• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

The Estraordinary Man

Shibolet

Member
THE EXTRAORDINARY MAN

The other day I picked up the book, "Crime and Punishment" and read it wholy in three days. The thing that touched me the most was the concept of the extraordinary man in the Philosophy of the author, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Dostoevsky postulates in his book that all people are somehow divided into the ordinary and the extraordinary. That the ordinary must live in obedience and have no right to transgress the Law, because they are, after all, ordinary. While the extraordinary have the right to comit all sorts of crimes and in various ways, to transgress the Law, because, in point of fact, they are extraordinary.

Moreover, that the extraordinary man has the right...that is, not an official right, but his own right, to allow his conscience to step over certain obstacles and transgress the Law and stay immune to punishment, considering that his action is salutary to the whole of mankind. Such an extraordinary man, he added further, is so rare that no more than one in ten thousand is born with such a broad independence.

Somehow, as I read about the Dostoevsky concept of the extraordinary man, I could not help thinking of Paul in Romans 7:25. Paul would praise God for the priviledge to be in harmony with God's Law in his mind, while serving the law of sin in his flesh. IOW, he was entitled to enjoy independence of the Law and the right to immunity as an extraordinary man. He agreed that the Law was good, but hey, for ordinary men. He was extraordinary. (Rom. 7:12)

Paul proved so efficiently to be an extraordinary man that once he passed sentence of death to an incestuous man in the church of Corinth, whereas in absence. Obviously, an ordinary man could not be incestuous. He was under the Law. (I Cor.5:1-12) As Dostoevsky killed to prevent evil from its effect among men, Paul killed to prevent the effect of the yeast in the dough. (I Cor. 5:6) Obviously, evil could spread if he did not intervene.

The bottom line is that only an extraordinary man could enjoy the status of Romans 7:25.
 

Shibolet

Member
Does everyone agree with Paul being an extraordinary man or that Dostoevsky made a mistake to think he could be like Paul? BTW, Dostoevsky was never sure about himself. Hence his struggle with guilt until he couldn't take anymore and confessed his transgression to the Law.
 

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
I do, people argue agains't that part of the Bible all the time without seeing the deeper meaning and wisdom contained in those scriptures.
 

Shibolet

Member
I do, people argue agains't that part of the Bible all the time without seeing the deeper meaning and wisdom contained in those scriptures.

You seem to have some light "in those scriptures." Would you care sharing with me what Romans 7:13-25 mean? IMHO, it is a practical explanation about the thorn in Paul's flesh. What in your opinion was that thorn about?
 
Top