As far as decisions go. I think he could decide to eat, or not to eat, but he was incapable of making decisions that would effect his personality, because he had none. A simple way to put it is that his entire concept of self was a complete mess and he was cluless to sort it all out and begin building. That’s what he presented on the xpentacostal board.
As far as spiritual recognition and decisions go, an intact mind is essential. I don’t see any evidence that he had one.
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BTW, I like your CS Lewis quote a lot.
Some good points . . .
But I still disagree significantly.
I still believe he had plenty mind and identity intact to willfully own a good amount of very focused evil.
Yes, there was confusion. Yes, his identity was not . . . ideally robust, balanced, stable. His construct system was likely still SOMEWHAT above average vulnerable to emotional shifting.
However, I suspect a George Kelly Construct grid would have shown an amazing amount of stability and coherence given all his perceived reality.
But mostly, this was one ENRAGED kid. And, if 10% of his allegations were true—his rage was at least somewhat understandabe.
It’s easy to say it was overblown, out of proportion, extreme, off the wall etc.
But take a very sensitive kid who’s likely above average in IQ . . . and subject him to such a home life . . . the outcome is not any great surprise. Happens all the time.
Throw in the intense spiritual stuff with even, sadly, too average an amount of hypocrisy . . . it’s predictable this kid would not handle it well.
I think his anger focused and fueled his identity and mentality much more than you seem to think possible if he was as confused and deconstructed mentally as much as you seem to think he was.
I knew you would be able to state with much more clarity what I was seeing myself! Thank you, Quix! :)