Lux Lucet

English political philosopher Sir Robert Filmer, c. 1588-1653

“[F]or it is not possible for the wit of man to search out the first grounds or principles of government (which necessarily depend upon the original of property) except he know that at the creation one man alone was made, to whom the dominion of all things was given, and from whom all men derive their title.

    – Sir Robert Filmer, Patriarcha and Other Political Works, 203-204

One of the major, perhaps the major, overarching themes of this series of essays, which has now stretched to twenty installments, is that Rome’s faulty economic and political thought, which itself is derived from Rome’s faulty theology, is the primary cause of the migrant crisis in the United States and in Europe.

But while there are many problems with Roman Catholic theological, political and economic thought, the examination of which is beyond the scope of this series, one error in particular stands out as relevant to the topic of mass migration: Rome’s doctrine of the universal destination of goods.

This series has examined the universal destination of goods at some length in previous installments, and it is not my intention here to go over it again in close detail. Let it suffice for our purposes today to quote John Robbins’ magisterial work on the political and economic thought of the Roman Catholic Church, Ecclesiastical Megalomania,

The Thomistic notion of original communism – the denial that private property is part of the natural law, but that common property is both natural and divine – is foundational to all the Roman Catholic arguments for various forms of collectivism, from medieval feudalism and guild socialism to twentieth century fascism and liberation theology. The popes refer to this original communism as the “universal destination of all goods” (38).

As this quote points out, the universal destination of goods depends upon the idea that God, at the time of creation, gave the world, not to individual men, but to mankind collectively. This view, what John Robbins calls “original communism,” is the official position of the Roman Catholic church, having become part of the warp and woof of Roman Catholic Social Teaching, not only as a result of the Church-State’s establishment of Thomism as the official doctrine of the Church, but also through the many repetitions of this idea through papal encyclicals and other important church documents over the past 100 plus years.

The universal destination of goods resting on the idea of original communism is the foundational idea of all of Rome’s teaching on the issues of immigration, migration and refugee resettlement. If you doubt this, please read, or re-read the last two posts in this series where, quoting directly from Roman Catholic sources, this author has made this assertion abundantly clear. You may find these posts here and here.

Having the universal destination of goods as a unifying concept behind all its Social Teaching, including its teaching on migration, has allowed Rome to systematize its economic and political teaching in a way that would not otherwise have been possible. Instead of having random ideas strewn about, Rome’s teaching on political and economic issues is highly organized, with statements on one topic serving to reinforce the Church-State’s teaching on another topic. Roman Catholic Social Teaching is, for all its many errors, testament to the power of systematic thought.

But while Rome’s systematic approach to addressing political and economic questions is a great strength, at the same time, it’s also Rome’s great point of weakness. Why is this? For the reason that, if one can demonstrate from the Scriptures that the “community of goods” is false, that God did not, in fact give the Earth to mankind collectively, then the entire system of Rome’s Social Teaching comes crashing to the ground, including its dogmatic assertions about the right of migrants to impose themselves on host nations. Or, as Martin Luther might put it, one little word shall fell them.

It is the contention of this author that not only is it possible to demonstrate from the Scriptures that Rome’s community of goods is a fiction, but that this point already has been demonstrated in the works of 17th century political philosopher Sir Robert Filmer.

Today’s post, and, Lord willing, the next few posts will focus on showing that, far from endorsing the idea of “original communism,” the Bible instead posits a system of original private property. God did not give the Earth to mankind collectively, but rather he gave it to Adam individually, and it is from Adam that “all men derive their title” to private property. Far from being a late addition to the economic order, private property, original capitalism, was what was established by God at the time of creation.

The Biblical Origin of Private Property: The Importance of Doctrine

“God, holding ultimate ownership of the Earth, gave it to men severally, not collectively. The argument for this may be found in the works of seventeenth-century Christian thinker, Robert Filmer.”

    – John Robbins, Ronald Sider – Contra Deum

In the quote at the top of this post, Robert Filmer asserts that the origin of private property is of such importance that the whole principle of government rests upon it. If Filmer is right on this point, and this author is persuaded that he is, understanding that Biblical origin of private property is the business of the Christian plowboy just as much as much as it is that of the trained theologian.

But while understanding where private property comes from is perhaps the single most important question of politics and, I would add, economics, it’s not the sort of thing that much interests Christians in this anti-intellectual age. For some time now, Christians have seemed far more interested in orthopraxy (correct practice) than they are in orthodoxy (correct belief). But practice is always the practice of some prior theory, which makes the Word, not the deed, of primary importance.

This idea, the notion that doctrine is of first importance in the church of Christ, lies at the very foundation of the work of John Robbins and The Trinity Foundation. In The Trinity Manifesto – A Program for our Time, Robbins wrote,

The Trinity Foundation is unapologetically theoretical in its outlook, believing that theory without practice is dead, and that practice without theory is blind. The trouble with the professing church is not primarily in its practice, but in its theory. Christians do not know, and many do not even care to know, the doctrines of Scripture [including the origin of private property]. Doctrine is intellectual, and Christians are generally anti-intellectual. Doctrine is ivory tower philosophy, and they scorn ivory towers. The ivory tower, however, is the control tower of a civilization. It is a fundamental, theoretical mistake of the practical men to think that they can be merely practical, for practice is always the practice of some theory. The relationship between theory and practice is the relationship between cause and effect. If a person believes correct theory, his practice will tend to be correct. The practice of contemporary Christians is immoral because it is the practice of erroneous theory. It is a major theoretical mistake of the practical men to think that they can ignore the ivory towers of the philosophers and theologians as irrelevant to their lives. Every action that the practical men take is governed by the thinking that has occurred in some ivory tower – whether that tower be the British Museum, the Academy, a home in Basel, Switzerland, or a tent in Israel.

It is the first duty of the Christian to understand correct theory-correct doctrine-and thereby implement correct practice. This order-first theory, then practice-is both logical and Biblical (emphasis mine).

At this particular point in history, Rome is winning the war of ideas, not because her thinking is sound, but because she takes her ideas seriously. Christians, on the other hand, do not take their ideas seriously. As a result, when challenged by Rome’s systematic errors, Protestants too often have no effective answer.

One of the major goals of this series of posts is to begin to change this sinful state of affairs by laying a Biblical axe to the root of Rome’s destructive doctrine of immigration. By this, I mean refuting the fundamental principle of the universal destination of goods found in nearly all of the official pronouncements of Rome on immigration.

But where are Christians to find out about the origin of private property? Are they to turn, as Rome does, to Thomas Aquinas and the pagan philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome?

Many are tempted to take this route, but this is a significant mistake. The Bible has a systematic monopoly on truth, all truth, including political and economic truth. If Christians are to effectively answer Rome, they must seek their ideas in the 66 Books of the Bible.

John Locke on Private Property

If you’re like me, you may have wondered from time to time where the idea of private property came from. If I were to ask you where you got title to your car, you might answer something like, I bought it from a car dealership or from a private individual. But where did that person get his title to the car. Perhaps from the manufacturer or from some other individual.

This raises the question, where did the manufacturer get the parts? “From a supplier,” someone may answer. But this raises the further question, where did the supplier get the part and so on and so forth. If you push most people hard enough on this point, they’ll probably eventually answer that someone, somewhere along the line, took property from the commons and made it his own by mixing his labor with it.

This was the answer of no less a thinker than John Locke, who wrote,

Though the Earth, and all inferior Creatures be common to all Men [n.b. Locke is in agreement with Thomas and the popes on this point], yet every man as a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property (Ed. Laslett, The Second Treatise on Civil Government, 287, 288).

This is a noteworthy passage. For while Locke is viewed by many as a defender of private property and limited government, we see that he assumes an original community of goods just as do Thomas or the popes of Rome. Therefore, if we wish to refute Rome’s universal destination of goods, and thereby demolish its destructive doctrine of immigration as set forth in documents such as Exsul Familia and Strangers No Longer, we will need to turn to another source.

Ronald Sider, Robert Filmer and John Robbins

In his essay Ronald Sider – Contra Deum, John Robbins makes a brief, but important, argument that points the way to the Biblical answer to the question of the origin of private property.

Ronald Sider, for those not familiar with his work, has been a leading figure in apostate, ecumenical Evangelicalism since the 1970’s. Robbins essay on Sider represents a critique of Sider’s thinking as expressed in his books. After walking the reader through Sider’s thinking on a number of topics, Robbins concludes,

Sider’s message is not the message of the Bible; neither his economics nor his ethics can be called Christian. He has misled many through his selective citing of statistics and Scripture. He believes that governments may violate the Eighth Commandment whenever they act for the “common good.” He dislikes personal charity and generosity. Like many advocates of the socialist gospel before him, he twists the Scriptures to his own destruction. Unfortunately, that destruction is not merely his own, but all those who follow him. We may hope that his influence ends swiftly and permanently.

Although the term wasn’t around in 1981 when Robbins wrote his essay on Sider, it is clear from reading Robbins that Sider could fairly be described as a Social Justice Warrior.

Under the heading “The Question of Property,” Robbins states that one of Sider’s fundamental errors is his belief that “All property belongs to God for the common good. It belongs, therefore, first of all to God and then equally to society and the individual. When the individual has what the society needs and can profitably use, it is not his, but belongs to society, by divine right.” According to Sider, “The human right to a just living transcends the right of North Americans to use their vast grain fields solely for themselves.”

Mind you, these words come from a man who likes to posit himself as an Evangelical, yet one struggles to see the difference between Sider’s understanding of private property and that of the popes and bishops of Rome as they have expressed themselves in various Church-State documents on immigration. Robbins continues,

Sider believes that this view [the view that “The human right to a just living transcends the right of North Americans to use their vast grain fields solely for themselves”] is based upon Scripture, but he does not cite any text to support the idea of a “human right to a just living.” The Bible knows nothing of any human rights, and certainly not of a “right to a just living.” One human being has no right to the property of another, for that property does not belong to “society” but to God. God uses that property for his own good, not the common good. As the Catechism says: “Q. Why did God create you and all things? A. For his own glory.” Neither God nor the government owes any man a living.

Sider, as do John Locke and the popes, denies that private property is, in fact, private, and instead argues for collective ownership of the goods of the Earth. Writes Robbins,

Sider would have us believe that when God put man on Earth, he gave the Earth to men corporately, not severally. Nowhere does he present any evidence for this idea. God, holding ultimate ownership of the Earth, gave it to men severally, not collectively. The argument may be found in the works of the seventeenth-century Christian Thinker, Robert Filmer….

The notion that God gave the Earth to men collectively is, of course, Rome’s doctrine of the universal destination of goods. Now Yale educated Ronald Sider is no marginal figure, but among the most influential Evangelicals of the past forty years. As Robbins notes in his essay, Sider is not only the editor of The Chicago Declaration, but a number of other books, some of which were released in cooperation with the Roman Catholic Paulist Press. Sider, it would seem, is a thoroughgoing ecumenist. That being the case, it should come as no surprise that the immigration articles on his website, Evangelicals for Social Action, would appear just as at home on the USCCB’s website or that of any other Roman Catholic organization.

But the big take away from Robbin’s comments here is not the false doctrine of Ronald Sider, but the sound teaching of Robert Filmer. But who is Robert Filmer and why should anyone care?

Those Scripturalists who admire the work of John Robbins, as does this author, will find it interesting to know that Robbins was more than a little acquainted with the work of Sir Robert Filmer (c. 1588 – 1653). For it was Robert Filmer’s political thought that was the subject of Robbins’ 1973 doctoral dissertation at John Hopkins, the title of which is The Political Thought of Sir Robert Filmer.

Unlike the early church fathers, Thomas Aquinas, the popes, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, John Locke and Ronald Sider, Robert Filmer maintained that private property was a prelapsarian institution. Writes Robbins,

On the matter of property, the Discourse is virtually silent. In his Works, however, Filmer consistently maintains that Adam was given dominion over his wife, their children, and the entire earth, i.e., it was his private property. The doctrine of property is of fundamental importance in Filmer’s thought, “for it is not possible for the wit of man to search out the first grounds or principles of government (which necessarily depend upon the original of property)…” In opposition to the Church Fathers, who generally held that property, government, and slavery were all postlapsarian phenomena, Filmer held that all were prelapsarian:

his lordship which Adam by creation had over the whole world, and by right descending from him the Patriarchs did enjoy, was as large and ample as the absolutest dominion of any monarch which hath been since the creation.

Noah, who was more or less a second Adam, divided the whole world among his three sons, and from this division “Most of the civilest nations of the world labour to fetch their original…” (Robbins, The Political Thought of Sir Robert Filmer, 273-274).

The big point to take from this section of Robbins’ dissertation is that private property was not some postlapsarian addition to the moral law, but an institution that existed from the very foundation of the world.

Lord willing, next week we shall explore this topic further.

(To be continued…)