Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Thou Shalt Not Covet

"You shall not covet your neighbhor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor" - Exodus 20:17


How is socialism any different than an institutionalized disobedience of the Tenth Commandment?

Socialists believe that if only people had enough material wealth, they wouldn't disobey the other commandments. They would be good people. This is the essence of the Communist Manifesto, and secular humanism; the idea that Man is essentially good and the domineering, corrupted culture and population density make them bad.

Christianity says the opposite. Mankind has fallen from Grace by disobedience to God. God laid out the criteria on which Mankind would be judged and how they could maintain holiness and proved repeatedly throughout history than no one can comply with it. Only the salvific blood of Jesus Christ can wash away your sins and make you Holy in the sight of God. No one is without sin. No, not one.

The 10th Commandment is significant here, because, at its root, socialism is its precise and diabolical opposite. How can one even discuss socialism without discussing the property of other people in a covetous manner? You can't. The entire philosophy is founded upon the notion that some people have more stuff and are more fortunate than other people. How can we talk about the salaries of other people without committing this sin? How can we bemoan the fact that some class of people have more stuff than another, without committing the collective sin of coveting our neighbor's house? We can't.

You can dress it up as concern for the less fortunate, and charity all you like, but the entire conversation isn't valid. Charity is done, not to help the poor, but to humble the mighty. The poor have no biblical expectation that they will be taken care of, nor any right to another's time, labor, energy, or love. They can only hope for mercy and deliverance. The commandments and scriptural discussion of these things is for the benefit of the giver. You see Mankind is fallen and sinful and proud, and selfish. To cleanse the heart, one must be rid of one's attachments to material things and find a way to put others ahead of yourself. Without a clean heart, you cannot possibly be in a right relationship with God, and sanctification is impossible. Expecting someone else to give you happiness or money or car payments, is no less selfish and inconsiderate than someone that refuses to help those in need.

God gets in the way of Socialism if anyone actually understands the ends and means of it all. That is why socialism and atheism are so closely allied much of the time. Given its way with society, to run its course, socialism will start with the tenth commandment, but it won't take long to destroy the rest of them as well. In fact, they have made good progress on most of them already, don't you think?


2 comments:

  1. Great post. I think there is a bit of the disobedience of the 8th commandment too.

    The progressives are all about "progress"... if humans are not perfectly moral yet, then we are on our way via evolution/social progression/technological progression, etc. They see human potential as limitless and eventually we will forge a perfect utopia with perfect citizens. If a few people have to be sacrificed to move that progress forward (or a few million), then so be it.

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  2. Yeah, I agree about the 8th in the mechanics of it all, but the philosophy is all about the 10th. Of course, the philosophy will lead to all of the rest...

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