The terms Liberty and Equality remain two inherent qualities of sovereignty; man’s intrinsic state, presupposed by God. Liberty is something familiar; contingent on free will. Thus, the concept of equality stands inexplicable in an experience unto itself; for no grand consensus exists on the matter. While both liberty and equality are used regularly with bias, the mutual detriment to each is the lack of concordance on the meaning of the terminologies. Despite these hindrances, the phenomenology of liberty and equality remains something immediately recognizable to man. John Locke (1632–1704) principled his political theory on the division of two realms, writing “political society [is] where every one of the members hath quitted this natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the community in all cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection to the law established by it,” (Locke, J., §87; p. 46).
Black’s Law Dictionary defines liberty as “freedom from arbitrary or undue external restraint, esp. by a government…[a] right, privilege, or immunity enjoyed by prescription or grant; the absence of legal duty imposed on a person,” (Black, H.; Garner B., p. 1102). Bouvier Law Dictionary defines liberty as “[f]reedom from personal restraints created by government or society,” (Sheppard, S., p. 915). In both instances, the essence of liberty depicts a particular freedom. Bryan Garner, chief editor of Black’s Law Dictionary, expounds to discern between various forms of liberty: civil; individual; natural; personal; political; and religious—yet all define elements of power and expressions of freedom, and the concept of objectivity, (Black, H.; Garner B., p. 1102, 1103). Yet the specificity of particular freedoms is implicit, though those who consider such often hope such equivocation can offer an opportunity to invoke their own explicit enumerations of grievances that qualify under contemporary language.
John Locke supported God’s ordinance unto the magistrate, who bears responsibility for the welfare of society; secondly, Locke asserted any magistrate was himself incapable of crafting law; for all mandates were merely “recapitulations of divine law,” as government is incapable of producing any commodity, (Locke, J., pp. 161, 162). Locke based his theory on “fraternal law” or the “law of charity” writing it to be “the term employed for the law which restricts our liberty within even narrower limits and by which we lose our freedom to do things which are permitted us by both divine and civil law,” (Locke, J., p. 162). Historian Robert A. Goldwin (1922–2010) quoting Locke, wrote that; “nobody has originally a private dominion exclusive of the rest of mankind,” Goldwin adds “[e]very man has an equal right to every part of what is common. This cannot mean, however, that everyone has a share in the ownership of everything; it can only mean that originally there was no ownership, there was no property, (Goldwin, R.; Strauss, L., p. 691).
Correlations & Oppositions
As man attempts to define the relationship and opposition of liberty and equality it is found that words cannot exist to accurately depict the intentions for which he was created. Lock declared that “no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto, punish the offences of all those of that society,” (Locke, J., p. 46). Man arrives with both sovereign liberty and complete equality; yet is immediately conformed into some category by the construct of the variables of his surroundings; Locke acknowledges that it remains the obligation of the magistrate to preserve; lest create laws previously nonexistent. As man is crafted in the image of God, policy must be crafted in the image of man; not of a constructed body of men claiming to protect his interests. God hath presupposed equality unto man; thereby giveth him liberty amongst his peers. Yet, man is dissuaded to believe he himself is not free; depraved men proclaim the need to of man’s spirit to power the Leviathan that desires to represent his interests; negating he is as the image in which he was intended to be. Liberty is the awareness that man is born free, yet remains persuaded by men to renounce his capability in exchange for rhetoric without action. Once it is realized what has occurred, that man hath given the greater force of His Holy Spirit unto a perpetuation of evil, whose existence fed the Leviathan propagating hysteria as truth to all willing to succumb to listening.
The basis of man is both equal and free. No culture nor race is superior, as the prospect of liberty cannot subsist without a state of total equality; as both demand the freedom to exist without an externally imposed preventative limitation. Liberty and equality both require the interactivity of man; thereby self-regulating his actions in benefit to commonwealth, whilst preserving the nature of his will. Both liberty and equality must avoid contamination by contagions such as despotism and tyranny—the natural state of government that remains in contemporary polity. John Locke wrote that “[t]he commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted inly for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own interests;” adding that, “[c]ivil interest I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like,” (Locke, J., p. 18). Locke denoted that each man who “incorporates himself in any commonwealth” thereby “unites himself into submission to his community,” (Locke, J., p. 64).
Government is an impersonal force of authority run by strange creatures of equal powers to that of their consensually governed subjects. The symphonic orchestra of liberty and equality produces a harmonic correlation with dissonant overtones, swelling between man’s basis of personal understanding and his external coerced delusion. To be free, one must bear a state of presupposed equality, the natural state given forth unto man by His Holy Spirit; whilst acknowledging others as equal in caliber. Yet, the state of society has imparted principles of distortion, to dilute the potency of the absolute objective state of equality. Incumbent pol dissuade constituents from recognizing these instincts relayed unto man before his creation; instead redefining the experience to bear significance in favor of the self-imposed administrative overlords. What purpose hath man if not to uphold the dignity of his Creator? God decreed that government was an extension of His law to preserve the image of Heaven unto the Earth, thereby acting as a gateway to salvation for the most broken of men.
The theory of equality remains a tool weaponized to segregate man’s unified species into controllable categories; allowing government to impart a self-imposed sense of authority over their constituents. The government’s usurpation of sovereignty is contingent on infusing opposition of diversity through mass propaganda, diffusing the danger of Biblical equality. God crafted man from the same substance, as all men share the same blood, (Acts 17:27). Man cannot understand the nature of himself, nor his own purpose among the experience of despostic governance; yet the presupposition of his own equality invokes a sense of controlled liberty, thereby ensuring the emancipation from acquiescence.
The Value of Liberty
Liberty is far more valuable to be recognized by policy than equality; as it must be supported by self-invoked morality. Equality cannot be veiled; Locke contended that “[m]an being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom and an uncontrouled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men; but to judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it,” (Locke, J., p. 46).
Liberty demands that man ascribe to some form of objective moral code, namely Christianity; as moral doctrine presupposes himself equal amongst a state of peers, thus his only purpose is self-regulation. Man must will his own state of personal regulation and he must be given the liberty by his government to achieve this state; lest he descend to his true form—a depraved and vile creature in need of external regulation to best shape himself into another form. For Christians, that process is dedicated to God; preventing man from gaining an authoritative advantage over a believer’s thinking; for man was made in the image of God, and he must position himself to best contribute to the longevity of commonwealth and the promotion of civic equality. Through this process of true self-regulation, man can form himself into his intended state of beauty, thereby mirroring the purpose that God intended for his children.
Equality is contingent on morality, therefore it cannot be legislated; the rampant mandate from men unto man does not supplant the natural law given forth by the Lord. As it is scribed through Luke by God’s Holy Spirit; “[t]he Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,” (Luke 4:18-19; ESV).
Conclusion
The human condition presupposes a state of equality; therefore man bears intrinsic compliance to an objective natural law intended to preserve the concept of liberty; whose acknowledged essence equates to the existence of those who consider it. John Locke held a reverence for the ontology of man; he asserted there be no human authority created to stand above another; man cannot dictate tyrannical disorder against man; as Locke reminds us of its historic unsustainability. To manipulate the political pendulum in favor of one’s particular policy is to omit the physics responsible for the bob’s ability to sway between two poles; thereby positioning a motion of self-destruction through poison-pill policy leading to the downfall of civilization. The same living God that created man himself declares that we harness His Supernatural centralized force of divination to obtain prophetic discernment, thereby discerning the context of the invisible lines of morality that our equal state demands. Liberty cannot be justified, nor can it be defined; therefore man himself must pursue a methodological understanding of the concept through phenomenology; lest being dictated a predetermined definition of detriment to usurp the self-ruling nature of man.
Bibliography
ESV.Luke 4:18-19
Garner, B.A. (2021). Black’s Law Dictionary, Eleventh Edition. St. Paul, MN: Thomson Reuters.
Locke, J. (1990). A Letter Concerning Toleration. Prometheus Books, New York, NY.
Locke, J. (2003). Political Writings: Edited with Introduction by David Wootton. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.: Indianapolis, IN.
Locke, J. (1960). Second Treatise of Government: Edited by C.B. Macpherson. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.: Indianapolis, IN.
Sheppard, S.M. (2012). The Wolter Kluwer Bouvier Law Dictionary; Desk Edition Volume 1: A-L. Wolter Kluwer: New York, NY.
Strauss, L., et al. (1963, 1972, 1987). History of Political Philosophy. The University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.
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