Emile,
Thank you for your response. It is interesting that you brought up David's transgressions, which were quite a bit beyond your lust purely of the mind. I'm tempted to go into the questions about whether to think of a sin is actually a sin; however, I'll save that for another day.
What I would like ask of you now, if I may, is what do you think of this quote from Carl Jung? "The demand made by the imitatio Christi - that we should follow the ideal and become like it - ought logically to have the result of developing and exalting the inner man. In actual fact, however, the ideal has been turned by superficial and formalistically-minded believers into an external object of worship, and it is precisely this veneration of the object that prevents it from reaching down into the depths of the psyche and giving the latter a wholeness in keeping with the ideal. ... For it is not a question of imitation that leaves a man unchanged and makes him a mere artifact, but of realizing the ideal on one's own account - Deo concedente - in one's own individual life. We must not forget, however, that even a mistaken imitation may sometimes involve a tremendous moral effort which has all the merits of a total surrender to some supreme value, even though the real goal may never be reached and the value is represented externally."
Greg |
