Thus Far)

Over the past two postsI have discussed God as a basis for our fundamental human rights, and also the natural biology of our species for a basis as well. I have explained that I believe in both foundations, but unlike a materialist/humanist, I am convinced that having the natural biology of our species as the only foundation for our rights is insufficient. In my last post I explained why, showing how from the materialist/humanist view, rights would only be an illusion invented by the species that benefits from them. We would say that humans should have a right to life, simply because if they don’t they would cease to exist, so murder is a self-destroying principle.

So long as our rights are tied only to the biology of our race, it is possible to create logical exceptions to them. I gave two examples:

1. We could say that we are not the same race as other humans, and we only need to observe the rights of our own race, and not of others.
2. We could say that even if the rights should be enforced by society at large, if we violate them and conceal it from society, there is no other authority that we must answer to.

Today we will consider how having our rights also based in God resolves these issues.

A New Equation)

In my previous post I gave an equation that showed the cyclical, self-contained logic of rights when based upon the natural biology of our species. I said that if we call humanity “X,” and the basic human rights “Y,” then we can say:

Y is essential for X
So X must secure Y

Now let us consider how that equation changes if we assume that God has given us our rights. We will represent God in our equation as “Z.”

Z states that Y is essential for X
So Z must secure Y for X

The rights (Y) are tethered to man (X) by God (Z). It may not seem like much of a difference, but this small alteration has massive ramifications. Introducing Z now makes X and Y reside in Z, not in each other. We no longer have a circular, isolated interdependency. The relationship between X and Y no longer collapses once we are outside of their context. Y is no longer a relative need of X, which nothing outside of X is obligated to fulfill.

Through this God-centric view, human rights are now just as universal and unchanging as mathematical truths. Just as how the Pythagorean Theorem will always be a true mathematical expression, the statement that “life and liberty are necessities for all people” will always be a true, moral principle. Even if there were no people around to observe it, the Pythagorean Theorem would still be a universal maxim between the sides of right-triangles, maintained in God, independent of man. In just the same way, even if humanity were to go extinct, it would still be a maxim in God that life and liberty are good for people and nothing would change that.

The Answer to the Problems)

Now, even if a group of people declared themselves to be a different race they would still have to answer to God if they violated the rights of other races. If individuals violated the rights of one another, and concealed it from the larger species, they would still have to answer to God. They would have to answer to God because it is He, not merely “other people,” who demand these rights for all. He demands them, and He enacts His will to see that they are secured.

And from the Christian perspective, that is exactly what has transpired throughout history. Yes, there have been long periods of various rights being violated by entire nations and individual souls, but over the years the idea of basic human rights has emerged, and in more developed countries has been applied to all, and of it has been done under the justification that “it is God’s will.”

Conclusion)

There is nothing wrong in observing the ways that our biological nature compels us to seek what is best for one another, to enshrine rules of conduct between all people, to sacrifice our own interests for the greater good. Recognizing these logical, natural realities can certainly be further evidence to help convince all people to live in moral, ethical ways.

The problem is when we try to weaponize the existence of this biological nature against the divine basis for our rights. There are those that use a new moral perspective to beat away at the very foundation that all our moral principles rest upon! How strange, when it was the perspective that God was the author of our morals that led us to implement the freedoms and rights that we have in the first place. Trying to remove that perspective is a regression, one likely to take us back to the darkest epochs humanity has ever seen, with the vast majority of the population living under all manner of oppression and suffering.

If we destroy the one, best moral grounding we have ever had, and give the next generations a flawed moral grounding instead, they will carry it to conclusions that we would never dare. And when they do, who will the sufferers take their appeal to then? The God that we abandoned?