Jurisdictional Sovereignty: A Consent-Based Critique of Divine Authority

This paper develops and defends a framework — here termed jurisdictional sovereignty — forevaluating claims of divine authority through the analytical tools of consent-based politicalphilosophy. Rather than engaging the dominant ontological question of whether God exists, thepaper argues that the logically prior and practically more tractable question is whether any being— real or hypothetical, proven or merely posited — possesses legitimate authority over rationalagents in the absence of consent. Drawing on the social contract tradition (Locke, Rousseau,Rawls), the political theory of legitimate authority (Raz, Wolff), and constructivist metaethics(Korsgaard, Scanlon), this paper constructs a three-axiom framework grounded in theindependence of legitimacy from ontology, the principle of interactive accountability, and theconsent constraint. Its most philosophically distinctive feature is ontological invariance: theframework's normative conclusions are sustained regardless of how the metaphysical question ofGod's existence is resolved. The paper carefully distinguishes the position from atheism,apatheism, and misotheism; addresses sophisticated theological objections from Thomisticparticipatory metaphysics, skeptical theism, and the free will defence; and engages non-Abrahamictheological structures including process theology, apophatic traditions, and Advaita Vedanta. Asustained treatment of the axiom of shared vulnerability — grounded in Korsgaardian reflectiveendorsement and Scanlonian contractualism — provides a secular ethical foundation that does notderive moral obligation from divine command. The paper concludes with a nuanced treatment ofpolitical implications, engaging the Rawls-Wolterstorff debate on public reason, and a candidappraisal of the framework's limitations. The position discussed here has also attracted thedesignation Omittoism — a term I have introduced in broader discourse to name the principledrefusal of unjustified jurisdictional claims — though this paper proceeds strictly within the normsof systematic philosophical analysis.