Christianity And The Idea Of Individuality--Jordan Peterson

 In the long quote below--long to capture his whole argument--I quote from Pages 186 and 187 of Jordan Peterson's book, 12 RULES FOR LIFE AN ANTIDOTE. I want to contend, with Jordan's help that reason (Logos, Yahweh's spoken creative speech when the world was created), individualism come to the West from Judeo-Christian sources, not just Greek culture, and philosophy, as suggested by Stephen Hicks.

Here is that quote: "The Christian doctrine elevated the individual soul, placing slave and master and commoner and nobleman alike on the same metaphysical footing, rendering them equal before God and the law. Christianity insisted that even the king was only one among many. For something so contrary to all apparent evidence to find its footing, the idea that worldly power and prominence were indicators of God's particular favor had to be radically de-emphasized. This was partially accomplished through the strange Christian insistence that salvation could not be obtained through effort or worth--through 'works." Whatever its limitations, the development of such a doctrine prevented king, aristocrat, and wealthy merchant alike from lording it morally over the commoner. In consequence, the metaphysical conception of the implicit transcendent worth of every soul established itself against impossible odds as the fundamental presupposition of Western law and society. That was not the case in the world of the past and is not yet the case in most places in the world of the present. It is in fact nothing short of a miracle (and we should keep this fact firmly before our eyes) that the hierarchical slave-based society of our ancestors reorganized themselves, under the sway of an ethical/religious revelation, such that the ownership and absolute domination of another person came to be viewed as wrong."

My response: the individual soul, likely for the first time in human history, got a boost, all were equal as individuals before God. So, the implicit transcendent worth of every individual soul was realized, and this became the fundamental presupposition of Western law and society. 

Note that the king, the noble, the clergy and wealthy merchants were rather individualistic in comparison to slaves and serfs, the vast majority of collectivized commoners at the base of the social heap. Still, elites were then and now rather collectivized, not reach individuals. 

Individualism started to grow now that the worth of the individual soul had its own moral worth, no matter its impoverished, oppressed worldly status. If slavery and exploitation of serfs were wrong, then the end of slavery, the rise of democracy, the rational exercise of the individual of his right to think and ponder--the seeds of free rational common people that popped up during the Age of Enlightenment had its roots in classical Christianity, even Judaism itself.

Jordan noted that it took time for the idea of slave-ownership and serfdom to be questioned, but over time they were: "Christianity made explicit the surprising claim that even the lowliest person had rights, genuine rights--and that sovereign and state were morally charged, at a fundamental level, to recognize these rights."