07/31/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 DW

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[Does the first singularity confirm Augustine’s social construction of Original Sin?

So far, I noted, in blogs on Anthony Zimmerman’s work, that Augustine’s paradigm looks like the myth of the descent of the soul.

Augustine was once a Manichaean philosopher.

In the Manichaean view, babies are evil.

Why?

They are material.

The incorruptible and good spirit that animates each baby collects corruptible and evil material in its descent.

The details about how this occurs are never quite clear. But, everyone knows the punchline: Babies are eternal spiritual sparks trapped in corruptible mortal flesh.]

07/28/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 DV

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[Our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt we evolved in.

The transition from intuitive reference to projected reference was the first singularity experienced by our species.

To me, this singularity is captured in those early stories of Genesis.

Indeed, all ancient written mythologies of southwest Asia testify to the first singularity.]

07/26/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 DT

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[If Rousseau is correct, then the word “property” is a socially constructed term that allows the sensible construction of civilized economic and political systems.

If this coagulation of social and sensible construction did not have surviving power, then it would not exist today.

Civilization, an expression of unconstrained complexity, relies on the social construction of “property”. We project the referent “property” into our experience of the word “civilization”.]

07/24/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 DR

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[How did speech-alone talk potentiate unconstrained complexity?

Consider the word “property”.

Property is not a thing. One cannot see, hear, touch, taste or smell the referent. The referent cannot be pictured or pointed to.

The purely symbolic word ‘property’ did not exist in hand-speech talk. Its referent cannot be imaged or indexed.

Speech-alone talk can label anything, even non-sensual things like “property”.

Real things and patterns no longer receive iconic and indexal words. Instead, we project iconic and indexal qualities into words that label things that we figure must be real, like the word “property”.]

07/21/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 DQ

[The civilizational environment of Modernism supports additional developments, including an expansion of knowledge in the realm of actuality.

This includes knowledge of our evolutionary history.

Today, 50 years after Schoonenberg published, the Story of the Fall walks out of the Modernist crypt of works labeled as “mythology”.

The Story of the Fall is a fairy tale trace of a Real and recent change in the human Lebenswelt.

Speech-alone talk replaced hand-speech talk. This apparently small alteration in the way we talk potentiated unconstrained social complexity.]

07/20/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 DP

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[50 years after Schoonenberg, the following statement cannot be denied:

Post-religionist (enlightenment) religions build on mythology, not science.

Also, they adapt to the civilizational environment of Modernism.

They battle one another for domination.]

07/19/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 DO

[Three ideals substitute for a divine Trinity, allowing sovereign power to contextualize itself as the anthropological actuality in objectrelation.

Each post-religious enlightenment godhead calls for and justifies the exercise of sovereign power, according to its manifestation of the three ideals.

The past 370 years continue the so-called Wars of Religion.

The Peace of Westphalia (in 1648 AD) is the starting point.

Post-religionist enlightenment godheads are conjured.

Then they battle among one another.]