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.