Role of Church in Slavery and Colonialism

Age of Discovery

In fourteen hundred ninety-two / Columbus sailed the ocean blue. And it was precisely around this time in the late 15th century, in the so-called “Age of Discovery,” that a worldview began to develop that Europe was the only civilized part of the world; therefore, any part of the planet that Europeans conquered would do that land the favor of bringing both a “superior religion” (Christianity) and a “superior culture” to territory that was either unoccupied or occupied by people the Europeans viewed as heathens or savages.

Doctrine of Discovery and Papal Bulls

The Doctrine of Discovery was buttressed by the worldview of the Crusades. Papal bulls encouraged Christians to “capture, vanquish, and subdue the…pagans, and other enemies of Christ,” to “put them into perpetual slavery,” and “to take all their possessions and property.” Disturbingly, the Doctrine of Discovery, as initially articulated by rulers such as Pope Nicholas (1452) and Henry VII of England (1496), was later imported into the United States legal system in conflicts over the rights to American Indian land such as the 1823 Supreme Court case Johnson v. McIntosh:

Writing for an unanimous court, Chief Justice John Marshall observed that Christian European nations had assumed “ultimate dominion” over the lands of America during the Age of Discovery, and that — upon “discovery” — the Indians had lost “their rights to complete sovereignty, as independent nations,” and only retained a right of “occupancy” in their lands.

Papal Bull Dum Diversas - 18 June, 1452

Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas on 18 June, 1452. It authorised Alfonso V of Portugal to reduce any “Saracens (Muslims) and pagans and any other unbelievers” to perpetual slavery. This facilitated the Portuguese slave trade from West Africa.

Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex - January 5, 1455
Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Romanus Pontifex on January 5, 1455 to Alfonso V of Portugal. As a follow-up to the Dum diversas, it extended to the Catholic nations of Europe dominion over discovered lands during the Age of Discovery. Along with sanctifying the seizure of non-Christian lands, it encouraged the enslavement of native, non-Christian peoples in Africa and the New World.

In 1493 Alexander VI issued the bull Inter Caetera stating one Christian nation did not have the right to establish dominion over lands previously dominated by another Christian nation, thus establishing the Law of Nations.

The Bulls of Donation, also called the Alexandrine Bulls

Alexandrine Bulls are three bulls of Pope Alexander VI delivered in 1493 which granted overseas territories to Portugal and the Catholic Monarchs of Spain.   The three Bulls are:

1. Inter caetera of 4 May 1493
2. Eximiae devotionis 3 May 1493
3. Dudum siquidem of 26 September 1493

The bulls were the basis for negotiation between colonial ambitions of Portugal and Spain which resulted in the Treaty of Tordesillas, dividing the non-Christian world beyond Europe between them. 

The Treaty of Tordesillas was concluded on June 7 1494 to settle the contentious matter of the possession of the newly discovered lands of the non Christian world between Portugal and Spain. It was ratified by Spain on July 2, 1494. and by Portugal on September 5, 1494.

The judiciary precedent of the treaty was the Inter Caetera Papal Bull, issued on May 4, 1493 by the Spanish Pope Alexander VI. The Inter Caetera Bull fixed the demarcation line along a circle passing 100 leagues W of the Cape Verde Islands and through the two poles. This division gave the entire New World to Spain and Africa and India to Portugal. The margin of the maneuver given to Portugal by the papal bull was small.

The Treaty of Tordesillas shifted the demarcation line to a circle passing 370 leagues West of the Cape Verde Islands and thus set the legal base for the colonization of the eastern coast of the land now known as Brazil by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvarez Cabral. He landed there on April 22, 1500 claimed the land and named it:Tierra da Vera Cruz (land of the true cross).

Requerimiento [Requirement], by Charles I of Spain: Spanish conquistadors read this document, composed in 1514, to Indians of the new world. It briefly explains Spain's assertion of its legal and moral right to rule over the inhabitants of Latin America. It also provides a rationale for a "just war." Legalistic Spaniards devised this doctrine so that you could "legally" enslave Indians who refused to agree with all the statements of the requerimiento.

The Requerimiento read: "... Of all these people God, Our Lord, chose one, who was called Saint Peter, to be the lord and the one who was to be superior to all the other people of the world, whom all should obey. He was to be the head of the entire human race, wherever men might exist. God gave him the world for his kingdom and jurisdiction. God also permitted him to be and establish himself in any other part of the world to judge and govern all peoples, whether Christian, Moors, Jew, Gentiles, or those of any other sects and beliefs that there might be. He was called the Pope. One of the past Popes who succeeded Saint Peter, as Lord of the Earth gave these islands and Mainland's of the Ocean Sea [the Atlantic Ocean] to the said King and Queen and to their successors, with everything that there is in them, as is set forth in certain documents which were drawn up regarding this donation ...."

"Consequently, as we best may, we beseech and demand that you understand fully this that we have said to you and ponder it, so that you may understand and deliberate upon it for a just and fair period, and that you accept the Church and Superior Organization of the whole world and recognize the Supreme Pontiff, called the Pope, and that in his name, you acknowledge the King and Queen, as the lords and superior authorities of these islands and Mainlands by virtue of the said donation."

"If you do not do this, however, or resort maliciously to delay, we warn you that, with the aid of God, we will enter your land against you with force and will make war in every place and by every means we can and are able, and we will then subject you to the yoke and authority of the Church and Their Highnesses. We will take you and your wives and children and make them slaves, and as such we will sell them, and will dispose of you and them as Their Highnesses order. And we will take your property and will do to you all the harm and evil we can, as is done to vassals who will not obey their lord or who do not wish to accept him, or who resist and defy him. We avow that the deaths and harm which you will receive thereby will be your own blame, and not that of Their Highnesses, nor ours, nor of the gentlemen who come with us."

Immanuel Kant's view of Biblical Ethics

Immanuel Kant holds that individuals are free to act out of principle and moral duty. There are three aspects of Kantian thought that define Kant's views of morality.

Morality originates from rational mind: According to Immanuel Kant, foundation of morality is the ability of humans to think and act rationally. It is the human capacity to reason that makes humans refrain from acting out of impulse or the desire for pleasure. 

Human beings are intrinsically important: Immanuel Kant says that all human beings are intrinsically important and that the well being of each is an end in itself.  This intrinsic importance leads to the fundamental principle that all humans are autonomous and that is the only true freedom.

Even though humans are autonomous, as rational beings they are bound by rational thinking and should arrive at the same universal moral principle which he called categorical imperative.

Categorical imperative:   Categorical imperative states that you should do only those acts which you are willing to allow to become universal standards of behavior applicable to all people, including yourself.

All these three fundamental thoughts go against the moral absolutist position of Christian morality. 

In the four essays that constitute Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Immanuel Kant articulates his understanding of religion and its place in relation to his rational metaphysics of morals in works such as the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), the Critique of Practical Reason(1788) and the Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790).

Kant viewed personal freedom as autonomy to decide for one selves the laws that one follows.  To Kant, this alone is true freedom.  Immanuel Kant was very critical of presenting moral actions as a means to any end including ways of pleasing God.  Kant articulated in the fourth essay some of his strongest criticisms of the organization and practices of Christianity that encourage what he saw as a religion of counterfeit service to God. Among the major targets of his criticism are external ritual, superstition and a hierarchical church order. He sees all of these as efforts to make oneself pleasing to God in ways other than conscientious adherence to the principle of moral rightness in the choice of one's actions. The severity of Kant's criticisms on these matters, along with his rejection of the possibility of theoretical proofs for the existence of God and his philosophical reinterpretation of some basic Christian doctrines, have provided the basis for interpretations that see Kant as thoroughly hostile to Christianity.

In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant writes:

But suppose there were something whose existence in itself had an absolute worth, something that, as end in itself, could be a ground of determinate laws; then in it and only in it alone would lie the ground of a possible categorical imperative, i.e., of a practical law.
...
If, then, there is supposed to be a supreme practical principle, and in regard to the human will a categorical imperative, then it must be such from the representation of that which, being necessarily an end for everyone, because it is an end in itself, constitutes an objective principle of the will, hence can serve as a universal practical law. The ground of this principle is: Rational nature exists as end in itself. 

The rational being must always consider itself as giving law in a realm of ends possible through freedom of the will, whether as member or as supreme head.

Thus, neither a scripture nor its historical context of related experiences can ever be the source of the catgotical imperative.  The one and only one source is the rational nature underlying all human beings.

Immanuel Kant, in his writings on ethics, refused any role for experience or history in the development of human morality.  Kant held that morality is a pure metaphysical  concept.  Rational beings are capable of developing an innate sense of objective morality without recourse to anything external - either empirical experience or intervention of God.  In other words, empirical knowledge can only illustrate morality but cannot lay the foundation for morality.  

Kant sees human will as the Universal legislator of the law, the only law that it abides by.  The human will is an end in itself, with freedom from any form of external coercion.  Kant gives the name Categorical Imperative to the Universal law that the will legislates itself and at the same time remains subjected to it:  Always act in such a way that your are both legislator and legislated in the kingdom of ends.  Always act in such a way that you could will that the maxim of your act become a Universal Law.  This stands in stark contrast to Christian apologists who require a Biblical God to be the moral giver.  Apologists like William Lane Craig and Ravi Zacharias insist that there cannot be objective morality without a moral law giver.

Kant completely disagrees with this Biblical view.  In his seminal work "Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals", where Kant lays down the foundations of his moral framework, Kant writes:

One could not give worse advice to morality than by trying to get it from examples. For every example of morality that is to be represented to me as such must itself be previously judged in accordance with principles of morality as to whether it is worthy to serve as an original example, i.e., as a model; but it can by no means by itself supply the concept of morality. Even the holy one of the Gospel must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before one can recognize him as holy; he says this about himself too: Why do you call me (whom you see) good? No one is good (the archetype of the good) except the one God (whom you do not see).  But where do we get the concept of God as the highest good? Solely from the idea that reason projects a priori of moral perfection and connects inseparably with the concept of a free will.

Kant sees reason and free will as the sole foundations of morality.  Not Biblical scriptures.  

Kant asks a sharp question: Where do Christians get the concept of God as the highest good?  Christians simply define highest good in terms of God Himself.  Is that a useful definition when we do not know what God is?  Bible offers divine commandments as examples of morality.  Can these examples supply an adequate concept of morality on their own?  

Does Bible define morality in broader terms and not merely offering a few elementary moral precepts such as the ten commandments?  It does, very narrowly, by saying that it is a sin to violate God's commandments and, where there are no commandments there is no sin.  This restriction cripples the possibility of evolving a broader scope for Biblical morality.   In fact, some of the ten commandments even do not match the general human understanding of morality.  For example, a commandment of God identifying Himself as Jealous God and asking us to avoid idol worship cannot be called a moral.  Same goes with the requirement of Sabbath.

To reach a satisfactory moral framework, Kant avoided moral examples from Biblical scriptures altegether and chose to take a pure metaphysical approach - pure in the sense of completely avoiding all empirical knowledge.  History-centric Biblical knowledge offers just that circumstantial empirical knowledge of God-given moral rules.

Kant sees no use of Biblical God or the Biblical moral rules for human morality.  For Kant, all that is needed is a rational creature with free will to develop an innate sense of morality without recourse to anything external, including the Biblical God.