explicit model of the intersection of virtue and sin?]

12/22/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 DX-2

[The hero stands for Progressive television producers (whose way of talk exploits the viewers, since they cannot talk back). The victim stands for the viewer (who cannot talk back to the television, therefore is a victim).

The expectation is that the victim-viewer will join the television producer-exploiter in a mutual hatred of the one designated as the anti-object. ‘The bad one’, in many these shows, stands in for those who do not watch TV and mind their own business.

Thus, in contradiction to Jesus’ words in John 15:5, the so-called Progressive mainstream American TV portrays a world where both producer and viewer love one another while both hating their fellow “man” (the stock character accused of the projector’s moral failures).]

12/20/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 DW-2

[For example, let us say that an administrator conveys a false sense of ‘victimhood’ onto someone in order to ‘save the victim’ through sovereign power.

The rescued victim may find that the administrator is using “him” to validate the administrator’s exercise of disciplinary power.

The administrator’s limited good is self-serving.

The opportunity to exhibit how I am more righteous than others offers just as much a temptation for some as alcohol offers for others.]

12/19/16

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

Summary of text [comment] page 78

[The limited goods, that the sinful “man” may choose and realize, tend towards specific moral attitudes. Examples include self, family, tribe, nation, and political party.

For example, let us say that a person chooses the limited group of tribe.

Preferential acts of kindness to those in the tribe will be a limited good.]

12/15/16

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.2 DU

Summary of text [comment] page 77

Under sinful circumstances, a sinner may choose a good on “his” own, but not the moral good that is the object of virtue. “He” can choose only limited goods, provided, of course, that “his” dispositions have not already been trained by sinful habitual actions.

[Here, the model of intersecting nested forms assists.

Even when consciencelacking has made the person unfree (that is, dependent on the thinkgroup), the parallel vertical nested form of thinkdivine still interpellates.]