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
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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
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
whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life
Thielman reads the Johannine text as relocating condemnation from the eschatological last day into present experience, so that faith effects an already-accomplished passage out of condemnation and into life.
Frank S. Thielman, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach, 2005thesis
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
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