by Lee Edward Enochs
Theologian X
John Locke’s views on property rights
have been enormously influential in America for over three centuries and gave
impetus to the formulation of America’s declaration of Independence.
In his classic book, Second Treatise of
Government, Locke argued uniquely
that each person has a right to self-preservation and possesses “a property in
one’s person.”
Locke argued that through the use of reason, property rights are self-evident
and derived from the law of nature.
According to Locke’s view, property rights come before civil law because these
property rights are grounded in natural law (lex naturalis).
While Locke’s views on property are greatly respected in academic circles,
there has been much scholarly debate over these ideas. In this paper, contrary
to the view of Locke, I am going to argue that natural theology is not an
adequate ground to predicate property rights upon and that transcendent and
universally and binding mosaic Decalogue is a better standard to derive
property rights from.
Locke
and Property Rights
In his Second
Treatise of Government, Locke argued that a person has an exclusive right
over his or her own body and each person has a “property in one’s person” and
contrasts this “property in one’s person with that of external goods.
Locke believed that that property was a normal part of the state of nature and
argues that natural reason tell us that “men, being once born have a right to
their preservation and consequently to meat and drink and such other things as
nature affords their subsistence.”
In other words, Locke believed that reason indicates to us that after we are
born, nature and reason indicates to us that we have a fundamental right to
eating, drinking and other means of survival.
Locke states that God has given the world to men for their common use and that
God has given men reason to make use of the world for the best advantage of
life and convenience.
Locke then argues that the fruit
the world naturally produces and the beasts the world feeds belong to mankind
in common and are produced by the “spontaneous hand of nature,” and no one in
nature’s original state has any private dominion over these things that is exclusive
of the rest of human civilization.
According to Locke, nature and all that it contains has been given for the use
of men and there must be a means of appropriating the things of nature for it
to be any use or benefit to any particular person.
Locke argues that the civilized man and
the “wild Indian, who knows no enclosure” are equal in the respect that both
have right to it specifically for the purpose of supporting and sustaining
human life.
Locke postulates the thesis that that every man, “has a property in his own
person” and that no one has a right to the property in one’s own person but
that individual him or herself.
Locke subsequently asserts that the labor and works of a person’s hand are
properly his and whatever he removes out of the things the “state of nature”
has provided are equally his own property.
Locke then argues that whatever labor an individual has joined with something
he or she owns makes it his or her property. According to Locke, this is true
because the item found in the common start nature has placed it in has been
enjoined with a person’s labor and thus becomes the “unquestioned property” of
the laborer.
According to Locke, no other person has a
right to this new product once the laborer in questioned has enjoined them to
it through individual labor and since the item found in a state of nature was
plentiful and left in common for others Locke argued that all things found in a state
of nature are open to ownership to the person who appropriate these things by
means of labor, since this individual has taken the thing out “of the hands of nature, where it was common
and belonged go all of nature’s children, and has thereby appropriated it,” to
his or her self. Locke
also argued that nature has set a limit or measure to the property a person can
enjoin with their individual labor and that this measure of property is a “very
moderate proportion and such as he might appropriate to himself without injury”
to another person. Locke asserted that
labor, “in the beginning, gave a right to property wherever anyone was pleased
to employ it upon what was common.
Thus, to Locke, any natural item or piece of land found in an original and
previously non-owned “state of nature” is the “property” of the individual who
decides to use labor to acquire and appropriate it.
Locke,
Reason and Natural Law
A fundamentally important notion in Locke’s
understanding of property pertains to his view of natural law and natural
rights. In Locke’s view of natural law, there are certain ethical verities that
are universally applicable to all people irrespective of their geographical
location and particular contractual and social arrangements they had made.
Locke believed in a distinction between natural law and positive law and
contrasted the laws that were by nature and generally applicable to every
person in every society and the laws that were created by a given civilization
out of convention. According to Locke,
natural law should be differentiated from divine law in that while in the example
of the historic Christian faith, God has revealed His divine law to specially
chosen prophets and inspired authors of Scripture for those who specifically
follow the Christian religion. However, Locke argued in counter distinction to
the localized faith of historic Christianity, natural law can be ascertained
exclusively through reason alone and the moral directives of natural law are
universally applicable to all people irrespective of their creedal and
religious commitments. Locke believed that natural law could be ascertained by
reason alone and that the ethical directives of Christianity are to be followed
as long as they do not contradict natural law. Thus it appears that in John
Locke’s understanding of the different modes of Biblical inspiration, revelation,
natural law, which is a species of general revelation, always supersedes the
more inferior and localized special revelation of God’s written Word.
Natural
Theology, Subjectivism and Property
John Locke’s view is contingent upon the
efficacy of human reason to discern the self-evident existence of property
rights from a state of nature. However, Locke’s argument that property rights
can be discerned from a state of nature fails to be convincing at this point,
since it is not at all apparent or clear that an examination of natural
theology will in fact delineate these property rights in the manner that Locke
suggests. Locke’s arguments for property rights based on natural theology are
entirely unconvincing and most certainly not “self-evident” to those who use
reason, since many reasonable individuals have examined the exact same natural
data that John Locke used to craft his property rights hypothesis and came away with entirely
different views on property. To illustrate this point, the economist Karl Marx
examined the same natural data that John Locke did and came away with an
entirely antithetical view of property.The brilliant empiricist philosopher David Hume argued that religious faith
cannot be predicated upon reason as Locke suggested, but on faith alone. Hume
believed in order to truly believe in God and the miraculous tenants of
historic Christianity, one must in fact suspend reason and lapse into fideism
since in no way can reason substantiate faith.
From the Christian perspective, there are many scholars and theologians such as
Karl Barth who are tremendously critical of any attempt at defending the
Christian faith by means of natural theology.
Locke’s view that human reason has the ability
to discern self-evident property rights from the auspices of natural theology
appears to be specious on many grounds. First of all, as a professing
Christian, writing about an aspect of God’s created order from natural
theology, Locke does not appear to take seriously the Biblical account of the
Fall, which, according to the Bible, has left humanity morally culpable and
spiritually incapacitated to follow Christ and understand spiritual truth
without the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit (Genesis 3:1-21, Romans 5:
12-20 and 1 Corinthians 2:6-16). Locke’s view of Christianity and is that it is
predicated and substantiated upon unaided reason alone. Locke’s view of natural
theology and property rights does not appear to leave room for a well-
developed hamartiology, anthropology, soteriology and theodicy, that explains
why the created order is not in the pristine state that it is supposed to be,
nor does Locke’s view of creation, take into account the reality of sin and
evil in this world. Irrespective of where Locke may have stood on the perennial
debate on noetic effects of sin upon humanity that caused a schism between
Augustine of Hippo and Pelagius, orthodox Christianity at least has some
position that explains how sin came into the world and wreaked havoc upon the
created order. Locke’s view of Christianity and the state of nature appears to
be problematic since the entire reason why Jesus Christ was sent to die on the
cross by God the Father was to deal with very real issue of sin and evil in
this world. Locke’s view seems to be devoid of the supernatural aspects of
Christianity that the Bible clearly speaks about. Locke’s view of natural
theology does not seem to have room for sin and its incapacitating effects upon
the will and moral decisions of human beings. Locke’s view of the state of
nature appears to leave creation without its inherent fallen condition. Locke’s view of Christianity seems to be
predicated upon reason and whether or not it is reasonable or not to believe
something.
Another problematic issue with Locke’s view of
human reason and natural theology is that it appears that Locke views reason is
more reliable than the Christian Scriptures to accurately given account of the
state of nature from which Locke builds his case for property rights from.
Locke seems to suggest that there is a hierarchy of revelation in God’s
creation and that reason is to surpass and supplant the Christian Scriptures in
giving an account of how the natural world operates. Locke’s view of natural
theology seems to suggest that natural theology is a more reliable guide than
the Christian Scriptures, a view that is problematic since there is no reliable
standard or guide to evaluate whether or not natural theology yields the kind
of property rights Locke so eloquently argues for. While the Christian
Scriptures do present a natural theology (Psalm 19 and Romans 1:18-32), this
natural theology does not clearly delineate the kind of property rights Locke
argues for. Locke’s view that self-evident property rights can be deduced from
natural theology seems to be a form of fideism or circular reasoning since
there is no actual objective evidence to substantiate Locke’s claim that there
are self-evident property rights within natural theology. Locke’s arguments for property rights seem to
be guilty of the logical fallacy known as petitio principii, or
“begging the question,” since it appears that in Locke’s case for property
rights argued for in his book, A Second Treatise of Government, he
simply assumes the initial point that there are property rights in nature and
in one’s person without actually giving concrete evidence for these property
rights. Locke’s views on natural theology and property rights seems to be an
argument from design along the lines of William Paley’s “watchmaker” argument
in that generally speaking, arguments for God’s existence or an aspect of the
created order are subjective and without objective verification. Natural
theology does not seem to yield the sort of property rights that Locke argues
for upon close examination.
The
Decalogue and Property Rights
While I do not believe the Bible is a textbook on
property rights, there seems to be a form of rudimentary property rights
contained in the Decalogue itself. In
Exodus 20:15 God says, “You shall not steal” and Exodus 20:17 God says, “You
shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbors wife
or his male servant, or his female servant or his ox, or his donkey, or
anything that is your neighbor’s.” The verses mentioned above provide
foundational scriptural support for individual and private property
rights.
These verses demonstrate that the Decalogue commands
that a person not steal or covert another individuals resources. Individual and
personal property rights seemingly
are inherent in these texts. If these items were ultimately the property
of the state as collectivism suggests, then God’s law would not say “you shall
not covet your neighbor’s house” but rather the text would imply that all the
items at our disposal for living are ultimately the property
of the state and not our own. However, on the contrary, the Decalogue itself
argues that in order for a person to steal or covet another person’s items that
in fact must be the possession of another , thus demonstrating that personal property rights or inherent and meant for
all of us to enjoy for the glory of God. In the same way that within “common
grace” God sends the rain and provides daily sustenance for the “just and the
unjust” (Mathew 5:45), He has allowed all people to own their own property. Despite
the argumentation for property rights elucidated above, I am not convinced the
Bible argues for the sort of self-evident property rights John Locke argued
for. In quoting the Bible and the Decalogue on personal property rights, I am
merely suggesting that the unchanging Word of God discusses the issue of
personal property and seems to be predicated on a more credible foundation that
the inherent subjectivism and circularity found in John Locke’s argumentation.
Conclusion
In this paper,
contrary to the view of Locke, I have argued that natural theology is not an
adequate ground to predicate property rights upon and that transcendent and
universally and binding mosaic Decalogue is a better standard to derive
property rights from. While John Locke was an erudite scholar of massive and
historic proportions, his views on personal property do not seem convincing. It
is my contention that if the German socialist economist Karl Marx had the
opportunity to discuss property rights with John Locke, he most certainly
challenge Locke’s thesis that personal property “in one’s person,” and his
concept of property rights being self-evident and deduced from a state of
nature. In my estimation, natural theology does not yield the kind of perspicacious
right to property that Locke argues for. Locke suggests that a right use of
human reason will undoubtedly yield these self-evident property rights from an
examination of natural theology. This is most certainly not the case since many
scholars and other astute observers of nature and personal property have
derived entirely antithetical ideas about personal property after examining the
very same “evidence” that Locke reviewed. While, the Bible is not a textbook on property
rights, it does contain ample information about personal property and it
appears from careful exegesis of Exodus 20, that God intended for human beings
to possess their own property. If He in fact did not, the Biblical prohibitions
forbidding stealing and coveting another person’s property would be rendered
nonsensical.
Bibliography
Footnotes
[1]
George Mace, Locke, Hobbes, and the Federalist Papers :
An Essay on the Genesis of the American Political Heritage (Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1979).
[2] Peter R. Anstey, John Locke : Critical Assessments of Leading
Political Philosophers. Series Ii (London ; New York: Routledge, 2006),
177-178.
[3] James Tully, A Discourse on Property : John Locke and His
Adversaries (Cambridge Eng. ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980),
54-77.
[4] R. C. Sproul, The Consequences of Ideas : Understanding the
Concepts That Shaped Our World (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2000), 102.
[6] John Locke and C. B.
Macpherson, Second Treatise of Government,
1st ed. (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Pub. Co., 1980), 19.
[7] Ibid., 19.
[8] Ibid., 19.
[9] Ibid., 19-20.
[10] Ibid., 19.
[11] Ibid., 19.
[12] Ibid., 19.
[13] Ibid., 19.
[14] Ibid., 19.
[17]
Karl Marx et al., The Communist
Manifesto, Penguin Books--Great Ideas (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 168.
[18]
David Hume and Richard H. Popkin, Dialogues
Concerning Natural Religion, the Posthumous Essays, of the Immortality of the
Soul, and of Suicide, from an Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding of
Miracles, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 1998), 68-95.
[19]
Karl Barth, Nein! Antwort an Emil
Brunner, Theologische Existenz Heute Schriftenreihe, (München,: C. Kaiser,
1934), 30-45.
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