Theory - Theological Supplement

 

Regarding human beings, the logic is tight: nobody can acquire a valid right to own another. However, some say that there is a God who has ownership over individuals, by right of creation or of some special transaction between the individual and the God.

This suggestion or claim fails, for three reasons:

1. There is not - and cannot be - a shred of objective proof that any such God exists in reality; the notion is one of a large number of myths. The reason there cannot be any such proof is that if such a Supreme Being existed, there would be no axiom more primitive than he (or she or it) upon which to base any such proof. There are strong arguments to support the myths, or some of them, but they all fall short of proof and at least in the Christian religion that is generally acknowledged; adherents take pleasure in agreeing that they live by "faith" rather than reason or proof; and those who disagree still have produced no such proof or even systematically defined the term "God."

2. Supposing arguendo that some God did exist and own everybody (hence, no human would own himself.) That would mean all of us are mere puppets, dancing to whatever tune the Deity may dictate. There is in that case no possibility of arriving at any understanding of how to optimize human society - anarchism or any other; life would be totally meaningless and mechanical and the idea that we have any say in our own destiny would be a pure illusion.

3. Supposing further though that such a God had (as in Christian theory) given the power of choice over to his created beings so that everyone can choose to "belong to God" in a special way, ie as his disciple, willing slave, born-again believer etc. - then the premise of self-ownership is in any case confirmed in that very argument; that at some point in life a person does possess the power of choice, which is what self-ownership means. Were it not so, the transaction by which that person becomes a God-owned individual (accepting salvation, giving himself to God, whatever term is used) would be fraudulent; for nobody can ever give anything that he does not actually own at the time the gift is made.

4. There is a further problem with that third line of reasoning: it suppposes that even when a human being does own himself, he is capable of giving himself away into slavery (ie, ownership by God.) That is simply not true. Reason: at the instant of the supposed "gift", what is being transferred is a self-owning human being. Yet at the instant of reception of the gift, what is being recieved is not a self-owning human being! The concept of voluntary slavery is therefore impossible.

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