With the rest, I think we're a bit at cross-purposes. I'm not after 'excusing' Faith. I'm more after saying that if the judgments we are making is some sort of ultimate judgment, we aren't in a position to do it. We don't know what capacity a person has for acting well. And because we are social creatures, we do contribute to each others sinfulness, and that further complicates the task of judging. Faith is just a good example of the difficulty. She objectively acts terribly. But we don't really know how much of that is an exercise of her free will (and therefore blamable) and how much is due to lack of capacity/social dynamics and so on. I'm just repeating the Gospel point that at an ultimate level we can't judge. To whom much has been given, much is expected and vice versa. And we don't know what those endowments really are.accou
But the fact we don't know how accountable Faith is in an ultimate sense doesn't mean we can't say something about her accountability for her actions with respect to humans. It's proper for us to judge in that sense. So Faith had to turn herself in. Whether she was deeply morally accountable or not (depending on her capacity), she's accountable legally. Her grace was the moment she stopped fleeing that accountability and simply accepted it. There's sort of a paradox that *we* can't make moral progress until we stop making excuses, even if in some ultimate sense we really do have excuses. At the same time, I think when we are judging others, we need to always be aware that our judgments are not ultimate. If it's bad for us to excuse ourselves, it's equally bad for us not to have compassion about factors that would mitigate the guilt of others. So I think that's why at the end of the day I'm happier about where Faith is than about where Buffy is. Faith has dropped her justifications. She's completely submitted herself to the judgments of others. Buffy has never had a moment of humility like that. And partly because of that she does not judge Faith with compassion and mercy.
no subject
With the rest, I think we're a bit at cross-purposes. I'm not after 'excusing' Faith. I'm more after saying that if the judgments we are making is some sort of ultimate judgment, we aren't in a position to do it. We don't know what capacity a person has for acting well. And because we are social creatures, we do contribute to each others sinfulness, and that further complicates the task of judging. Faith is just a good example of the difficulty. She objectively acts terribly. But we don't really know how much of that is an exercise of her free will (and therefore blamable) and how much is due to lack of capacity/social dynamics and so on. I'm just repeating the Gospel point that at an ultimate level we can't judge. To whom much has been given, much is expected and vice versa. And we don't know what those endowments really are.accou
But the fact we don't know how accountable Faith is in an ultimate sense doesn't mean we can't say something about her accountability for her actions with respect to humans. It's proper for us to judge in that sense. So Faith had to turn herself in. Whether she was deeply morally accountable or not (depending on her capacity), she's accountable legally. Her grace was the moment she stopped fleeing that accountability and simply accepted it. There's sort of a paradox that *we* can't make moral progress until we stop making excuses, even if in some ultimate sense we really do have excuses. At the same time, I think when we are judging others, we need to always be aware that our judgments are not ultimate. If it's bad for us to excuse ourselves, it's equally bad for us not to have compassion about factors that would mitigate the guilt of others. So I think that's why at the end of the day I'm happier about where Faith is than about where Buffy is. Faith has dropped her justifications. She's completely submitted herself to the judgments of others. Buffy has never had a moment of humility like that. And partly because of that she does not judge Faith with compassion and mercy.
Did that make any sense? Probably not.