Claim. Private possession is legitimate in the ideal world because humans resemble God in possessing an individual image alongside the universal image, and personal property is necessary not only for the purpose-for-the-individual but also for accomplishing the purpose-for-the-whole.
Elaboration. Lee preempts the objection that mutual existence is collectivism: the dual-purpose structure of human nature requires both joint and private ownership. Because each person has a universal image (common attributes shared with all) and an individual image (unique character, taste, situation), private property is required to express individuality and to exercise free will in love (A. Principle of Mutual Existence).
The illustrative case is a farming family: members jointly hold house, garden, field, and cattle (purpose-for-the-whole) while children also need their own rooms, clothes, and allowances (purpose-for-the-individual). Critically, Lee then makes a less obvious move — personal possessions also serve the purpose-for-the-whole. An elder brother uses his own books to study and please his parents with good grades; a younger brother uses his own paints to win a prize; an elder sister uses her own violin to receive praise at a concert. Personal possessions become the means by which individuated persons invest their unique gifts back into the love of the whole.
The quantity question — how much private property is appropriate? — is answered by “appropriate possession” calibrated through conscience. Lee uses the analogy of meal portions: we know from internal signal whether we have eaten too little or too much; similarly a pure conscience signals the right material amount to express one’s psychological state of love and gratitude. He explicitly allows that the proper amount varies person-to-person because each has a unique individual image and a unique position in the six-direction web of relations — typically, the higher one’s position, the greater the necessary quantity and quality, because more relations must be maintained.
This is a notable theological move: it grounds inequality of holdings in the structure of love-relations rather than in market outcomes or labor desert. Critics (egalitarian and Marxist) will press on whether conscience-calibrated appropriateness can resist self-serving inflation in fallen conditions. The ideal-world framing partly insulates the claim — it describes the original world, not capitalist reality.
See also. mutual-existence-joint-ownership-grounded-in-true-love, ut-individual-image-vs-environment, individuality-grounded-in-divine-individual-image