Sorry, I can’t let you go THAT easily Asher.  I’ve hardly explained myself. First, again, liberalism has picked up on something good in creation but has gone haywire with it. I would never say that individuals are not created goods. Second, I don’t hold that because say the institution of marriage is a created good, that one must take abuse for the sake of the institution and stay in that PARTICULAR MARRIAGE. And that’s the thing. I don’t think you are responding to my questions. Whether you view such institutions as reducible to their component parts or not does not answer my question as to whether such INSTITUTIONS ARE CREATED GOODS. You simply revert BACK to the component parts that make up said institution. I get the feeling that because you’ve spilled out your liberal guts (lol, I don’t mean that pejoratively by the way) that you’ve responded to my inquiry. But you haven’t.

As far as say, a spouse abusing the other spouse in the marriage, liberalism can’t really account for that. What if in such a marriage one spouse feels like it’s in their best self-interest to beat the other? Sure, liberalism says that one’s right to abuse the other ends with where the beginning of one’s face starts, ie, saying they can’t do that as it is against their will. But that really doesn’t deal with the matter of the one doing the abuse self-interest. It only stops the action. It really makes no judgment as to the rightness or wrongness of the morality of the abuse. After all it is simply the wills of self-interested individuals that is maximized. There is no adjudication or adjudicator that can adjudicate these things. Sure, you may say, that that is neither here nor there when in the political arena all it is is simply “consenting self-interested, rationally autonomous sovereign persons.” But that’s my point. ANY OUTSIDE/EXTERNAL authority is what? Evil (THAT has RELIGIOUS connotations). Any legitimate heteronomous authority-any authority existing outside of one’s own will, or in any collectivity whose claims are independent of the wills of its members is simply evil. Pure and simple. Even if you are not a contractarian, you still view marriage as primarily, the voluntary consent of self-interested, rationally autonomous sovereign persons in which one can deem dissoluble at their discretion (whether the children are grown and on their own or not). That we are CREATED FOR COMMUNITY is something I think you would find hard to comprehend Asher. And whether marriage or the church, I wouldn’t doubt that you find it difficult to admit that people are under LEGITIMATE OBLIGATIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES and RESTRAINTS that are NOT irreducible to voluntary agreement.

Now, abuse may be rather clear-cut but this is why I brought up the issue earlier of the tension that exists between the church and some feminists. Which is the other point I made earlier and that is one of encroachment. If you want to talk about a state that ideally SEEKS justice as I’m advocating (of which you say you haven’t seen) I’ve yet to see one sphere of legitimate authority in which there is not the tendency of certain individuals or collectives encroaching on other legitimate sphere’s of other individuals or collectives. THAT’S injustice, which is why I start with the justice question. Justice is giving something its proper due (some relationship, association or institution is suppose to fulfill it’s legitimate obligations and responsibilities for which it was CREATED) which is the JURAL TASK of government. In a liberal society, we don’t see something given it’s proper due as much as we see government attempting to fulfill the aspirations of individuals at any given historical moment and THIS becomes unjust when one’s aspiration is fulfilled against the created obligations and responsibilities of these relationships, associations and institutions.

Asher: And you have completely ignored my answer to your question of whether human institutions are created goods. The first part of my answer is that you have framed your question incorrectly. The way your question is framed allows for primarily two answers: the one you give...and the one you mistakenly are assuming that I am giving, that of classical liberalism. And so when I say, "There is a third answer and here it is." you say, "You haven't answered my question!"
Secondly, my last post gave that third answer. It is...human institutions are not created goods in the sense you mean. They are created...and they are good. But they are COOPERATIVELY CREATED by GOD and MAN. And that means that there is priority to individuality over institutions. Again, INSTITUTIONS WERE MADE FOR MAN, NOT MAN FOR INSTITUTIONS!

Brandon:  What I mean by created goods is this: We human beings are made in God’s image. Being made in God’s image we are able to respond to God’s call. God’s call is the cultural mandate. That is, human individuals are not merely individuals but also, CULTURAL beings who cultivate or develop the life around them. That is, that all these cultural shaping activities are in accordance with God’s intentions. Humans continually discover the potentialities in God’s creation--that is, that these potentialities are built into creation. Yes, this will mean cultural activities such as agriculture and industry are associated with that, but it will include various other areas such as the arts and sciences as well. As human cultural activity progresses the various fields of activity take on their own UNIQUE characters within distinct institutional contexts. This is the foundation for societal differentiation. Human culture includes politics. Thus, politics is a part of creation. That’s what I mean by creational good. I probably wasn’t clear on that.

By the way, in response to Adam and Eve, we need to remember that God did not want for Adam to be alone or a lone ranger (an autonomous self). God creates Eve. Adam and Eve, as the first married couple, represent the beginnings of SOCIETAL life. As they fill and subdue the earth as in tending to the garden [agriculture] this represents the beginnings of cultural life. The cultural mandate is being fulfilled and is unfolding in history. All of this “growing up” of creation (which is God’s intention) takes place through the task that people have been given of bringing fruition the possibilities of development implicit in the work of God’s hands. The whole range of human civilization is a display of the wisdom of God and the meaningfulness of our task in the world. God creates the world and then lastly humankind. On the seventh day God “rests.” But God doesn’t stop there. This isn’t the end of the development of creation. God still hasn’t withdrawn from creation. God has put his image on earth with the mandate to continue what he has started. This will be a human development for the human race will fill the earth with its own kind and form and develop it for its own kind (meaning more than individuals). That is the development of earth will be both societal and cultural in nature. In other words, the task for humans is CIVILIZATION.

Thus, politics, the arts, the sciences, etc are a part of God’s good creation. Sure, God will impose his law in the cosmos via two means. One is direct and immediate? The other is indirect and mediate in and through culture and society. Thus, at the end of it all is that civilization and cultural shaping activities are creational goods! I realize that they are cooperatively created but they are realized as creational goods. Thus, politics is a creational good. The moment you say that humans cooperate with God you are essentially saying it’s a creational good.

Asher:  3) Much of political and theological thinking is riven by a false dichotomy...individualism vs collectivism.

My answer is that there is a third term not being accounted for...or rather being incorrectly lumped in with one of the poles.

Buber says there are two primary words I-Thou and I-It. Starting from there and taking further molding from Kierkegaard's idea of "the Single One". We arrive at the Single One, the individual, before God in an I-Thou encounter with Him...first, as the very constituting fact about man and secondly as the method by which man is to encounter every Other, first God, then other individuals. Buber must be corrected by Kierkegaard...Buber sees the I-Thou encounter between a man and another man as first, and what becomes instrumental in man encountering God as I-Thou too. Kierkegaard sees the I-Thou constitution and initial encounter with God as first...and by which, man is enabled to encounter other men as I-Thou. I-Thou is at the foundation of man's being. This type of individualism, what I have termed I-Thou individualism, is not even scathed by traditional attacks on individualism. The fact that men often see other men behaving as I-It individuals may indeed muddy the waters and give ample ammunition for collectivist assaults.

But it is the I-Thou individual that stands before God...with his totality laid bare before God...with his despair laid open to God...that is exalted by and enabled by God to stand before God and to then stand before other men.

To say, "That we are CREATED FOR COMMUNITY is something I think you would find hard to comprehend Asher." completely misunderstands my position. My position REQUIRES a community before community. It requires an I-Thou community between a man and God....that is prior to, greater than, and makes possible ALL further human community.

Brandon: Wow. OK. LOL!---“all further human community.” So. I don’t have a problem that individuals stand before God. I’m not talking about a community before a community. Again, I’m talking about the way in which we govern ourselves as a community. Human to human. As culture and civilization develop the government’s task is to serve the various distinct sphere’s through its jural task of ensuring that one sphere of responsibility doesn’t encroach on another.