Opus 2026-119: Equality Is Not Always Equitable

The Declaration of Independence declares that “all men are created equal.”  It is one of the great founding concepts of America.  It is also one of the most misunderstood.  People wonder how they could write such things when slavery was in existence.  They confuse equality before the law with egalitarian ideas.  They confuse equal opportunity with equal outcomes.

Some use this as an attack on the Christian culture that was ingrained in the Founding Fathers.  As usual it involves a lack of understanding and the inability to think beyond the basic three colors to purple and green.  I keep hearing people try to claim that the Bible is against slavery.  Not true.  Slavery was assumed as a part of life.  Why?  Because it was.  It existed, and was accepted in every culture of history before the modern era.  No one wanted to be a slave but they accepted that it existed.

The reason it was not impossible for the writers of the Declaration was that slavery existed within the legal structure.  It was covered.  Part of this was rooted in the Biblical acknowledgement of its place in society.  Some of the confusion was in the words of the ancients.  Take this Bible verse,

Proverbs 19:10 (KJV) Delight is not seemly for a fool; much less for a servant to have rule over princes.

The word for “servant” in both Hebrew and Greek can be translated either “servant” or “slave”.  The reason it covers both is that socially they were not that different.  What verse like this point out is that people are different.  They come in many flavors.  They make different choices.  Sometimes bad choices bring personal disaster.  Some people tend to make frequent bad choices.  Those people should not be in positions of leadership and will probably experience little success in life.

What brings this to the philosophy of the Founders is that in the eyes of God we all are created in His image.  There is a value in all human life.  You may have employees.  In a previous age you might have slaves.  They still are to be treated as more than just animals.  It is what makes the Christian West different from the rest of the world.

homo unius libri