In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at the question whether Jesus, whom Christians consider a divine person, was also a human person. We decided that — whether you believe him to be divine, he was human, and therefore necessarily a person.
Why is this even under discussion? Isn’t that mixing politics and religion, or something and religion? Or dragging in religion?
Not at all. The real question here is whether anyone, whatever else he, she, or it might be, is a human being, is a human person. In other words, is personality conditional, or is it dependent merely on the fact that someone is a human being. We concluded, based on reason and natural law theory, that irrespective of whether Jesus was a god, fraud, or simply odd, he was a human person by the mere fact that he was a human being — whatever else he might be or have been. No ifs, ands, or buts. To deny that Jesus was (or is, depending on your belief system or lack thereof) a human person is contrary to reason.
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| Felicité de Lamennais |
In fact, the implications of denying Jesus is a human person as that term is used socially and legally as well as a divine person as that term is used theologically are “interesting” to say the least. It is an application of the “theory of certitude” of Felicité de Lamennais which made truth a matter of faith rather than of reason, to say nothing of conforming to the belief of Siger of Brabant that it is possible to accept one thing as true in one set of circumstances and reject it as false in another set of circumstances; truth changes from an absolute in conformity with reality, to a conditional expedient. Truth ceases to be true.
If faith is the basis of natural law, then might makes right; if you can scream loud enough or browbeat enough people to your way of thinking, then you are clearly in the right. Further, making human personality conditional instead of absolute in every human being without exception has some other rather unpleasant implications:
· Slavery is justified because some human-appearing beings are less human or not human at all and therefore do not have natural rights; they are not human persons, but human things.
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| Dred Scott |
· Tyranny is justified because some human-appearing beings are more human than others and therefore have super-natural rights that override or negate the merely natural rights of ordinary human persons.
· Scott v. Sandford (1857) was a judicially correct decision instead of an abomination that denied personality to human beings of African birth or descent.
· The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is a conditional grant of civil rights, not the application of a natural law principle recognizing each human person’s natural rights.
· The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873) was a judicially correct decision which asserted all rights come from the State and are not inherent or natural in every human person.
· The socialists are right that the natural right to private property is conditional, not absolute.
· The capitalists are right that they are superior to other humans and have absolute rights that others do not (yes, William Hurrell Mallock made this argument against socialism and George Bernard Shaw had no problem shredding it . . . ignoring the flabbiness of his counter arguments in favor of socialism).
· The eugenicists were correct that inferior beings should be culled from the gene pool.
· The Nazis were correct that “culture destroyers” such as Jews and Gypsies should be exterminated and “useless eaters” such as those deemed physically, mentally or ideologically unfit should be euthanized.
· Roe v. Wade was correct that a fetus may be a human being but is not a human person as that term is used in the Fourteenth Amendment.
· Illegal immigrants have no rights and are therefore not human persons entitled to due process.
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| Ronald Knox |
And so on. Whether you believe Jesus was a divine person or even existed is irrelevant to the point: is mere humanity sufficient to establish personality, or is personality conditional on something else? If mere humanity is sufficient, then Jesus was (or is) a human person. End of story. If mere humanity is not sufficient, then we plunge headlong into moral relativism and positivism, a world where truth is up for grabs and might makes right.
Making faith — and then the “right” kind of faith — a precondition for personality means (as Ronald Knox pointed out) only the godly, or those who agree with you, are of the right race, sex, age, condition, hair color, sexual orientation, national origin or anything else — have rights.
It’s not a good idea to deny any human being personality.
#30#
