Lux Lucet

Sir Robert Filmer

“The Prime duties of the second table [of the ten commandments] are conversant about the right of property. But if property be brought in by a human law (as Grotius teacheth), then the moral law depends upon the will of man. There could be no adultery or theft, if women and all things were common.”

    – Sir Robert Filmer, Patriarcha

Rome’s teaching on migration, which is the theoretical basis for the ongoing migration crisis in both Europe and the United States, rests on the doctrine of the universal destination of goods.

The universal destination of all goods is the idea, repeated time and again in the official documents of the Roman Church-State, that in the original state of nature, before the fall of man, that God gave the world to mankind collectively. This idea, dating back to the pagan stoics, was picked up by the church fathers, repeated by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae, and used by popes and other thinkers in the Roman Church-State as the foundational idea for socialist economic and political thought which characterizes the Social Teaching of the Church.

Since Rome’s teaching on migrants is one facet of the Church’s Social Teaching, it should come as no surprise to find that the universal destination of goods is foundational to the Church’s teaching on immigration, migration and refugee resettlement as well.

A second key point to this series is that the universal destination of goods is unbiblical. Rather than positing the idea that God gave the Earth to man collectively, the Bible teaches that private property was the original economic order of things.

The third key point is that, if it can be demonstrated from the Scriptures that Rome’s doctrine of the universal destination of goods is false, not only is Rome’s socialist migration doctrine likewise refuted, but the entirety of its Social Teaching is overthrown as well.

In this week’s post, we shall continue to examine the arguments against the universal destination of goods and for original capitalism made by 17th century English political philosopher Sir Robert Filmer as discussed in John Robbins’ doctoral dissertation, The Political Thought of Sir Robert Filmer.

Hugo Grotius, Filmer’s Foil

As John Robbins notes in his doctoral dissertation The Political Thought of Sir Robert Filmer, Robert Filmer took issue with Hugo Grotius’ view of property. Wrote Grotius in his work De Jure Belli et Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace),

God immediately after the Creation, did bestow upon mankind in general a right over things of inferior nature… From whence it came to pass that presently every man might snatch what he would for his own use, and spend what he could: and such an universal right was then instead of property, for what everyone so catched another could not take from him but by injury.

Grotius, although a Protestant scholar, held to the same erroneous idea of original communism as did the stoics, the church fathers, Aquinas and the scholastics, believing in original collective ownership from which men “snatched what he would for his own use.” This is the same view John Locke expressed in his Second Treatise of Civil Government. There, Locke argued that one acquired property by mixing his labor with what he found in the state of nature.

Robbins notes that Filmer believed Grotius’ view was “repugnant to the truth of Holy Scripture” and supported his claim with a quote from John Seldon’s Mare Clausum.

[Adam] by donation from God…was made the general lord of all things, not without such a private dominion to himself, as (without his grant) did exclude his children. And by donation and assignation, or some kind of cession (before he was dead or left any heir to succeed him) his children had their distinct territories by right of private dominion. Abel had his dflocks, and pastures for them. Cain had his fields for corn, and the land of Nod where he built himself a city.

Robbins notes that Filmer argued for private property in the state of innocence in two ways. First, both power [paternal and regal] and property were granted by God in Genesis. Second, respect for both power and property is commanded in the moral law, power under the Fifth Commandment and property under the Eighth, “Thou shalt not steal.”

Did the Fall Cause a Change in the Moral Law?

Robbins notes that the church fathers, through who the idea of the universal destination of goods was transmitted, believed that there was a change in the moral law that took place from the time before the fall to the period after the fall. They argued that, while the community of goods was the economic state of affairs prior to the fall, private property become the order of the day afterward. Robbins explains,

In a sense, Filmer is much more loyal to the Scriptural account than the Fathers, who posit a “Natural” community of goods before the Fall, despite the fact that, as Filmer points out, this would make the law changeable. All other Commandments are acknowledged to be valid both before and after the Fall; indeed, the Patristic doctrine was that the Ten Commandments were given because of the perverting effect sin had had on the law written in the hearts of men, and were not an addition to the effected innate law.

Now perhaps one could argue that, just as the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy,” has undergone an alteration, so too has the Eighth. But if there was an alteration in the Eighth Commandment, one would have to show from the Scriptures that this was the case. But this the Romanists cannot do. While it is certain from the Scriptures that the New Testament church met on the first day of the week, and that this implies that the Sabbath has been changed from the seventh to the first day of the week, which is the “Christian Sabbath” in the words of the Westminster Standards, there is no Scriptural support for such a change to the Eighth Commandment.

Put another way, the definition of theft before the fall was the same as the definition of theft after the fall.

For this reason, it is appropriate to understand that the prohibitions on theft we see in Law of Moses were not some additional to, or alteration of, the Law written on the hearts of Adam and Eve before the fall, but rather they must be understood as the enscripturated expression on the Law as it was from the beginning.

Does Scripture Anywhere Support the Universal Destination of Goods?

According to the Church-State, need is the only moral title to property. Thomas Aquinas argued,

…it is lawful for a man to succor his own need by means of another’s property by taking it either openly or secretly; not is this, properly speaking theft and robbery…It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another’s property in a case of extreme need; because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need…. In a case of a like need a man may also take secretly another’s property in order to succor his neighbor in need (Summa Theologiae, ii-ii, 7th article).

Because private property, in Rome’s system of political economy, is an addition to the natural law which posits an original state of common ownership, it, therefore, “does not enjoy the same metaphysical or ethical status as the community of goods” as Robbins put it. But does this argument stand up when measured against the Scriptures?

The unequivocal answer to this question is, no.

In Proverbs 6:30-31 we read, “People do not despise a thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is starving. Yet when he is found, he must restore sevenfold; he may have to give up all the substance of his house.”

Here we have a man who is in extremis, he is starving and has need of food. But is there any hint here that his needy status entitles him to another’s property? Very clearly, the answer is no. While the passage recognizes the extenuating circumstances of the needy thief, the passage nevertheless hammers home the fact that the thief’s act is both a sin and a crime by exaggerating the Law’s command for restitution. Where the Law commands thieves to restore fourfold, Solomon posits restitution of sevenfold.

In the New Testament, Jesus parable of the Workers in the Vineyard provides another example of the Bible’s stance on private property. After the workers complain to the vineyard owner that he has done them wrong, the vineyard owner replies, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things?” The clear intent of this rhetorical question is to drive home the point that the vineyard owner is master of his property and can use it as he sees fit. His only obligation is to keep his work to those whom he hired, which he did by paying them the agreed upon wage. There is no hint here that need gives others a claim on the vineyard owners property.

A further consideration is the account of Ananias and Sapphira. Here, Peter affirms Ananias’ ownership of his property by saying, “While it [the possession Ananias sold] remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control?” It’s important to note here that Ananias’ selling of his possession and bringing the partial proceeds to Peter occurred in the context of the dire financial circumstances of the newly formed Jerusalem church. As Acts 5 notes, believers who had them were selling their lands and houses to provide for the needs of the church. Yet in these circumstances Peter never so much as hints that the poor among the Jerusalem congregation had a claim on Ananias’ and Sapphira’s property. They owned in before the sale, and the proceeds were theirs to do with as they pleased after the sale.

In Revelation, we read that Jesus will give the faithful a white stone on which is written a new name which no one knows except him who receives it. That is to say, the white stone and the name are the exclusive property of the one who receives it from Jesus. But this exclusive ownership is not some new idea or some change in the law that applies in the New Heavens and New Earth, but a continuation of the law concerning property as found in Genesis. As it was in the beginning, so it is and ever shall be.

Nowhere is Scripture is there a hint of an original community of goods or that need is the only moral criterion of ownership. The universal destination of goods is a fiction of Antichrist and the Roman Church-State and must be rejected by all who are called in Christ Jesus as, in the words of Robert Filmer, “repugnant to the Holy Scriptures.”

Closing Thoughts

In his essay Biblical Principles of Giving, John Robbins wrote,

God is indeed the creator and owner of everything. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. And God has indeed entrusted his property to men. In fact, God has entrusted his property to specific human being who morally and legally own that property, to the exclusion of all other human beings.

In the beginning God entrusted the Garden, indeed, the whole Earth (excepting one tree), to Adam. That is the legal meaning of Genesis 1:26-30. Those verse are a conveyance of trust from God to Adam. True, Adam lost the privilege of living in the lush Garden that God had prepared, for Adam stole fruit form God’s tree. He did not respect God’s property. But Adam did not lose his ownership of the Earth. That legal title passed from him to his children, as Adam determined.

God has obviously not entrusted either church leaders or the poor with property that he has entrusted to others. Nor has God given the church or the poor a moral or legal claim to the property of others. Trust in this context is a legal concept, and as trustees of God, property owners enjoy the right and responsibility of using their property as they, and not other human beings, see fit. That also is the legal meaning of Genesis 1:26-30 and Acts 2. To won something means that one controls it. Peter put it this way: Was it not in your own control? The collectivist (Communist, Fascist, Environmentalist, Liberal) notion that a person hold property in trust for others – for society, for the state, for the race, for the people, for Mother nature, or for the poor [or for migrants, for that matter, author] – has no support in Scripture. A property owner owns his property. A property owner is in fact, in law, and in ethics a property owner.

Rome’s universal destination of goods is a theological fiction. And if the universal destination of goods is a fiction, so too is the entire superstructure of Rome’s Social Teaching – including its teaching about migrants, immigrants and refugees – which is built upon it.

Migrants, immigrants and refugees, no matter how poor, have no legal or ethical claim on the property of the citizens to whose nation they come. If a citizen of a receiving nation chooses to give of his own property to help migrants and refugees, so be it. It’s is property and he may do with it what he wants. If an immigrant is able to find work to support himself in a foreign country to which he has come, so be it. That’s a matter between him and his employer or customers.

In Strangers No Longer, The US Conference of Catholic Bishops and their Mexican counterparts made the point that sovereign states [read “taxpayers”] have the obligation “to promote the universal good where possible, including an obligation to accommodate migration flows. For more powerful nations, a stronger obligation exists.”

In essence, the bishops are regurgitating Marx’s notorious doctrine of “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” and applying it on an international level.

As Scripturalists, we must measure all things by the Word of God. And by this standard, the claims if the bishops are found wanting. Their arguments are repugnant to the very word of God.

Lord willing, next week we shall continue with our Scripturalist analysis of the claims of the Roman Harlot by comparing what Rome teaches about migration to the example of Moses and the Israelites as recorded for us in Numbers. The contrast couldn’t be more stark.