Miscellaneous Writing

Political Equality

Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal.” This is supposed to mean ‘natural equality’, i.e. that man is equal by nature and in a state of nature. But this is a doubly ambiguous expression. Taken literally (as equal in ability by birth) it is absurd. It has to mean something like ‘equal in the eyes of God’. But – apart from the fact that the word ‘equal’ is still problematic – nature is precisely that realm in which there is no God, i.e. no justice.

There are two problems here:

1. The first problem is the separation between God and reason introduced by Catholic philosophers, who distinguish ‘natural reason’ and ‘natural law’ from what is supernaturally revealed. But this is confused, because revelation can only be interpreted rationally, so what is revealed in the revelation must ultimately be rational. And why would the revealing be higher than what is revealed? Moreover, God is named the Logos, i.e. he is reason. Reason therefore is revelation. Reason, the essence of man, is supernatural. It cannot be naturally ‘given’ because it is the telos of all nature. So the terms ‘natural right’ and ‘natural equality’ are superfluous. Man is not equal by nature, yet shares a common supernatural essence, namely reason. This implies pan-en-theism, the view that God is simultaneously transcendent and immanent. This theory is common to Hegelianism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

2. The second problem is the use of the word ‘equal’. Equality is not the same as identity. Man has one identity as man, the ‘zōon logon echon’, the animal with reason. Reason is his essence, and it is a supernatural essence. But this is not the same as ‘equality’. Equality is an empty abstraction, which implies interchangeability, lack of difference. Whereas essence, identity, remains what it is while being differently determined. That is the difference between equality and identity.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal” because he thought that the universal essence of man was something created, i.e. natural, as opposed to the uncreated supernatural essence that it is in truth. He structurally retained the priority of God over man even as he eliminated the political significance of the former. Nothing could be worse. The only solution to this conundrum is to identify God and reason and the essence of man, and thus think revelation as the revelation of this unity. Therefore it is only Hegel (and in a way also Eastern Orthodox theologians) who can resolve the problem of the foundation of the American legal system introduced by Thomas Jefferson. Namely the ambiguity in the concepts of ‘natural right’ and ‘natural equality’, which made its way into the Declaration of Independence through the words “all men are created equal.” The truth is we are not created equal. Rather, as created we are precisely unequal; as united we are precisely the uncreated supernatural essence of God, namely reason.

Hegel vs. Heidegger

The shortcoming of Heidegger and the superiority of Hegel can be seen clearly in their respective treatments of truth. Heidegger says that the ills of modern industrial society are the result of a false definition of truth as correspondence, and he aims to recover the original notion of truth as aletheia. This is quite right, modern society does have a wrong understanding of truth, and the true concept is the Greek one. However, Hegel already knew this. And he goes a step further by pointing up that aletheia is really an ontological correspondence: the correspondence of the thing to itself. For example, the opening of a bud into a flower reveals the true nature of the flower. But this is a bringing of the flower into correspondence – not with an external being but with itself. So Hegel discovers the ontological meaning of truth within the traditional definition, and preserves the unity of being and thinking (of nature and the propositional form). Whereas Heidegger, affected by a false originality, wrongly deprecates the tradition, and logic as a whole. Because he actually does not understand that tradition or logic. He interprets them uncharitably and blames them for the ills of industrial society. When in fact these ills are the result of the deprecation of tradition and the estrangement of the Logos from being: abstract logic and desultory existence. This estrangement Heidegger’s writing directly perpetuates.

Separation of Church and State

I propose that the triumph of secularism and philosemitism, and the decline of the West in general, is principally caused by papal supremacy. For the following reason: ‘Wokeness’ is essentially a continuation of the civil rights movement (wherein in 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed), which continued the post-civil-war Reconstruction (wherein in 1868 the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified), which continued the American Revolution, which continued Cromwell’s interregnum (wherein in 1656 the jews were readmitted to England), which continued the Dutch Revolt against the Inquisition (wherein in 1579 religious tolerance was first established as a legal and philosophical doctrine; and this may be regarded as the origin of capitalism). And finally the inquisition itself was established in 1229 to combat the Waldensians and Cathars, who emerged in the West as opponents of the papacy’s wealth and power, a conflict for which Eastern Christianity has no equal parallel, i.e. no parallel conflict which resulted in an inquisition.

The reason why there was no inquisition in the East, and thus no Reformation, no separation of church and state, wokeness, feminism, etc., is that Eastern Orthodoxy retained the conciliar mode of government which does not offend national sovereignty. Or the doctrine of papal supremacy elicits the emergence of heretical sects and causes. Thus it is Catholicism’s ongoing rejection of conciliarity that ever drives the Western world towards anti-Christan politics: liberalism, Marxism, feminism, philosemitism, atheism, wokeness, etc. – these being so many more or less misguided attempts to reclaim the freedom lost to papal supremacy.

When did the Catholic church begin to reject conciliarity? I think it traces to the conspiracy of the Donation of Constantine, which was used beginning in 750 and throughout the Middle Ages to support papal supremacy, until it was exposed as a forgery by Lorenzo Valla in 1440. This exposure, together with the abuses of the Spanish inquisition and the sale of indulgences, gave impetus to the Reformers and their theological errors, as well as elicited the Dutch policy of religious toleration, the English liberal separation of church and state, and finally egalitarianism, feminism, DEI, etc. These wrongs are traceable to the Donation of Constantine and the Papacy’s abuses of power, which are all rooted in the basic offense against national sovereignty caused by the rejection of conciliarity; an offense which finds its theological analogue in the addition of the filioque clause. So it may be said that the filioque, papal supremacy, and its ensuing conspiracies including the Donation of Constantine, are the principal cause of the triumph of secularism and philosemitism, and thus the social and moral decay of the West.