Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 FF
Summary of text [comment] page 82
[The whole person stands in the heart, the intersection of choice and desire.]
Summary of text [comment] page 82
[The whole person stands in the heart, the intersection of choice and desire.]
Summary of text [comment] page 82
[At present, 50 years after Schoonenberg, we glimpse how Schoonenberg was on target.
The idea of concupiscence includes both flesh and reason. Both were corrupted in the Story of the Fall. Both belong to Original Sin.
The historic emphasis in Church doctrine on concupiscence elevates the idea that flesh is redeemable because reason (fortified by grace) could rule.
However, whenever the comment in the parenthesis is ignored or forgotten, then Pelagius, a Stoic disguised as a Christian, takes the stage.]
[Infant baptism introduces a state of grace that rights reason by lifting the burden of material evil … I mean, Original Sin … from the baby.
This short-circuited the Manichean agenda.
Rather than asking reason to memorize secret knowledge in order to escape the burden of matterevil, Augustine asked reason to accept the historic configuration of Original Sinevil.
Once the latter was regarded as plausible, baptism could remove the evil, leaving the believer in a world infused with Original Sin, yet, at the same time, liberated from the necessity of escape.]
Summary of text [comment] page 82
[For Augustine, the (situation-level) flesh was redeemable because (content-level) reason could rule.
But, reason could not rule on its own.
As St. Paul implied, reason was just as corruptible as the flesh.
Reason was redeemable because it was open to the (perspective-level) gift of grace through Christ.]
[Speculative reason was obviously superior to practical reason.
Augustine started as a Manichean because it was the philosophy of those who considered themselves better the common folk.
Then, Augustine experienced a change of heart.
In doing so, he ultimately placed the speculations of the Manicheans in the same inferior position as Manicheans put common folk.
The interscope of Manichean speculation became the intersection of Augustine’s heart.]
[Manicheans regarded themselves as intellectually superior to the common folk. Certainly, common folk were just as intelligent as any Manichean philosopher. However, common folk could not explain why they were not inferior.]
Summary of text [comment] page 82
[The prior interscopes also suggest this: The Manichean solution arrived after the stoical common folk interscope turned into an intersection.
Speculative reason resolved the intersection.
Thus, the speculative reason of the Manichean was born through detachment from the practical reason of stoical common folk.]
Summary of text [comment] page 82
[The identical situation, where our good spiritual being was trapped within the matrix of evil material, emerges from two types of reason.
The stoicism of the common folk rely on one type of reason.
The enlightenment of the Manicheans rely on the other.
In both cases, reason serves as evidence for the spark of spiritual good.
Both types of reason produce content that could be situated within the situation.]