REV. PROF. F.N. LEE isn't a regular on their staff, these days, but his paper has nevertheless been presented on a pdf on their site. Perhaps he was when Ex Nihilo was published in that vol. 3 of 1988. He goes after St. Thomas Aquinas. Especially as they see the pre-Flood world.
Biblical Private Property Versus Socialistic Common Property
REV. PROF. F.N. LEE | EN Tech.J., vol.3, 1988, pp.16-22
https://dl0.creation.com/articles/p028/c02821/j03_1_016-022.pdf
Before the Fall
It is true that man owns nothing at all — over against God (Psalm 50:9-11)! Yet God gives what He wants to some men, while withholding what He wants from others (Romans 9:15,21). So man indeed owns many things, over against his fellow man (Matthew 20:15). For all men (as images of the Triune God) have different personalities from one another (Genesis 2:18,23 and 3:20). Here, when taken all together, men resemble the various Persons of the Triune God Himself within the Trinity (Genesis 1:26-27, 5:lff and 9:6). Each human personality is strengthened by his or her private ownership of property (Genesis 1:26, 2:24 and 4:4, and 1 Corinthians 7:4). For God's Trinity too is undergirded by the private property possessed by Each of the several Divine Persons "over against" the Others. Compare Genesis 1:1-3 and 1:26, John 1:1-18 and 17:1-5, and Hebrews 9:14 with Matthew 28:19.
It is very important to remember that God gave private property dominion to Adam as an individual, over against Satan, even before the creation of Eve (Genesis 1:26-27 and 2:15 cf. 3:1). Even initially, God revealed to man that private property was sacrosanct (Genesis 2:17 and 3:3,11). Internally, the law of God, including the principle of the commandment 'you must not steal' (which implies the existence of stealable property belonging to another) was stamped on Adam's heart (Ecclesiastes 7:29 cf. Romans 2:14-15). Externally, God revealed to the unfallen Adam that he may not steal from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which did not belong to him or to any other man, but which was indeed God's very own private property (Genesis 2:16-17 cf. 3:3-11). Adam possessed his own male sex (and his own farming tools) "over against" Eve, and Eve possessed her own female sex (and her own household utensils) even before the Fall. Compare Genesis 2:18's "kenegdo" or "opposite him". For the Triune God, Whose image man is, has always had His own private property held by Each Divine Person and maintained "over against" the Other Two Divine Persons (Genesis 1:26-27 and John 1:14,18 cf. l:l's "pros ton Theon" or "with God" and meaning "over against God the Father"). It is true that, on the creation of Eve, Adam entered into a community of marriage with her, which had property ramifications. But he entered into this community with one woman only, so that the two of them then possessed their private property over against all other human persons (Genesis 2:24, Malachi 2:14-16, and Matthew 19:4-5). All of Adam's descendants would do the same. For their property is and always would have been limited to one man and one woman alone over against all of the other marriages and their properties (cf. Genesis 2:24). Accordingly, the very influential view of the great Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, that there was no private property but only common ownership among mankind before the human Fall, is radically unbiblical. Indeed, the pre-Fall life of Adam and Eve was anything but "monastic" (Genesis 1:26-28 cf. 2:24). The simple fact is this: precisely the theft of private property is what caused the Fall! (Genesis 2:17 cf. 3:2-7ff, 11).
First, the last point.
It is not clear that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was God's private property withheld from Adam. On the contrary:
And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done
[Genesis 1:28-30]
The tree of knowledge of good and evil was thus within the dominion mandate and therefore either Adam's private or mankind's communal property rather than God's private property.
However, God (who is higher authority than the human proprietor) withheld a use of that tree from the proprietor. So, the fall was not in theft, it was in unauthorised use of own property. Unauthorised use by a higher authority. The fact that I own a chair doesn't mean I can do absolutely anything I'd like with that chair. If I started swinging it around to threaten or hurt people, it would be taken away from me, and rightly so. If I took the chair as a way to stay up while holding my head in a noose attached to a hook for the lamp, and then kick away the chair, if I survived that, the chair and materials with which to hang myself, would be taken away from me and rightly so. If I tell someone I will lend him 10 chairs for an evening but for the service expect 11 chairs back, I'd be very rightly and properly told that this is an usurious practise, you cannot lend chairs that way, you expect 10 chairs back not 11. You may charge money, but you may not charge an extra chair. The state has the right to impose limitations on what one can do with one's property, to prevent damage and to prevent usury. And if the private property is a work place, to prevent overcharging hours or underpaying wages.
God never motivates the ban on eating the forbidden fruit by "because I reserve this one for my dominion, not for yours" Not in Genesis 2:17, not in Genesis 3:3, not in Genesis 3:11.
Given the passage I quoted, if you take that together with Genesis 2:17, it basically means "the tree of knowledge is yours, and one day you may eat of it, but not yet, only later when I tell you" or "the tree of knowledge is yours, you may lean on it or sit under its shadow but just not eat from it" or "you may not eat from the tree of knowledge, but your descendants will" ... Adam was not a thief, a non-proprietor taking someone else's property, he was a high-handed prorietor, who did not finally accept a limitation in his use of his own property.
Male and female sex are not our private property, to do with as we wish, we have for instance no right to change our sex, nor to abuse it by voluntary combinations of infertility with pleasures coming from it. Perhaps F. N. Lee would have regretted his words had he seen today's conditions, I suppose he has already died.
Similarily, Fatherhood, Sonship, Procession by Spiration are not private property of the three persons, they are propers, but in "private property", you presupposed the possibility to dispose of and relinquish. The Son did not relinquish being Son even when becoming Man, that would be a very extreme form of the Kenotic heresy. No Divine Person can relinquish His proper. Therefore it isn't private property.
Eve in Eden had no use of kitchen utensils, because all they were eating was fruit. If you say "glasses to drink water from" you forget that they weren't under a workmaster, weren't in a hurry, and had all the leisure in the world to cup their hands under a fountain. Once certain ground fruits or grains became a necessary supplementary food, after the garden, yes, they would need to cook. You don't get calories efficiently from wheat kernels that are neither ground nor baked nor cooked, if wheat was one of the post-Eden staples (it could have been a thing they got after the Flood, under Noah, like wine) and the same is true of potatoes. Nor did Adam need any farming utensils before the curse.
By entering the covenant of marriage, Adam and Eve had a property community of marriage, and while their children were small they would also be part of that community of property. There were no "men outside the garden" against which their property would be bordering. As Adam and Eve would be living on forever and forever capable of settling any minute hint of a dispute between them, the brothers and sisters who were also husbands and wives and sons and daughters of the first couple would not have needed any private property against each other. The only "private property" so to speak they would have had, would have been the own wife not shared with brothers, the own husband not shared with sisters.
Now, finally, the Protestant "theologian" says that pre-Fall Eden was anything but monastic. His supposed proof-texts for this are:
And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth
[Genesis 1:26-28]
Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh
[Genesis 2:24]
This is based on a complete nonsense idea of what monasticism actually is. The point of monasticism is not abstinence from sex, but abstinence from the distraction from God that follows from sex (I Cor. 7:32—34). Now, this distraction is a consequence of the Fall, so the unfallen would have been not distracted even with sex. Hence, the goal of prayer would be equally met in marriage before the fall as it is in celibacy after the Redemption. But also, the celibacy and the communal property are two different things, so that the one could have been the rule before the Fall while the other wasn't. Here too the post-Fall world is cursed with sth making the pre-Fall condition not quite similarily applicable. Aristotle notes, that everyone cares more for what belongs to himself than what he has in common with others. Hence, non-division of property has a tendency of people shoving work on each other rather than doing their part. This tendency also was absent before the Fall, so one could have had flourishing conditions even without any division of property.
Let no one conclude from this that I intend to be a monk, just because I admire monks. I don't intend to be a Ocean sailor just because I admire Ocean sailors. Let no one conclude from this that I intend to live without private property, nothing I've said this millennium would indicate that, and any plans I could have had prior to 5.II.1998 to enter monastery have been cancelled in my affection when I had to do the unmonastic job of defending myself, and in my conscience, when I checked with Le Barroux before release and got a no. But some people insist on pretending all I say (including praise of monasticism) is so autobiographical that it would follow, and they do this because they like to set a very expensive price tag on my remaining Catholic.
Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Joan of Valois
4.II.2025
