Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 VC
[But, aren’t obligations identical to responsibilities?
Yes and no.
Yes, responsibilities are obligations.
No, obligations are also identical to empty promises.]
Human psychology evolved under in the social milieu of constrained complexity. Currently, humans live in unconstrained complexity. What has this done to our minds? These topics are addressed in various parts of An Archaeology of the Fall, particularly in chapters 8C and 11B.
[But, aren’t obligations identical to responsibilities?
Yes and no.
Yes, responsibilities are obligations.
No, obligations are also identical to empty promises.]
[Following to Carl Jung, late moderns have shown themselves ready to abandon actuality, in favor the alchemy of postmodern fashions.
These fashions dissolve the facticity supporting the mythos and the logos of science itself. ]
[For example, moderns could not believe in or comprehend the medieval practices of alchemy, a pre-modern inquiry that confounded all three categories of existence.
Perhaps, the first modern to realize that ‘alchemy was not ridiculous’ was Carl Jung. However, he could not quite figure out the categories of existence indicated by these fusions of mystical hints, recipes and images.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 84 and 85
[The nested form allows us to see relations within a text. It is sort of like alchemy.
In contrast, moderns are blind to relations. Moderns programmatically reconfigure normal context and possibility into actuality. The all-embracing assumption of Modernism is: Actuality is all there is.]
[Big government (il)liberals reduce American citizens with their words.
Progressives desire to put all Americans (outside the state itself) into bondage.]
[The sinner declares: “I am righteous. I am an advocate of social justice.”
Then, the sinner promotes Progressive sovereign legislation, building the central state into an all-encompassing temple of multitudes of organizational objectives.
Organization objectives support bureaucracies that treat human beings as subjects to organize according to the desired objectives.
How inhumane.]
[The use of the law in the name of ‘social justice’ serves as an example.
The use manifests the sin of pride through overt displays of scruples.
This is called virtue signaling.]
[St. Paul’s admission that ‘the law induces sin’ cuts many ways. Prohibition may awaken the desire for sin. Sin may awaken the desire for prohibition.]
[Law-filled thoughts may justify cruelty, self-dealing, anxiety-relief and lack of faith. The law washes these monstrosities over with perfection of the letter of the law.
Law fixates on the rules. The rules may be misconstrued in order to rendezvous with the sinful attractor in my dying heart. The way that I fulfill the rules may provide me with the pleasures that I crave.]
Summary of text [comment] pages 84 and 85
[When thoughts3V(2 are made rigid by scruples, then deeds2(1V)) freeze the heart in a fixation on what must not be done.
Failure seems to be unavoidable. My own deeds violate my conscience. They can never be perfect. They can never fulfill the command.
I do the deeds that I do not want to do even as I do the deeds that I do.]