Category Archives: Defining Religion

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).]

12/19/16

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.]

11/18/16

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

[For me, the situation level of the interscoping form for sensible construction contributes to the horizontal level of an intersection. The content level contributes to the vertical level of an intersection.

Participation occupies the horizontal (or hidden) axis.

Recognition occupies the vertical (visible) axis.

One single actuality accounts for the union of two actualities.

The single actuality is ‘the state of grace’ or ‘the state of self-destruction’.

In practice, the nested form containing this single actuality should not interscope with lower levels. It may interscope with higher levels.   It usually belongs to the content level of an interscope.]

11/17/16

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

[Participation may be modeled with the slogan:

Our human nature is to participate in divine nature.

Recognition may be modeled with the slogan:

In order to be ‘who I am’, I must recognize ‘myself as an image of God’.

For the interscope, recognition belongs to the content level. Participation belongs to the situation level.

Sensible construction follows when participation (situation) coheres with recognition (content).

When recognition and participation become full of contradictions (as one might predict for any life change), they no longer interscope. Instead of separating as two distinct (yet coordinating) actualities (as one might expect), they congeal into an conflict-filled intersection.]

11/16/16

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

[Humans cannot wrap their sensible minds around two actualities that combine into one actuality. We must socially construct ‘a reference (a single actuality) on a reference (of the the two actualities)’. This process is discussed in How to Define the Word ‘Religion’ in the chapter on the meaning underlying the word ‘religion’.

The single actuality (the reference constructed) is composed of two actualities (whose union is the foundation of construction) and is contextualized in a content-level nested form.]