All Men Are Created Equal

depends on the existence of a Creator, and what is more, a Creator who would make persons with a fundamental equality of dignity. Christianity originated the principle of human equality, as Mark Shea lays out:

The Christian faith drives ideologues crazy. And as our ideologies change, so do the things that irritate us about the Faith. But there’s always something. Because, in this fallen world, we do not really progress. We wobble. Yesterday’s crazy ideology breeds rebels who throw off the crazy old ideology and establish, not sanity, but a crazy new ideology. Only the Faith is sane because only the Faith comes, not from crazy fallen humans, but from God himself in human flesh.

So, for instance, in antiquity, the egalitarianism of the Faith was scandalous. It was all so disgustingly vulgar to a Greco-Roman culture that had not the slightest qualms about saying that some—indeed most—people were naturally inferior. Pagans came by this notion honestly, because the whole conception of human beings as “equal” owes its entire existence to the Judeo-Christian tradition and absolutely nothing else. It is pure mysticism based solely and exclusively on Genesis and related biblical texts. Pagans, having no access to this revelation, tended to concur with Aristotle that some people were “natural slaves” and “talking plows” since it is manifestly obvious that people are not equal in terms of intelligence, musical aptitude, facility with languages, strength, speed, mathematical abilities and a million other factors. Alone in pagan antiquity was the Christian claim that God is no respecter of persons and that all were equally beloved by him who gave his only Son to save all, right down to the most wretched and seemingly insignificant sinner.

That’s why some of the earliest criticisms of the faith came from elitists of various stripes who could not believe that any self-respecting revelation from God could possibly involve the first century equivalents of trailer trash. For Jews, the classic complaint was “He eats with prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners.”

For Gentile philosophers like Celsus, the complaint was similar. It boiled down to “Look at those tacky people! Just look at them! Slaves! Women! Children! The dregs of the earth!” Celsus lived in a world where such a complaint would be taken as self-evident proof that Christianity was laughable...