How could Thomas Jefferson write, “all men are created equal,” but for a metaphysical faith commitment? Who was Jefferson to say that all people are equal anyway? Was Jefferson just “speaking his mind” or was he reiterating a divinely revealed truth about the universe? If the idea that people have equality came from Jefferson (or any other human being), and not from divine revelation, then equality does not exist as a timeless reality but as a baseless fantasy. If humans have the exclusive monopoly over equality––what it means, what it looks like, how to get it, etc.––then this whole equality vision is a nasty ruse. This logic applies to all of the national “ideals” (e.g., justice, liberty, etc.). If Jefferson wrote what he wrote based on a humanistic worldview alone, then the Declaration of Independence should honestly take up another name: call it The Jeffersonian Fib. Moral visions must accord with an eternal reality outside of the visionary, or else the vision never attaches outside the individual.
Jefferson’s use of the word “created” is significant. If the world was not created by a sovereign Mind but the product of chance, then, in a sense, everyone would be “equal” because nothing would be distinguishable. This is similar to what St. Athanasius expressed in the 4th century: “For if all things had come into being in this automatic fashion, instead of being the outcome of mind, they would all be uniform and without distinction.” Thus, without a metaphysical reality, there is no distinction between a man or woman; no distinction between good or bad; no distinction between a man or moth; and so on. How could there be science without distinctions? How could there be laws without distinctions? How could there be education without distinction? A world without distinctions is a mad world. A world without distinctions is a world without God.
Yet the natural world screams of distinction and inequality. The distinctions between animals and insects, land and water, mountains and valleys, air and ground, motion and stillness, action and reaction, up and down, fast and slow, etc. are quite obvious. And the apparent differences between man qua man are enormous: no one is naturally identical to the next, and that is just on an observational level. Looking through a microscope, the differences between human beings are even more outstanding. Hannah Arendt emphasized: “nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live.”[1] This is why, she explained, there is excitement over the news of pregnancy: “the newcomer possesses the capacity of beginning something anew.”[2] Indeed, every human being is unique to the world scene. It might be neat to go to Jerusalem and walk where Jesus walked; to play basketball on the stadium where Michael Jordan played; or to wear the top hat of Abraham Lincoln. But no one can walk the exact steps of Jesus, on the same soil as he did, no less at the same pace. No one can play basketball as Michael Jordan played, dribbling as he dribbled, let alone dunking as he dunked. And no one can wear the top hat of Abraham Lincoln just as he did. The best we can do here is theatre.[3]
This much is clear: we are not equals in the natural world, nor should we consider ourselves as such. In May of 2021, The New York Times ran an article entitled, “Humans Are Animals. Let’s Get Over It,” with the subhead: “It’s astonishing how relentlessly Western philosophy is trying to prove that we are not squirrels.”[4] The main argument is that, in order to treat animals better, human beings should admit that they are equal in dignity and value to animals. But animals do not respect other animals; they just eat each other out of instinct. A man approached by a hungry grizzly bear will not last long trying to explain to the beast that he should not eat him because they are both natural equals. He would likely be lunch before he gets a word out. (And, of course, there’s the problem of trying to reason with any animal, let alone a hungry one.). As such, what reason is there to think that humans would respect animals if humans are equal to them? The only basis for treating animals better is the same basis for doing anything in this life: if the prescription has been established by authority. Saying human beings are of infinitely more value than animals does not undermine the value of animals, but actually establishes it.[5] To know the value of human beings is to know where that value comes from—i.e., the Value Giver. Thus, to say human beings have more value than animals is to recognize where human beings get their value, which is from God, and He charges us to rule and care for the beast.[6] Anything less than that means a world without restraints, where anything goes. Beat or treat the beast—it is all the same. The plaintiff who demands “equal treatment” assumes a distinction between him and a horse, and human beings could only be equal if deemed so by the supernatural. Eighteenth century America lawyer and litigator, James Otis, understood the supernatural origins of human equality, among other commonly recognized human rights: “The right of every man to his life, his liberty, no created being can rightfully contest. They are rights derived from the Author of nature. . . . God made all men naturally equal.”[7] Equality does not exist in nature unless established by supernature. Hence, Otis’s last part: it is God (not man) who made men “naturally equal.” Indeed, supernature is the a priori of equality.[8]
However, in the twenty-first century, cries for “the equal treatment of laws” and “non-discrimination” express a general misunderstanding of the American concept of equality. Instead of siding with Jefferson’s “all men are created equal,” Americans today act like “no man was ever created free, and no two men ever created equal.”[9] Equality is now viewed as the ceiling, something to be reached, and no longer the floor, something shared by all. Weaver explains the dilemma: “How much of the frustration of the modern world proceeds from starting with the assumption that all are equal [in the natural sense], finding that this cannot be so, and then having to realize that one can no longer fall back on the bond of fraternity!”[10] For example, I recall a convention at my law school a couple years ago where a “white” man in a dark suit lambasted “those law firms that advertise with billboards that show a bunch of white men.” The man in the suit, a self-professed lawyer and critical thinker, did not seem to consider the possibility that local demographics or random chance could influence who it was that appears on the billboard. This is but a small example of the equality misunderstanding going on today.
The concept of equality changes when viewed in relation to morality. While no murder is identical, the effect of all murder is uniform: someone is now dead. Having murdered, one becomes a “murderer.” While no adultery is the same, the effect of all adultery is the same: someone has broken the wedding vows. Having committed adultery, one becomes an “adulterer.” While not all lying is identical, the effect of all lying is uniform: someone has been epistemologically cheated. Having lied, one becomes a “liar.” And so on. All moral violators––all murderers, all adulterers, all liars, etc.––are counted as equals because, unlike in the physical world, the effect of a moral violation is the same: a taking of life or property. Yes, some murderers commit more murders than the next, but that does not change the fact that both are equally called “murderers.” It does not matter if one husband commits adultery once and another thrice: both are equally deemed “adulterers.” Thus, to violate morality is to violate individuality. Crossing the moral line means the individual loses his uniqueness, his “hisness,” having fallen into the category of immorality along with the rest of them. Therefore, while equality is not found in the physical world, it appears to exist in the moral one. But who should get to set the moral boundaries of a “free” society? This is a question of authority.
[This article is a snippet from a larger writing project that I have been working on.]
[1] Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 8.
[2] Id. at 9.
[3] If equality is based in theatrics, then political leaders with wealth and power who do not like the outer looks of the performance can rewrite the play, holocausting its characters through eugenics. This nightmarish maneuver is, of course, only a surface-level change.
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/opinion/humans-animals-philosophy.html
[5] See further commentary on the New York Times article, “Humans Are Animals. Let’s Get Over It,” in Dr. Albert Mohler’s podcast, The Briefing, March 19, 2021, https://albertmohler.com/2021/03/19/briefing-3-19-21.
[6] See Genesis 1:28; Proverbs 12:10.
[7] John Mercer Langston, Freedom and Citizenship (1883), 88 (quoting James Otis).
[8] Another way to say this might be: the assumption of equality is theology.
[9] Richard M. Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, 37
[10] Weaver, 38
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