Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 1.6AI

Summary of text [comment] page 46

[Schoonenberg’s waffling, described in the previous blogs, leads to a question:

What makes the spontaneous order of human culture (in unconstrained complexity) different from the spontaneous orders of biology (of ecology, environment and matter – as well as – perhaps, of the human culture in constrained complexity)?

Schoonenberg did not know that he formulated a question that has never been asked before (1962). Still, he listed some fundamentals that could go into an answer.]

The free person possesses ‘his’ own value for eternity.

Each person is touched by the grace of God, who wishes for all ‘men’ to be saved.

Sin and virtue manifest attributes (especially, the final impenitence or total self-giving, respectively) that do not fit into the concept of “statistical necessity” because they are categorical attributes.

[To me, these criteria indicate that freedom and morality in our current Lebenswelt mark another dimension in addition to the dimensions of ecology-environment-matter.]