Paul's Writings Underpin Western Thought

[SteveII]

1. Intrinsic value. The Roman and Greek view was not that people had intrinsic values just for being people. When Paul said such things like "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28) this was revolutionary. Your birth, your societal status, your nationality, your gender does not give you value in the eyes of God. That would be a very appealing message to entire classes of people who were told otherwise and often lived brutal lives as a consequence. 

There are actually a number of things wrapped up in this issue. If you believe everyone is highly valued by God, your worldview must change over time. Things like education and hospitals and social welfare are natural extensions of your worldview. I'm not saying if not for Christianity, then we would not have these, but I think that we can find other cultures to make a comparison and it turns out this is a very far-reaching feature of a Christian worldview.

In fact..nothing about you gives you value in the eyes of god, which is why it categorically fails as intrinsic or inherent value.  If you happen to be obedient enough to please his arbitrary strictures..however....you're golden.  You tell us that "paul" underpins intrinsic value but only deign to provide a list of things which you contend granted no value at all (despite some of those things being very much on gods radar, and pauls....and most of them being intrinsic in ways that obedience simply isn't.

So much for the dignity, decency, and value of man, lol.  As a semi aside...I've always wondered about the specifics of how so many moderns interpret the transactionary value of obediance in christian theology as being, in some way, a comment on the inherent value or rights of man (as it's so often claimed that both of these things derive from the other)?  A disobediant man has no such value, and where..after the transaction is made, does the value reside?    In the one case we have a man lacking that value, in the other it appears as a token to be paid before you get on the merry-go-round.  

Whatever value is placed in or upon us by this ideology...it isn;t essential to us, a characteristic attribute, or permanent.  The christian thesis on the value and nature of man is that were are fallen, in a word.  There is no such thing.  Lowly degenerates..all of us.  Deserving of nothing but death, not party to any rights whatsoever.  We exist at and for the pleasure of the king.  The token he desires has all the value that matters....not us.

OFC, we have the new wrinkle of your stuffing modern egalitarian and secular values into the mouth of an iron age nativist god.  God is gender neutral..suddenly.  God doesn't care about the circumstances of your birth despite making a covenant with his chosen master race.  Do you imagine that "paul" was drawing from judeo-christian tradition in any divergence you see there (real or imagined)...or expressing his then-current hellenist upbringing?  I think it;s breathtaking that you've imagined that greek or roman philosophy was somehow silent on this issue in a way that paul was not.  The oldest treatises we have on the subject in the western tradition...are from pagan greeks and romans.

First, Your rebuttal is predicated on our value to God depending on our obedience. That is completely false. 

John 3:16 New International Version (NIV)
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 5:8 New International Version (NIV)
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

John 15:13 New International Version (NIV)
13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Ephesians 2:4-5 New International Version (NIV)
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

1 John 4:8 ESV 
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:9-10 New International Version (NIV)
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Second, show me where Greek or Roman philosophy even spoke about universal intrinsic value--let alone where that was actually part of anyone's worldview.