The Human as Slave and Free

I want to divide Western humans into two groups, one of which I call Slave and the other Free.

The Slave Man takes external dictation for all things, including what is moral or not.*

[* The slave, if he wishes to think of himself as moral, must identify “moral” with “command of God”, and in that way is able to continue in his moral delusion. Thus no moral preconditions are assumed, and what is moral is abstracted from the commands of God. A usual justification of immoralities of God is that faith and patience are needed until the final day when everything will be made clear, and where we will see that what was immoral to our eye was actually moral.** ***]

[** Kant would note that such a principle means the death knell of moral in a practical sense, for then all things would be lawful and a legitimate choice, and moral judgments would be futile and thus inane.]

[*** This axiom that all the commands of God will be moral proves that morality in fact precedes the commands of God, for otherwise, if God commands the slaughter of innocents, no question as to any ultimate morality would ever arise.]

I think you can find many Slave Men among the Southern Baptists*, the Roman Catholics, the Mormons and the Muslims, to mention a few. Here, as a common factor, is an divine authority giving orders (Bible, Pope, Prophet, etc.) and these commands are called “moral”.**

[* See Essentials of Baptist Thinking.]

[** A good example justifying the quote marks here around "moral" is given by Kant. The Muslim gives to the poor, but this is not a moral act, and because the motivation is reward and it is undertaken with the same submissive frame of mind as when he bows down according to clock and compass, making the subjection of independence clear and embarrassing to Free Man. It is no more moral than burning up money because a boss says to do that to escape punishment and gain reward. Kant called it extortion. See also Kant's Condemnation of Abraham and then also Discerning the Divine for both the Muslims and the Mormons.***]

[*** See also essay on the Dilemma of the Atheist for a consideration of the confusion of the moral and the prudent.]

I want to justify this ascription of slave mentality to these groups (called here Slave) by means of an example. It is self-evident that the moral law calls for the equal treatment and evaluation of all people. Now in contrast it is by virtue of a “divine communication” that these slaves are willing to violate this moral law and deny equal rights to homosexuals (and there is a thought in at least one of the groups (Muslims) to do the same with regard to left-handed writers). They deny that this is immoral, and insist that a society with such marriages will cause great suffering, e.g., the divorce rate of heterosexuals will go up even more, children will be raised on these broken homes, and society will be damaged by legitimizing homosexuals, and heterosexuals will be tempted to choose the homosexual lifestyle. Therefore, as this reasoning goes, all things considered, the best result for a society would be to deny homosexual any right to marry the person of their choice.* Hence, according to this line of thinking, it is moral to discriminate against homosexuals. The immoral thing would be to promote homosexuality by sanctioning homosexual marriage.** Thus by virtue of an alleged (and strongly believed) communication of God these groups will commit an immoral act . . . and call it moral.

[* Now even though this is patently wrong, the religious Slave Man takes the command "destroy homosexuality" as moral, as described in the preceding paragraph, i.e., it is the command of God and thus not subject to question.]

[** It is instructive to note that if a principle should be established in a legal system that it is permitted to limit the rights of any part of the population (a "bill of attainder"), then the limitation of the rights of homosexuals would be merely one, the first, of many potential restrictions, e.g., the rights of women, the rights of left handed people, the rights of a racial minority, etc. See blog on this subject.]

All of these groups mentioned subscribe to this logic, i.e., the Authority, e.g., the Bible, says it is to be done, I believe the Bible, and that settles it," i.e., I am going to do as it says. No more discussion. It is clear.* As a result they fit the profile of a Slave.

[* Kant brings up an interesting notion when speak of the conscience, which is considered an awareness of having fully considered an action properly and thoroughly. I can never be sure of a divine command (for it might, I suggest, be either an hallucination or demonically produced), but I am sure of the moral law, and so obviously in cases of a conflict, I will defer to the moral law and assume there is a problem in rightly communicating God's word in such a case. See essay on Kant's Condemnation of Abraham. [Kant goes further and argues in his Religion Within The Bounds Of Bare Reason that given human error it can never be certain that God has commanded as it might be alleged, and since what is right and wrong is certain, all humans must take the certain route and always understand God in a way that is never wrong or immoral.]]

Now we turn our attention to the Free Man, and conceive of him as someone who acts independently of external dictation entirely (although often seeking information [but not command] from experts, e.g., physicians) and acts according to principles which he himself selects and determines.

There are two sorts of Free Man and the distinction between them has to do with religion. There is the Free Believer and there is the Free Atheist.

The Free Atheist chooses to use science and reason as his solitary guide for action, and he rejects Kant's “moral proof” of God and even denies God and then, when he is consistent with himself, also denies morality and likens a bad conscience to an illness which needs treatment.* **

[* Most atheist do not follow their denials of God to their logical conclusion. Essentially it is this: if there is no God then all things are lawful (Dostoyevsky). The reason for this lack of total consistency is that the atheist is so often so culturally conditioned that he cannot bear the thought of the suffering of people, and instead of getting medical relief from his “bad conscience” (as reason, given the rejection of morality, would advise), he continues in his same old mode of emotionally caring about others and thus wastes money and peace of mind on relieving the misfortunes of others. See short treatment in the essay Kant and Sagan.]

[** I wonder if there is perhaps a Slave Atheist, e.g., the Nazi or Communist, who discards morality entirely and depends upon a Führer to tell him what is moral and not. He then would be looking upon a human (Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, etc.) as the religious slaves look upon God, the source of all legitimate authority.]

And here suddenly and perhaps unexpectedly we find the Free Atheist and Slave Man to be of one coin morally speaking, i.e., the moral law is essentially dismissed and replaced in the mind of the Slave by the communications from God, and in the mind of the Free Atheist by blatant self interest.

Consequently, with regard to the question of universal rights, the Free Atheist might very well promote homosexual marriages, or he might want to ban such. It would depend upon his personal interests*, for in a very real sense he is totally free of even the restraint and motivation of the moral law, and able to follow his own interest alone.

[* Perhaps he enjoys having someone to hate, or perhaps he is a homosexual and promiscuous and thinks he will have better luck in his pursuits with unmarried men.]

Finally we come to the Free Believer. This is a product of the Council of Jerusalem in the early part of the 1st century (Acts 15). This first Free Believer, the Free Christian, is free of all ecclesiastical and scriptural law.* He is even free of gainful motivation, and counts himself already in the Kingdom of God,** and he does his moral and loving deeds as a reflection of his new, loving disposition. He has chosen for himself the Rule of Universal Neighborly Love (as a practical proxy for the moral law) and determines all his actions in light of that rule and looks for no external instruction (but only, again, for the aid of specialists in the sciences and arts of human nurture). As a result of this rule, he seeks to develop into a model husband or wife, parent, employer, employee, citizen, etc. The Free Christian will, of course, support universal rights and thus gay marriage.

[* The logic of this can be found in an essay on the Liberty of Gentile Christian.]

[** This is to be understood as already having the reward in hand, i.e., eternal life.]

In summary then we have the (religious) Slave allied with the Free Atheist as one in subjugating the moral law to other interests, and as opposed to the Free Believer who places the moral law supreme in all actions.

As a more specific example of this Free Believer I call forth the Wesleyan movement within Christianity. Here we are dealing with a person who no longer acts for pay or reward, e.g., for admission to heaven, and who considers that he (or she) already has the reward in hand, i.e., eternal life with Jesus, such their good acts are then the consequences of this reward already gained, this eternal life. And so here we have a stark contrast with all the slave groups. The Southern Baptist, for example, engages in a calculus to determine if the reward lost through a sin is worth the gain of the sin. Eternal life is his, but in the future, and presently they, as Southern Baptists, are engaged in finding the optimum trade off of sin now and reward later (and some rewards can be obtained even in earthly life). Thus the Southern Baptist might be considered as the epitome of the slave, for while both he and the Wesleyan might have converted in order to avoid the fires of hell, and while both have lost their fear of hell, the Baptist expects his transformation later (and thus does not look for it expectantly now) while the Wesleyan maintains it has already taken place and can, with experience, point to examples of an improvement in moral behavior and can attest, in some case, that such behavior is also getting easier. He says: while I am far from perfection (in love), I am not as far as once I was; and I am on the way. The Southern Baptist (here so conceived) remains always a hireling, and so the most abject of slaves, for he has become and remains a slave for gain. He searches out the “moral” in scripture, identifies it with whatever has been reported to have been of God, and complies to the understood will of God as best he can … and in accordance with his calculus. The Wesleyan, also as conceived here, discards any calculus (except for the measure of expediency in the application of the rule of love).

In addition to the absence of gainful motivation in the Wesleyan we can attach to them also the liberty of the gentile Christian (Acts 15) where the moral law (for them the rule of universal neighborly and Christian love) is the single determination of good and evil (John 5:1-18) and where all utterances of God must be measured with regard to moral interpretation. For example the command to the slaying of Isaac can not be accepted by the Wesleyan as the command of God and has to be interpreted in a way consistent with the moral law.

And so we have an example of a Free Believer, who does not hire himself out as a slave for gain and does not subject the moral law to the literal understanding of God's communication, but rather acts according to his own principle (of the moral above all), taken on formally at the moment of conversion, and not for gain.*

[* This state of mind would crumble at once, of course, if the Wesleyan here described were to suddenly believe that there were no eternal life and that he had been living a fairy tale, and that God is as the slaves and atheist describe him (amoral), and his only hope of avoiding a hell were to become a slave.**]

[** Or to follow the lead of Buddha and declare existence itself absurd and opt to call it quits and go out of existence, without even a goodbye.]

To contact the author, please e-mail: pmr&&kantwesley.com (note: the "&&" must be replaced by @)

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