Spencer Heath Archive

Item 378

Taping by Spencer MacCallum from conversation with Heath (in which MacCallum is now embarrassed by his interruptions), followed by a repetition of the same with suggested light editing by MacCallum.

No date

 

 

 

/DISTRIBUTING THE GIFTS OF GOD/

 

Whereas theology has to do with the relation between man and God, religion has to do with the relation between man and his fellow man. Christ taught both. The first duty of man was to love God, and he could love God only by serving Him by doing His will. The second duty of man was to love his fellow man, and this he could only do by serving his fellow man. By doing the will of his fellow man as his fellow man willed to be served.

Just as God leaves men free to serve Him as He wills, so each man, so far as he follows God^’s example, leaves his fellow men free to serve him or not to serve him as they will. So men can and in great measure do serve other men, by the Golden Rule of contract without coercion, as they will to be served and thus loved.

Christ commanded only this one rule: that each serve the others in the manner he would have the others serve him. In no other way could others in their own freedom carry out his will. By serving others in the same manner as he would have others serve him, he becomes like God, because he has other men serving his will, and serving his will in freedom without any infringement of their own free will.

“This Is a bit obscure;  what’s the main thought?”

This whole idea of man serving God’s will because God left him free. So each man can be loved and served by other men so far as he leaves them free, so far as he does unto them only in the manner he would have them do unto him. This Golden Rule gives men abundance and length of days. It takes them into a new kingdom of the spirit, the very opposite from the powers of “the world,” the coercive powers of the political high priests, of Pilot and Rome.

“What’s the central thought of this?”

It is either God or it is men, and they seem to revolve around each other, a center of gravity between the two.

One angle of this is that the Golden Rule established a new kind of kingdom on the earth, a kingdom of proprietary instead of political administration. To practice the rule, the man must first be proprietor of himself. He must also be proprietor of whatever instruments he employs in behalf of his fellow man. Only so can his service to him be free and contractual instead of coercive and political.

The whole modern system of free enterprise is nothing but the development of the Golden Rule relationship among men, only a few of whom are conscious that this rule is the sole ethic in all contractual relationships. It cannot be departed from without violation of contract, and the violation is no part of the contract, only the negation of it.

With respect to the distribution of material things among men, it must be done by the Golden Rule operating in the contractual relationship, or it must be done under the iron rule of force and coercion, which is all that maintains the sovereign powers of the world.

God made the earth and its bounties for the use of mankind. His Son gave to men the Golden Rule of Contract, under which alone the divine bounties can be distributed without the exercise of force and taxation and ultimately war. Men can live upon the earth in freedom and abundance only so far as its bounties are distributed by the contractual process. To do this, men must own not only themselves but those particular portions of the earth with which they are most concerned. Only by such ownership can the contractual process and its blessings be put into effect.

Without the private ownership of land, to whatever extent the political person exercises authority over it, to that extent the power of “the world” comes between the inhabitants and the gifts of God. The land owner, as such, has no power of compulsion. What he receives, he takes without force. The free market awards it to him in exchange for his non-coercive distribution, lest he be displaced by any agent of the sovereign power and no man can touch, much less occupy, the gifts of God but upon terms prescribed by the sovereign state. This destroys all human right in the very sources of life, and thereby even the right to life itself.

“’Right’ derived from where?”

Politically; the state having taken to itself all the rights there were, it leaves nothing to anyone else.

Labor as we may to limit the coercive powers of the state, and succeed as we may, there is no freedom for mankind short of complete development of private property in land and thereby a non-coercive distribution of the gifts of God to men.

 

________________________________

/The same as above, but edited by MacCallum:/

 

Item 378 edited

 

 

Whereas theology has to do with the relation between man and God, religion has to do with the relation between man and his fellow man. Christ taught both. The first duty of man was to love God, and he could love God only by serving Him by doing His will. The second duty of man was to love his fellow man, and this he could only do by serving his fellow man — by doing the will of his fellow man as his fellow man willed to be served.

      Just as God leaves men free to serve Him as He wills, so each man, so far as he follows God^’s example, leaves his fellow men free to serve him or not to serve him as they will. So by the golden rule of contract without coercion, men can and in great measure do serve other men as they will to be served and thus loved.

      Christ commanded only this one rule: that each serve the others in the manner he would have the others serve him. By serving others in this manner, he becomes like God, because he has other men serving his will, and serving his will in freedom without any infringement of their own free will.

      So each man can be loved and served by other men so far as he leaves them free, so far as he does unto them only in the manner he would have them do unto him. This golden rule gives men abundance and length of days. It takes them into a new kingdom of the spirit, the very opposite from the powers of “the world,” the coercive powers of the political high priests, of Pilot and Rome.

      The Golden Rule established a new kind of kingdom on the earth, a kingdom of proprietary instead of political administration. To practice the rule, the man must first be proprietor of himself. He must also be proprietor of whatever instruments he employs in behalf of his fellow man. Only so can his service to him be free and contractual instead of coercive and political.

      The whole modern system of free enterprise is nothing but the development of the golden rule relationship among men, only a few of whom are conscious that this rule is the sole ethic in all contractual relationships. It cannot be departed from without violation of contract, and the violation is no part of the contract, only the negation of it.

      With respect to the distribution of material things among men, it must be done by the golden rule operating in the contractual relationship, or it must be done under the iron rule of force and coercion, which is all that maintains the sovereign powers of the world.

      God made the earth and its bounties for the use of mankind. His Son gave to men the golden rule of contract, under which alone the divine bounties can be distributed without the exercise of force and taxation and ultimately war. Men can live upon the earth in freedom and abundance only so far as its bounties are distributed by the contractual process. To do this, men must own not only themselves but those particular portions of the earth with which they are most concerned. Only by such ownership can the contractual process and its blessings be put into effect.

      Without the private ownership of land, to whatever extent the political person exercises authority over it, to that extent the power of “the world” comes between the inhabitants and the gifts of God. The land owner, as such, has no power of compulsion. What he receives, he takes without force. The free market awards it to him in exchange for his non-coercive distribution, lest he be displaced by any agent of the sovereign power and no man can touch, much less occupy, the gifts of God but upon terms prescribed by the sovereign state. This destroys all human right in the very sources of life, and thereby even the right to life itself.

      Labor as we may to limit the coercive powers of the state, and succeed as we may, there is no freedom for mankind short of complete development of private property in land and thereby a non-coercive distribution of the gifts of God to men.