stimulus

"'Decide Yourself who was right: You or the one who questioned You then? Recall the first question; its meaning, though not literally, was this: "You want to go into the world, and You are going empty-handed, with some promise of freedom, which they in their simplicity and innate lawlessness cannot even comprehend, which they dread and fear -- for nothing has ever been more insufferable for man and for human society than freedom! But do You see these stones in this bare, scorching desert? Turn them into bread and mankind will run after You like sheep, grateful and obedient, though eternally trembling lest You withdraw Your hand and Your loaves cease for them." But You did not want to deprive man of freedom and rejected the offer, for what sort of freedom is it, You reasoned, if obedience is bought with loaves of bread? You objected that man does not live by bread alone, but do You know that in the name of this very earthly bread, the spirit of the earth will rise against You and fight with You and defeat You, and everyone will follow him exclaiming: "Who can compare to this beat, for he has given us fire from heaven!" Do You know that centuries will pass and mankind will proclaim with the mouth of its wisdom and science that there is no crime, and therefore no sin, but only hungry men? "Feed them first, then ask virtue of them!" -- that is what they will write on the banner they raise against You, and by which Your temple will be destroyed. In place of Your temple a new edifice will be raised, the terrible Tower of Babel will be raised again, and though, like the former one, this one will not be completed either, still You could have avoided this new tower and shortened people's suffering for a thousand years with their tower! They will seek us out again, underground, in catacombs, hiding (for again we shall be persecuted and tortured), they will find us and cry out: "Feed us, for those who promised us fire from heaven did not give it." And then we shall finish building their tower, for only he who feeds them will finish it, and only we shall feed them, in Your name, for we shall lie that it is in Your name. Oh, never, never will they feed themselves without us! No science will give them bread as long as they remain free, but in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us: "Better that you enslave us, but feed us." They will finally understand that freedom and earthly bread in plenty for everyone are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share among themselves. They will also be convinced that they are forever incapable of being free, because they are feeble, depraved, nonentities and rebels. You promised them heavenly bread, but, I repeat again, can it compare with earthly bread in the eyes of the weak, eternally depraved, and eternally ignoble human race? And if in the name of heavenly bread thousands and tens of thousands will follow You, what will become of the millions and tens of thousands of millions of creatures who will not be strong enough to forgo earthly bread for the sake of the heavenly? Is it that only the tens of thousands of the great and strong are dear to you, and the remaining millions, numerous as the sands of the sea, weak but loving You, should serve only as material for the great and the strong? No, the weak, too, are dear to us. They are depraved and rebels, but in the end it is they who will become obedient. They will marvel at us, and look upon us as gods, because we, standing at their head, have agreed to suffer freedom and to rule over them -- so terrible will it become for them in the end to be free! But we shall say that we are obedient to You and rule in Your name. We shall deceive them again, for this time we shall not allow You to come to us. This deceit will constitute our suffering, for we shall have to lie. This is what the first question in the wilderness meant, and this is what You rejected in the name of freedom, which You placed above everything. And yet this question contains the great mystery of this world. Had You accepted the "loaves," You would have answered the universal and everlasting anguish of man as an individual being, and of the whole of mankind together, namely: "before whom shall I bow down?" There is no more ceaseless or tormenting care for man, as long as he remains free, than to find someone to bow down to as soon as possible. But man seeks to bow down before that which is indisputable, so indisputable that all men at once would agree to the universal worship of it. For the care of these pitiful creatures is not just to find something before which I or some other man can bow down, but to find something that everyone else will also believe in and bow down to, for it must needs be all together. And this need for communality. of worship is the chief torment of each man individually, and of mankind as a whole, from the beginning of the ages. In the cause of universal worship, they have destroyed each other with the sword. They have made gods and called upon each other: "Abandon your gods and come and worship ours, otherwise death to you and your gods!" And so it will be until the end of this world, even when all gods have disappeared from the earth: they will still fall down before idols. You knew, You could not but know, this essential mystery of human nature, but You rejected the only absolute banner, which was offered to You to make all men bow down to You indisputably -- the banner of earthly bread; and You rejected it in the name of freedom and heavenly bread."

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our conception of love and compassion is often at war with Christ's.

property and community

viewed from a christian perspective:

"property is owned by the individual" - idolatry of the self.

"property is owned by the community" - idolatry of the community, that is, of every self.

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there are idolatries, self-contradictions, and both.

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any secular political system will allow idolatry. from the christian perspective, we must therefore ask if such a system allows the self a free choice between idolatry and submission to God in the various expressions of life (worship, money, time, work, &c). if that system maintains..
- an individualistic view on property: the self clearly has such a choice with respect to that property.
- a collective view: that choice is removed; the self at once has everything, and nothing.

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finally, self-contradictions should not be enthroned as defining presuppositions.