Nakedness, Shame, and Shamelessness

Excerpted from Hamartiology (2006)

Shame is the result of eyes being opened. Man sees, therefore he shies. The knowledge of good and evil, thus, first produces the sense of shame. An analysis of shame reveals the following characteristics of the newly obtained knowledge:

* Self-consciousness. It is not merely the consciousness of one’s existence; but the consciousness of one’s existence above and against others. One who doesn’t possess this kind of self-consciousness is never ashamed since he is lost in the consciousness of the other.
* Other-consciousness. Before the Fall, Adam saw Eve as a bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh. Now he sees her as other. The personal psyche of autonomy has cleft humanity into a plurality of polities.

Consequently, shame is the result of a distortion of dharmic love-relationship. Shamelessness is not the opposite of shame but a willful digression from it. Shamelessness only occurs in the presence of divine revelation. It occurs as the willful suppression of divine truth and revolt against the eternal order. While shame is a non-volitional result, shamelessness is willful self-overbearing, the thrust of self against the eternal order.

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