Why You Should be Omittoist

 

Omittoism: The Right to Rule Does Not Follow from the Fact of God

 

The oldest dispute in philosophy of religion asks whether God exists. Omittoism begins with a different question: even if God exists, why does existence establish a right to rule?

This distinction is simple, but its consequences are profound.

Suppose, for argument’s sake, that a perfect deity exists. Suppose further that this being created the universe, sustains our existence, possesses immense power, understands reality completely, and is morally perfect. Omittoism need not deny any of this. It asks only whether those propositions contain, by themselves, a further conclusion:

 

Therefore, human beings owe this being obedience.

They do not.

Existence establishes existence. Power establishes capacity. Knowledge establishes expertise. Goodness may justify trust. Creation establishes causal origin. None of these concepts is identical to legitimate authority.

This is the Jurisdictional Independence Thesis.

To say that someone can command is not yet to say that they possess the right to command. To say that someone knows better is not yet to say that another rational agent has surrendered independent judgment. To say that one being caused another to exist does not automatically establish ownership over the created being.

We already understand these distinctions everywhere else.

Parents cause children to exist, yet children are not property. A brilliant doctor may know what treatment is best, yet expertise and sovereignty remain conceptually distinct. A powerful government may successfully coerce its population, but its ability to enforce law does not prove its legitimacy. Power and authority are different categories.

Why should this distinction disappear merely because the claimant is divine?

If divine authority is legitimate, there must therefore be some additional normative bridge connecting divine properties to jurisdiction:

 

God possesses property P; therefore God has the right to rule rational agents.

But the burden now falls upon the bridge principle. What is P?

Creation? Creation explains origin, not ownership.

Power? Superior force establishes dominance, not legitimacy.

Knowledge? Perfect knowledge may justify deference, but advice remains conceptually different from jurisdiction.

Goodness? Perfect goodness may make divine guidance perfectly trustworthy, but trustworthiness alone does not establish a standing obligation to obey every command because it was commanded.

This produces what Omittoism calls the Juridical Cleavage.

If an action is morally required because it is independently good—because it respects persons, prevents unjustified suffering, honours rational nature, or promotes genuine flourishing—then its moral force already exists. Divine command may reveal the obligation, explain it, or guide us toward it, but the command does not appear to create its underlying moral truth.

If, however, divine command creates an additional obligation simply because God issued it, then a new question immediately arises:

 

What legitimates that special authority?

The problem cannot be solved merely by repeating that God is God. That substitutes identity for justification.

Omittoism therefore remains remarkably stable regardless of the outcome of theology. If God does not exist, no divine jurisdiction exists. But if God does exist, the legitimacy question still remains. The discovery of a being, however extraordinary, does not logically settle the political and moral relationship between that being and rational persons.

This is Omittoism’s ontological invariance:

 

The existence question and the authority question are independent questions.

Nor does Omittoism imply moral nihilism or radical selfishness. Human beings remain vulnerable, conscious, interdependent creatures capable of suffering and flourishing. We have powerful reasons to respect one another precisely because others possess interests, agency, vulnerability, and moral standing comparable to our own.

Freedom from unjustified domination is not freedom from morality.

Indeed, Omittoism demands more moral seriousness, not less. It refuses to outsource ethical responsibility to authority. “I was commanded” cannot replace moral reasoning. A mature agent must ask whether a rule is just, whether punishment is proportionate, whether authority is accountable, whether innocent suffering is justified, whether obedience respects persons rather than merely power.

This applies with special force to doctrines of punishment. If finite error or disbelief is met with infinite suffering, power cannot substitute for proportionality. If revelation is ambiguous while the consequences of misunderstanding are enormous, obscurity becomes not merely an epistemic problem but a problem of legitimate governance.

A perfectly legitimate authority should survive the highest standards of justification, not require lower ones.

Omittoism therefore makes no grand claim that divine authority is impossible. Its claim is more precise and more difficult to escape:

 

Divine authority must be justified rather than presumed.

A god may deserve admiration. A god may deserve gratitude. A god may deserve trust. Perhaps a god may even possess legitimate authority.

But none of these conclusions follows merely from the fact that the being is called God.

The final question remains the one philosophy too often skips:

 

Not “Is there a ruler?” but “What gives anyone—even a god—the right to rule?”