diogenes allen-paradox of freedom and authority

8/13/2019 Diogenes Allen-paradox of Freedom and Authority

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"The principles and dynamics of the master-slave relation . . . can be used to study the marriage relation, the relation between teacher and pupil parent and child, employer and employees, pastor and parishioners, counselor and client, and also the relation between Jesus and his disciples, between Jesus and his Father, and between God and us. "

THE PARADOX OFFREEDOM AND

AUTHORITYBY DIOGENES ALLEN

THE RELATION of dominance and subser

vience among humans raises a perplexingquestion. How can anyone be free when

someone else is in authority? Is it possible to beone's own person when another person stands aboveand over us? Can a child mature if parentsconstantly make demands of obedience? Willstudents learn personal identity if teachers assignprescribed requirements? Can a checker at the

supermarket be somebody if the manager is supervising everything and everyone?

At the core of the Christian life is the fact thatChristians have a Lord, someone to whom theybelong and to whom they are obedient. How can webe free if we have a master? How can a person befree if there is someone to obey?

Sartre claimed that the two notions contradicteach other. To be a human being is to be free, to be

responsible, to be autonomous. So the very idea ofGod reduces us to slaves and is essentially anti-human.

We do not need to endorse Sartre's claim torecognize the resentment we would feel at having aboss, a ruler, or anyone else telling us what to do allthe time. How would that be human fulfillment?How could that be self-fulfillment? How could thatbe happiness? The Christian gospel claims that thespiritual life is to be one of fullness of life andblessedness. How can that develop from a relationship to one who has unquestionable authority over

Diogenes Allen is Profes sor of Philosophy at Prince-ion Theological Seminary.

He is the author of Leibniz'Theodicy (1966), The Reasonableness of Faith (1968),Fi di O F th (1975)


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I will deal with this question by starting with Hegel's analysis of therelationship between master and slave in his Phenomenology, in whichhe exhibits the principles that govern that relationship. After we havedescribed these principles, we will see if they are present in Christianity.

We will do this by looking at the Gospel accounts of Jesus to see if he isportrayed as the kind of master we find in the Phenomenology. Does hedestroy the disciples' freedom or not? We will then apply our findings tothe question of our subordination to God.

ILet us start with the bare structure of the relation between a master

and a slave in Hegel. Here a person regards another as a subordinate.Not only are they not on the same plane, but they are not the same type

of entity. One is a subject; the other is literally an object. The slave is tofulfill the master's will; so the slave is like an extension of the master'sbody, which moves and acts at his whim and command.

Hegel is concerned to characterize the self-consciousness that isoperating in the master-slave relationship. To appreciate this we need tolook at the plan of his book. He operates with the idea that consciousness exists and develops in stages, containing various layers and contradictions. His Phenomenology is a sort of biography of the growth of amind or consciousness, similar to a Bildungsroman, a genre of novel

concerned with the educative development of the main character. Themaster-slave is but one small section describing the development ofconsciousness. Hegel begins at the level of sense-experience, wherethere is a subject aware of objects. There is a dualism of knower andknown. They are alien or opposed to one another. This opposition isovercome when consciousness comes to the insight that the object is notcompletely separate from the subject, but has an affinity to theperceiver; for when the object is perceived, it is now the perceiver'sobject. It is not just "object," but "his object." So dualism is overcome

by duality, a duality of (a) a subject and (b) the object of a subject'sperception. The object is known or incorporated into oneself as one'sobject.

Hegel then notes a dualism within the self. Not only are we a subjectaware of external objects, but we as a self are both subject and object;for we make ourselves the object of our own consciousness. So we haveself as subject; self as object; and this dualism is overcome by a kind ofidentity of subject and object whereby what I am is a self, aware of anobject that is myself. The object is me as my object. We have a kind ofidentity in which there is a duality. We have a single subject-objectthat awareness or consciousness exists.

Now we come to the master-slave relation. This is a stage where we


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to have recognition of one's reality as a subject at a higher level than (a)the perceiver of objects and (b) the perceiver of oneself as a subject-object, one must have something else respond to one's reality. And one'sreality must be recognized in a specific way. It is to have something else

respond to one's will, to do what one commands. In this way a personcomes to a higher level of self-recognition or self-realization.Now a person can do that vis--vis nature; a person can seek to

command nature. But a person can do this also in relation to otherpeople, because other people are indeed objects. Unlike nature, however, they have a duality of being swo/ec-objects. So a person can get adifferent kind of response from people. When a person subordinatesanother as an object of their will, they get a recognition from another oftheir subjectivity because the other is an entity capable of recognizing aperson. This allows a person to come to consciousness of being a self in anew way.

This introduces a situation of conflict because each can have theirunique self recognized and hence realized only if their will is obeyed.Each can come to self-realization only at the expense of the other.

IIOne resolution of the conflict is the master-slave relationship. One

person dominates and dominates the other completely. From the point

of view of one of the persons, this is the optimum resolution; for thatperson's will is obeyed and hence their self is recognized and realized.The more a person can subordinate others to their will, the more theuniqueness of their self is asserted. One enhances one's self-consciousness as a subject the more one can render the other as object of one'swill. But the master-slave resolution is an unstable one. The veryexistence of another subject merely as a subject threatens one's ownsubjectivity, one's uniqueness. So one must seek to efface the other as asubject. One way to do this is by making the product of their work oreffort one's own possession. That denies their subjectivity, denies theiressential likeness to oneself. It overcomes their otherness. The other ismade mine because the other's labor is at my command and the productofthat labor is my possession. So the master presses dominance for all itis worth, asking to be glorified and paid homage in order to cancel outthe otherness of anything else, and thereby to preserve absoluteindependence. The master maintains independence or freedom byplacing others in subordination.

But there is an irony in the situation. Masters cannot be trulyindependent or free. To assert independence, mastery, they must havesomething that is not themselves. They must have something to paythem deference, something to subordinate. They have status as masters


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be recognized and in that recognition to come to realization as a specifickind of subject implies the existence of other subjects. The existence ofother subjects, however, gives lie to their uniqueness as the only one oftheir kind. The very uniqueness of consciousness realized in masterhood

is dependent on a condition which contradicts its truth and thus makesthe master-slave relation an unstable one.Masters try to keep this truth hidden, to suppress it, by making their

control more and more arbitrary, so there is no recourse beyond theirwill as to how they treat slaves. The more arbitrary their control, thestronger the slave's dependence, and hence the greater the master'ssense of independence. But clearly it is self-defeating; for this consciousness of independence requires the existence of something to subordinateand something that can recognize the master's dominance.

IllThe slave's dependence is not one-sided either; it also contains its

opposite, independence. Slaves by their work become more aware oftheir own reality. They produce the goods they are ordered to, but theythereby develop skills. They become aware that the masters depend ontheir work. Masters lack their skill and hence rely on theirs for theproducts of life.

Each now must think of self in a contradictory way. Each has somepower over the other and each is dependent on the other. But there isthis difference. Slaves are in constant fear and danger of masters whohave power of life and death over them. But they have a growingconfidence because masters depend on their work, and a growing senseof their worth because of their skill. Masters grow in anxiety. They needslaves and grow to need their labor more and more. When slaves becomeconscious of the difference between their dependent self and theirindependent self, between what is subordinate and what is free, themaster-slave relationship is psychologically broken. This happens whenslaves find an area masters cannot controlthoughts. They have

become aware that their thoughts are their own.Slaves become Stoics. Although their thoughts are theirs, so that they

experience independence or freedom, yet the external world denies theirindependence, since they are legally slaves. So they become Stoics, thatis, they deny the external world's significance. Stoics cut the self offfrom the external world by an indifference toward it. The Stoic is in akind of master role. Independence or freedom from the external isasserted, but in practice the Stoic is bounded or limited. This stance isthus also an unstable one; for it contains the untruth that the Stoic is

independent and in no way dependent. So the Stoic progresses to theSkeptic. The Skeptic doubts all or at any rate can doubt all, therebyexhibiting a kind of mastery over all things


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between teacher and pupil, parent and child, employer and employees,pastor and parishioners, counselor and client, and also the relationbetween Jesus and his disciples, between Jesus and his Father, andbetween God and us. That is to say, wherever you have a relation of

dominance and subordination, you have a place to explore in order tosee if Hegel's principles are operating or not. I mention this only to showthat the topic I will exploreour subordination to Godis not anisolated one, but is only one of many in which there is subordination anddominance.

Before we do this we must give some attention to the attitudes presentin the master-slave relation. We have already mentioned the growingconfidence of slaves despite their fears, and the growing anxiety ofmasters. But there are some other attitudes as well, and they differgreatly from those found in the relation between Jesus and hisdisciples.

For example, masters have contempt for slaves because by becomingsubservient to them, slaves are debased and so are odious. Slaves aredebased and odious because they really are persons, subjects, likemasters. Were slaves not persons, there would be no contempt. Why becontemptuous of a river that yields to a dam? We do not hold dogs incontempt because they obey us. To call a person a "dog" suggests thatwe have contempt for such obedience when it is exhibited by a person.But the master's very contempt is an implicit recognition that the slaveis a person, and that the relation is an improper one.

The relationship is also marked by resentment. Masters resent slavesbecause they need them to have the status of master and they cannotfully and completely absorb their reality as subjects other than themselves. Slaves resent masters because they must obey them. Finallythere is envy or secret admiration. Slaves wish they had power likemasters. They envy what masters can do and want to do it too.

IV

It is clear in the accounts of the Gospels that the relationship of Jesusto his disciples, though one of dominance and subordination, is verydifferent from the one Hegel describes. Jesus does not gain or holdsubordinates by force. He calls disciples, so that there is an element ofchoice on their part in becoming subordinate to him. He seeks to conferbenefits on them by teaching them. He even performs an act of aservant when he washes their feet. We perceive no resentment,contempt, or vain desire for personal glory in his treatment of hisdisciples. Why is this so? What enables him to be a different kind of

Lord?Let us approach this by looking at a relationship many of us live withll th ti th t f t h t t d t I thi l ti hi f


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degraded, or feel resentful? How can we operate on the basis of beingboss and not feel contempt for students as underlings?

The relation of superior-subordinate is justified if there are genuinegrounds for one to be dominant and the other to be subordinate. If there

is some basis besides force for the teacher to command, to lead, and forthe student to follow, then there is no violation of personality.

In teaching, one ground of justification is that a teacher knowssomething the student does not know. The teacher has some skills, somemeans of getting answers, and some experience, which the studentlacks. The relation is thus based on a difference. But this is not enoughto justify the relation of superior and subordinate. The goal of theteacher must be to enable the student to become independent of theteacher. The student must eventually be able to learn without the

teacher. Many of us teach in such a way that the student is dependenton lecture notes, and never learns the principles and skills of a field.Some teachers not only fail to do these things, but perhaps some eventake a secret delight in their students' remaining dependent, remainingessentially inferior to themselves, forever.

Each type of relationship differs. Doctor-patient, lawyer-client,pastor-congregation, parent-child. Each needs to be looked at in termsof its own particularity. One cannot simply transfer what is true of theteacher-student relation to the others, or vice versa. There may besimilarities; there may be great differences. I only want to make onepoint with the teacher-student example: for a relationship of superiorand subordinate to be different from Hegel's master-slave, there mustbe some genuine basis for the two roles. The roles cannot rest on therefusal to recognize the reality of the other as a subject or person, or onthe denial and an essential likeness between both parties, as in the caseof a master to a slave. The basis will vary from case to case, but withoutsome genuine basis, we have exploitation.

V

Now what is the basis of Jesus' Lordship? On what does it rest, sothat he can indeed be the Lord of Christians, can command us, lead us,have us depend on him, without this being destructive of our personality? What makes him a different kind of Lord than Hegel's master?

The foundation of his relationship to his disciples and to us is that hedoes not need us. This may sound harsh and false at first, but it is reallythe basis of his ability to serve us and elevate us. He does not need us inthe following sense: Jesus is a lord because of who he is, not because hehas followers. He is Lord by his own inherent reality. He is Lord in the

Gospel accounts because he is the Son of God. It is not relative to us thathe is Lord. Hegel's masters are masters only if they have slaves. Theirt t d d h i b di t Th t ff d t


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But Jesus is the Son of the Father whether we like it or not. Jesus isthe Lord from on high in flesh among us. His position, his status, hisauthority does not spring from anything human. It does not depend onour acknowledgment. He is Lordessentially Lordeven without a

single disciple.Precisely because he does not need us, precisely because his statusdoes not rest on us, he can serve us. He can wash his disciples' feet, andnot thereby cease to be Lord. He can free people of demons and fromother ailments, and this improvement in their condition does notthreaten his status. He can be free to let people choose voluntarily torespond to his call to follow him; for whether they reject or accept him,he is still Lord. He can even be slain for us, bearing the awfulcatastrophe of human evil, without ceasing to be Lord. Preciselybecause he differs from us in kind, his lordship does not need tosubordinate our reality, to absorb it in order to exist; but he is free toenhance us.

Precisely because Hegel's masters do not really differ in kind fromtheir slaves, since both are subject-objects, their lordship is destructive.Hegel's masters must deny the personality of their slaves. They mustseek to absorb their reality by making them an extension of the master'swill: "Do this, do that. Give me the product of your labor. Praise me,honor me." Masters do this for their own sakein order to be & lord, inorder to have the status of a master.

How different orders and commands are when they are from a Lordthat does not seek to deny our personality, but to enhance it. By hiscommands and authority Jesus does not seek to absorb or deny ourpersonality, but to free it. He seeks to free us of the need to have ourpersonality established by domination over others. He seeks to free us ofthe need to have recognition at the expense of others. The basis of ourfreedom is that he gives us our status as people destined for a heavenlykingdom. That is who we are; that is what we are: creatures designed foran eternal happiness. That status is conferred on us. It is not a gift of

this world; for it cannot be grasped by an employment of all our talent,ingenuity, strength, or wit. It cannot be attained by gaining prestige,power, or status over others. We therefore do not have to compete witheach other in order to become ourselves; for what we are to become isnot to be gained in the realm of earthly dominance, founded on thestandards of earthly success.

We can be free precisely because he is free. His lordship is not basedon anything earthly. So he can serve us. It is by our following him thatwe can enter the kingdom in which we find our eternal happiness.

VIThe kingdom of God is a life of communion But a life that denies the


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nion is a situation which requires each member to recognize the other ashaving a degree of independence. Such a necessary condition forcommunity is contradicted by a personality whose status is possible onlyby the denial of the independence of others.

Jesus can seek to enter into communion with us since he is not seekingto absorb us, not to stand over us for his own enhancement. He canattend to us for our own sakes, and not for the attainment of status. Soour independent reality can be recognized. Likewise his Father can giveus as our identity the destiny to live in communion with him foreverbecause his status does not depend on us either; he too can recognize ourindependence and elevate us without injury to himself.

Such recognition or attention to our reality Simone Weil calls love;indeed, it is perfect love. We seldom experience it because we are soheavily engaged in seeking to establish ourselves. This results in a typeof solipsistic consciousness in which all realities are seen as though theywere in orbit around oneself and lack the same kind of independence.But the Christian gospel seeks to free us of this by proclaiming that ouridentity or status is a gift from God and not attainable by any form ofsolipsistic dominance. Such a gospel has its foundation in one who issuperior to us, and precisely because his superiority does not requirehim to absorb our reality, he can enhance us and indeed enhance us byentering into communion with us.

Communion is fulfilling because it allows us to enjoy the goodnessthat is present in other realitiesdivine, human, and non-human. Italso is fulfilling because it means that our own independent reality isrecognized and respected by others. Thus we see that superiority ordominance which has a genuine basis is not destructive to our personality. It is a necessary condition to the possibility of liberating us from theneed to dominate at others' expense with the intention of enhancingourselves.

VII

So far I have described only one kind of obedience to God. But thereis another. My claim is that all creation obeys God, either as childrenwho are heirs of the kingdom in which communion is present, or asslaves. I can here only suggest that all things fall into one or the othercategory; for the theme is too large to complete. But the intent is tosuggest that the options are not: obedience to God/or self-determination, as Sartre and some other secularists think.

God and people are not equal. God is creator and we are creatures.How can we be related so that God remains God, sovereign Lord, who

sets the conditions of life, and yet so that we find a fullness of life, afullness which requires that we have a significant degree of freedom? IfGod effects authority over us as over nature then our freedom is


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community. Community entails a mutual recognition of each other'sreality. Such a recognition involves a voluntary consent on our own partto the limitation of our own personality for the sake of the independentexistence of others. One type of obedience to God is to allow one's

solipsism to be broken, and to consent to one's limitation, and thereby toenjoy other realities, human and divine.But to fail to limit oneself (and thereby to find fullness as a person in

communion) is not to have escaped God's authority. For we are exposedto the very dynamics Hegel describes, the dynamics that lead todomination or subordination between rival creatures. Whether we bedominant or subordinate, we are slaves to the need to establishourselves, and we live in defiance of the fact that we are actually but onereality among many. We become slaves to the dynamics that operate insuch a situation.

There are other forms of obedience as slaves. Kierkegaard describesone of them in his analysis of the aesthetic personality. The aesthete'slife is dominated by the desire for thrills, excitement, and the extraordinary. Such a life has boredom built into it, which can be kept at bayonly by a constant search for novelty and variety. Luther describes stillanother slavery that goes with some forms of legalistic ethical living.

The position I am suggesting needs far more discussion to beestablished beyond these brief allusions. But I hope that the position isat any rate clear. It is that God seeks to do us good by calling us intocommunion. We either obey willingly as people whose subjectivity isrespected and enhanced by voluntary self-limitation, or we obey as doesnature, by necessity. For to fail to obey willingly is not actually to beself-determining in any sense that leads to fullness of life. It is merely todetermine whether we will be engaged in the vain pursuit for dominance; or suffer the boredom that goes with a thoughtless life or sufferthe various ills that infect the self-righteous ethical life; or the like. Eachof these is to obey God; for God establishes the order in which we alllivethe order partially disclosed in the New Testament and in the

above examples of slavery. We either obey as people or as one of themany kinds of slaves there are. God has the authority to establish order.As people, we have the ability either to consent that good be done to us,or mechanically to seek our welfare by ourselves. It is a painful orderprecisely because our elevation into community with each other andGod requires our consent. Solipsism, thoughtless aestheticism, ethicalself-sufficiency are all perversions of the divine goal, which is ourelevation. But they are part of the divine order, so that nothing fails toobey God.


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diogenes allen-paradox of freedom and authority

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