{"id":6776,"date":"2010-03-15T06:34:22","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T11:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/15\/law-at-the-jesus-creed-david-opderbeck-8\/"},"modified":"2010-03-15T06:34:22","modified_gmt":"2010-03-15T11:34:22","slug":"law-at-the-jesus-creed-david-opderbeck-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/15\/law-at-the-jesus-creed-david-opderbeck-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Law at the Jesus Creed: David Opderbeck"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Lawbook.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>We have a number of guest writers on this blog, including RJS (who writes twice per week and has done so for a long, long time \u2014 and I\u2019m exceedingly grateful for her gift to this blog) and Michael Kruse. And David Opderbeck has been writing for us about law, and his posts reach into spaces this blog has never seen \u2014 and this post by David is a response to responses on other sites.<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
\n

My post last week on law and the freedoms of contract and property garnered the attention of a number of folks from conservative circles, including\u00a0Jay Richards of the American Enterprise Institute<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Richards argues that I \u201ccould use a few more tools in [my] philosophical tool kit.\u201d One of those tools, he suggests, is a \u201cfiner-tuned\u201d distinction between \u201cabsolute\u201d and \u201cfundamental\u201d rights.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>He suggests that the right to private property is a \u201cfundamental\u201d right.<\/p>\n

What do you think about this proposed distinction between \u201cabsolute\u201d and \u201cfundamental\u201d rights?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>From the perspective of Christian theology, is private property a \u201cfundamental\u201d right?<\/b><\/p>\n

Before I offer some additional thoughts, I should note one element of my earlier post that Richards picked up on:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>my use of the term \u201cthird way.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Richards correctly notes that this term historically has been used by socialists to describe their economic views.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>My intent, however, was not to make an oblique reference to socialism.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>We often use the term \u201cthird way\u201d here on Jesus Creed to refer to an evangelically Christian sensibility that is neither \u201cliberal\u201d nor \u201cconservative\u201d as those terms have been used in the past hundred years or so following the fundamentalist-modernist controversies.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>That is the sense I intended.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n<\/p>\n

I am not a
\nsocialist, though I appreciate some of the communitarian political theology of
\nthinkers such as John Milbank and Jurgen Moltmann; and while I appreciate some
\naspects of liberation theology, I also am not a liberationist.\u00a0 <\/span>What I hope I\u2019m driving at is more of a
\nrecovery of aspects of the Christian tradition concerning law and economics
\nthat, in my judgment, have often been ignored by conservative evangelicals in
\nNorth America.<\/p>\n

With that out of the way, let me pull out and examine one of
\nthe philosophical tools often employed by folks who argue that private property
\nis a \u201cfundamental\u201d right:\u00a0
\n<\/span>John Locke\u2019s labor theory.\u00a0
\n<\/span>Locke argued that, without the efforts of human beings, the creation
\nexists in a \u201cstate of nature.\u201d\u00a0
\n<\/span>No one has a right to possess nature in itself.\u00a0 <\/span>However, when a person mixes his labor
\nwith the state of nature to produce something \u2014 for example, when a farmer
\ncauses the land to yield crops \u2014 that person has a natural right to possess
\nthe fruits of his labor.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

This is because, according to Locke, \u00a0<\/span>a person \u201cowns\u201d his own body,
\nand therefore owns what his body does.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Locke summarizes this as follows in his Second Treatise on Government<\/i>:\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cAs much land as a man
\ntills, plants, improves, cultivates, and can use\u00a0 <\/span>the product of, so much is his property. He by his labor
\ndoes, as it were, enclose it from the common.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Absent such a right, Locke further argued, people would have
\nlittle incentive to exert their labors.\u00a0
\n<\/span>Locke\u2019s natural law property theory deeply influenced Anglo-American
\njurisprudence prior to the rise of \u201clegal realism\u201d in the nineteenth
\ncentury and even thereafter.<\/p>\n

Locke, however, recognized that this natural law property
\nright must have limits.\u00a0 <\/span>These
\ninclude the \u201cenough and as good\u201d and \u201cwaste\u201d provisos.\u00a0 <\/span>In brief (and ignoring a number of
\nfissiparous disputes among Locke scholars about the nature of these
\nprovisos):\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cenough and as
\ngood\u201d means that an individual may appropriate from nature only such an
\namount of resources that enough and as good of those resources are left for
\nothers; and the related \u201cwaste\u201d\u00a0
\n<\/span>condition means that an individual may appropriate from nature only so
\nmuch as he can use, such that there is no remainder to spoil and go to waste.<\/p>\n

Locke\u2019s theory of property is in many ways appealing.\u00a0 <\/span>It is a \u201cChristian\u201d theory of
\nproperty, or at least a theistic one, which recognizes that
\n\u201cproperty\u201d has a moral dimension rooted in nature as God\u2019s
\ncreation.\u00a0 <\/span>And it includes
\nimportant conditions that help protect the general public good.\u00a0 <\/span>I think it falls short as a deeply
\nChristian theory, however, for at least two reasons.<\/p>\n

First, it idealizes the individual within the \u201cstate of
\nnature\u201d in ways that seem more indebted to the Enlightenment than to the
\nHebrew and Christian scriptures.\u00a0
\n<\/span>The \u201ccultural mandate\u201d in Genesis 1:28 is not an invitation to
\nautonomous individuals to add labor to what God made on the first five days and
\nthen to take possession of the resulting fruits of those labors.\u00a0 <\/span>The adam
\n<\/i>of Genesis 1 is generic humanity, not an individual, and the charge of
\nGenesis 1:28 is one of vice-regency and sub-creation, not one of individual
\nprivate ownership.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Vice-regency and sub-creation may entail
\nsome individual private ownership for pragmatic reasons of organization and
\nefficiency (and indeed, I think this is the case), but Lockean labor theory, I
\nthink, improperly prioritizes individual private ownership as a
\n\u201cfundamental right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, Locke\u2019s theory seems to distance God from the
\ncreated order, in common Enlightenment fashion.\u00a0 <\/span>It is as though God wound up the \u201cstate of nature\u201d
\nand then stepped out of the picture.\u00a0
\n<\/span>The Hebraic concept of Divine immanence in and sovereignty over creation
\nis much more robust than Locke\u2019s state of nature.\u00a0 <\/span>We see this, I think, in God\u2019s charge to Israel before the
\nconquest of Canaan:\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

When the LORD your God brings you
\ninto the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give
\nyou\u2013a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with
\nall kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and
\nvineyards and olive groves you did not plant\u2013then when you eat and are
\nsatisfied,\u00a0 <\/span>be careful that you do
\nnot forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery\u00a0<\/span>(Deut. 6:10-12).<\/p>\n

This seems to represent the opposite of Locke\u2019s labor
\ntheory.\u00a0 <\/span>The property theory
\nunderlying the Old Testament law is bound up with God\u2019s redemptive covenant,
\nnot with individual fundamental rights of ownership resulting from the exercise
\nof labor. <\/p>\n

The property theory reflected in the Old Testament law, of
\ncourse, is problematic for us today because it also is inextricably tied to herem<\/i> warfare.\u00a0 <\/span>No Christian theory of property should claim a right of
\nconquest based on covenant prerogatives \u2014 although unfortunately such views
\nhave at times been a theme in Christian history (one example is Augustine\u2019s advice concerning the
\nDonatists<\/a>).\u00a0 <\/span>So here we must
\nrefer also to the ways in which the Old Testament notions of the covenant
\ncommunity are taken up and transformed in the New Testament, and particularly
\nby Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.\u00a0
\n<\/span>But that is a subject for another day.<\/p>\n

Is Locke\u2019s labor
\ntheory an adequately Christian theory of property?\u00a0 <\/span>Are there Christian theories of property that extend beyond
\nthe modern categories of \u201ccapitalist,\u201d \u201csocialist,\u201d and \u201ccommunist?\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have a number of guest writers on this blog, including RJS (who writes twice per week and has done so for a long, long time \u2014 and I\u2019m exceedingly grateful for her gift to this blog) and Michael Kruse. And David Opderbeck has been writing for us about law, and his posts reach into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLaw at the Jesus Creed: David Opderbeck<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We have a number of guest writers on this blog, including RJS (who writes twice per week and has done so for a long, long time -- and I'm exceedingly\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/15\/law-at-the-jesus-creed-david-opderbeck-8\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Law at the Jesus Creed: David Opderbeck\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We have a number of guest writers on this blog, including RJS (who writes twice per week and has done so for a long, long time -- and I'm exceedingly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/15\/law-at-the-jesus-creed-david-opderbeck-8\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-03-15T11:34:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/assets_c\/2009\/01\/Lawbook-thumb-275x224-2978.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/15\/law-at-the-jesus-creed-david-opderbeck-8\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/15\/law-at-the-jesus-creed-david-opderbeck-8\/\",\"name\":\"Law at the Jesus Creed: David Opderbeck\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-03-15T11:34:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-03-15T11:34:22+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"We have a number of guest writers on this blog, including RJS (who writes twice per week and has done so for a long, long time -- and I'm exceedingly\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/15\/law-at-the-jesus-creed-david-opderbeck-8\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/15\/law-at-the-jesus-creed-david-opderbeck-8\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/03\/15\/law-at-the-jesus-creed-david-opderbeck-8\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Law at the Jesus Creed: David Opderbeck\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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