[There is an ontological split in the moral order.  This split leads to “tension”.  “Gravity” relates to this “tension”.

The tension contains a polarity with respect to knowledge.  On one hand, there is universal knowledge, immaterial, tautological, honed by both natural and cultural evolution, and revealed in freak moments of divine what-if-ness.  On the other hand, there is sensual knowledge, carnal, ambiguous, stimulated by natural and cultural events, and habituated in freak moments of “wow that felt good” or “wow that felt bad”.

Now, step back.  Does the term “tension” sound similar to the “tension” between “objective” and “subjective” knowledge?  Even more, does “subjective’ knowledge become “objective” knowledge when one steps back?

Sensual knowledge is fragmentary.  Universal knowledge is unitary.  Sensual knowledge is subjective.  Universal knowledge is objective.

[To me, Schoonenberg started with personal decision (which I associate with conscience^specified).  He then noted a tension relating to sensual knowledge (which I associate to dispositions, which is not in the moral order) and universal knowledge (which I associate to think^{divine_or_group}, which is in the moral order).

Schoonenberg highlighted three of the elements of the intersecting nested form.  Let us see how it plays out.]

Summary of text [comment] pages 30 and 31

Sin is subjectively a personal decision and utterance against God.

[In terms of the intersecting nested forms, I associate “personal decision” with “conscience^lacking” and “utterance” with “think^group”.]

Can these personal decisions and utterances be classified as venial or mortal?

Yes, the gravity for mortal decisions is greater than venial decisions.

What does the term “gravity” imply?]

Summary of text [comment] page 30

Why don’t humans act on the basis of logic trees?

Logic trees are “objective”.

Human action arises from a “subjective” point of view.  The logic tree approach omits the subjective aspect to sin.  Sin is subjectively a personal decision and utterance against God.

Summary of text [comment] page 29

[I return to the text.]

How does Schoonenberg see the difference between venial and mortal sins?

The Dutch Catechism of 1910 set up a logic tree:

Is a human act a transgression of God’s law?  Yes (continue) No (not sin)

Is the act an important matter?  Yes (possibly mortal, continue) No (venial)

Was the act committed with full knowledge? Yes (possibly mortal, continue) No (venial)

Was the act committed freely (with free will)? Yes (mortal) No (venial)

Schoonenberg then pointed out – in a roundabout way – that humans do not act on the basis of logic trees.

[I write like a bird.

When I land, I leave a drop of yuck, a condensate of the sublimated waters of Scholasticism and the burnt embers of Modernism.

When I fly, I leave a gaseous trail.

I cannot help it, because I am the harbinger of meaning.

Do not hold me to tightly.  I do not want to be crushed.

Do not hold me too loosely.  Otherwise I will fly away.]

[Or maybe I should blame Schoonenberg because he anticipated the yawning gap that was about to separate postmodernism from modernism.  Every paragraph sets out an idea then withdraws it, clarifies it, nuances it, or balances it.  Each idea comes from tradition, has been refined by countless controversies, and may be stated with precision.

At the same time, the entire tradition (symbolic order) has been vaporized, sublimated into a single term: “superstition”.  Its intellectual presence has been replaced by longings for some utopian dream world as constituted by the Social Sciences.

In sum, my flights of neoscholastic and postmodern speculation come from the fact that Schoonenberg was both scholastic and modern.  Neither symbolic order remains alive. Neither remains truly dead.  The chasm between 1964 and 2012 can only be bridged through speculative flight, on the wings of the spirit of the Fourth Age of Understanding.]

[“Postmodernism” may be defined as “Modernism Crashing On the Shoals of Actuality”.  “Modernism” may be defined as “Scholasticism Dying On the Shores of Speculative Possibilities”.  Pyrrhic victories usher in new eras.

How many papers have been published on venial and mortal sin during the past 25 years?  Only 10 years after Man and Sin came out in Dutch (1962), Menninger was publishing Whatever became of Sin?  Yet here, in this blog, Schoonenberg’s words on this apparently arcane topic have become disturbingly relevant.]

Summary of text [comment] page 29

[At this point, seems that I am using Schoonenberg’s text to launch into flights of neoscholastic and postmodern speculation.

Of course, I blame Schoonenberg.

He should have anticipated the success of Postmodernism 50 years after the publication of his text.]

[For Chavez, that object was resentment: “your are poor because the rich stole your money”. With this Great Leader, the world of Venezuela divided into think^{blame_the_rich} and (the projected) think^{steal_from_the_poor}.

If you had any money, you were threatened into silence by the projected label.  When poverty enveloped Venezuela due to market distortions, all political resistance received the projected label.  But where is this mythical evil person who has stolen all the wealth from poor Venezuela?  “Whoever it is” must live in the USA, or maybe Iran.  How about Japan?  China?  Any place but Venezuela.

“Concupiscence” is no longer defined in relation to think^divine but in relation to think^{blame_the_rich}.

Hugo Chavez, as the personification of think^{blame_the_rich}, could not, by definition, harbor thoughts of think^{steal_from_the_poor}.

The golden calf is not only immune from concupiscence, but anyone who accuses ‘him’ is, by definition, guilty of concupiscence.  By definition, golden calf cannot commit “mortal sins”.

So I will not add that Chavez held billions of pesos in foreign bank accounts at the time of his death.  I do not want to stand accused …

… even though I am a sinner.

Such are the cryptotheological formulations of the Public Cult.]

Summary of text [comment] page 29

St. Thomas Aquinas claimed that angels and the first couple (Adam and Eve) were unable to commit mortal sins because they were granted immunity from concupiscence.

[Now, I will expand on the vignettes that closed the previous two blogs and ask:

How does this apply to the leaders of modern Public Cults?

Are the leaders of Public Cults unable to commit “mortal” sins?  Or has the word “mortal” shifted to “think^anti-object” for the Public Cult?  Hmmm.  It is funny how the words change but the pattern of “venial and mortal sin” remains intact.

Rene Girard was correct.  Mythology is told by the winners.  For the Mythology of a Public Cult, the winners are the founders.  The winners are the ones who fashion themselves as instruments in the service of the organization.  I will label these minions of think^pro-object the “golden calves” (artistically recalling and playing upon the incident in Exodus that delayed the coming of the tablets of the Law).

Modern cult leaders, such as the late Hugo Chavez, are equivalent to angels. They  herald a new era; announcing that a think^group has grasped sovereign power to become think^pro-object.  They are as foundational as Adam and Eve. They animate spirits bearing torches of darkness (or more precisely, of false accusations).

Does that also mean that the Dear Leader is immune from concupiscence?

The answer is “yes”, in a world where “concupiscence” has been redefined.  The sovereign think^group, think^pro-object proclaims a new system of differences.  Even the long discarded but still pertinent word, “concupiscence”, can mutate in an evolving symbolic order.  “Concupiscence” now refers to the accused.  It can never point to the Dear Leader.

In the closure of the world to think^divine, sovereign think^pro-object brings all society into organization through some object.   The Dear Leader embodies that object.]