Condemnation

Condemnation in the depth-psychology and allied religious-philosophical corpus is not a simple moral verdict but a multi-register concept whose meaning shifts decisively according to the authorizing structure that pronounces it. At the institutional level, Campbell and Dvornik document condemnation as ecclesial power wielded to suppress philosophical inquiry and ecclesiastical rivals — the Condemnation of 1277 and the Photian Schism being paradigmatic cases in which judgment serves political theology rather than truth. Within Christian soteriology, Thielman tracks condemnation (krima) as an eschatological category: the fate pre-ordained for false teachers in Jude and 2 Peter, and simultaneously the fate from which the believer in Christ is liberated in the Johannine ‘already-not-yet.’ The Philokalic and ascetic traditions reframe condemnation as an interior movement: awareness of one’s sins constitutes self-condemnation, and failure to achieve that awareness paradoxically intensifies one’s objective guilt. Pascal holds a related tension — saints eagerly pronounce themselves criminals while sophists labor to excuse wickedness. From a recovery standpoint, the ACA literature inverts the expected posture: the adult child who presents for Step Five anticipates condemnation and instead encounters fairness, revealing how internalized condemnation structures the traumatized psyche. The term thus maps onto guilt, judgment, heresy, shame, and eschatological fate simultaneously, making it a conceptual nexus between institutional authority, intrapsychic experience, and ultimate reckoning.

In the library 13 passages

the bishop, accordingly, issued a stunning condemnation of no less than two hundred and nineteen philosophical propositions, which delivered the coup de grâce to philosophy as an exercise within the sanctuary of the Church

Campbell presents the Condemnation of 1277 as the definitive institutional deployment of condemnation to extinguish free philosophical inquiry within a religious institution, arguing that the very act of condemning preserved otherwise lost heterodox ideas.

Campbell, Joseph, Creative Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume IV, 1968thesis

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The ‘condemnation’ (krima) of the false teachers, he says, ‘is not idle from of old [ekpalai], and their destruction is not sleeping’ (2 Peter 2:3, pers. trans.).

Thielman demonstrates that condemnation in 2 Peter and Jude functions as typological prophecy — a pre-ordained eschatological verdict against false teachers whose destruction is already underway, not merely future.

Frank S. Thielman, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005thesis

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He Expected Condemnation And Got Fairness

The ACA Twelve Steps workbook identifies condemnation as the default expectation of the trauma-shaped psyche entering moral inventory, and frames therapeutic encounter as a corrective surprise — fairness rather than punishment.

Organization, Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service, The twelve steps of adult children steps workbook, 2007thesis

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For unless I become aware, severe is my condemnation. For me Thou hast created heaven and earth, the four elements and all that is formed from them

St. Peter of Damaskos treats condemnation as directly proportional to the degree of unconsciousness regarding one’s sins — awareness becomes the sole mediating factor between the soul and its eschatological verdict.

Palmer, G. E. H. and Sherrard, Philip and Ware, Kallistos (trs.), The Philokalia, Volume 4, 1995supporting

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Gregory and his friends appealed from the synodical condemnation to Pope Leo IV

Dvornik reconstructs the Photian schism as a sequence of contested synodical condemnations whose legitimacy was perpetually disputed, exposing condemnation as a juridical instrument subject to political reversal.

Dvornik, Francis, The Photian Schism: History and Legend, 1948supporting

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Nicholas refutes Michael’s statements concerning Ignatius’ condemnation

Dvornik shows Pope Nicholas I using the authority to review condemnations as a vehicle for asserting pontifical supremacy over Byzantine ecclesiastical affairs.

Dvornik, Francis, The Photian Schism: History and Legend, 1948supporting

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the ground for this condemnation was the complaint Ignatius made against Asbestas at the time of his consecration

Dvornik isolates the procedural pretext for a synodical condemnation, demonstrating how personal grievance becomes encoded as canonical judgment.

Dvornik, Francis, The Photian Schism: History and Legend, 1948supporting

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We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo… have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy

Campbell cites the formal condemnation of Galileo as the culmination of the Church’s juridical machinery turned against empirical truth, illustrating condemnation as an instrument of cosmological control.

Campbell, Joseph, Creative Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume IV, 1968supporting

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The saints go to great lengths to make themselves out to be criminals, and denounce their most virtuous actions, and these men go to great lengths to excuse the most wicked actions.

Pascal opposes the saints’ voluntary self-condemnation to the casuists’ defensive rationalization, framing self-condemnation as paradoxically the mark of authentic sanctity.

Pascal, Blaise, Pensées, 1670supporting

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the Pope judged and condemned them as schismatics as Ignatius had done

Dvornik documents how papal ratification of a patriarchal condemnation transforms local ecclesiastical judgment into universal binding verdict, reinforcing hierarchical authority.

Dvornik, Francis, The Photian Schism: History and Legend, 1948supporting

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his theological ideas early became controversial and finally condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council, by reason of his excellence and rare piety he continued to exert a profound influence

The introductory note to Evagrius notes the paradox that official condemnation by an Ecumenical Council did not suppress but merely complicated his enduring influence on Christian spirituality.

Evagrius Ponticus, Praktikos, 2009aside

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Jude wants his readers to understand who his opponents are, the eschatological judgment toward which they are moving, and, by implication, what will happen to Christians who fall prey to their deceptions

Thielman contextualizes condemnation within Jude’s pastoral strategy: knowledge of opponents’ eschatological fate functions as a deterrent warning to wavering readers.

Frank S. Thielman, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005aside

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Related terms