In the unlikely event that you have not noticed, our society is polarized. Whether along racial, gender, sexual, political, or any other differentiation you can think of, our society is more divided than at any point, possibly ever. Worse yet, many no longer care to get along with those with whom they disagree; we want to see the worst in each other. Not that long ago we could disagree while being charitable enough to one another to assume good intentions for the difference of opinion. Now, if someone disagrees with us, we assume nefarious reasons; the dissenter’s opinion is because they do not care, or worse, they wish for harm.
I believe that one of the main reasons for this polarization is due to a misunderstanding of rights; what constitutes a right, how rights are to be properly used, and where rights come from. The reason that the issue of rights provokes such a passionate response from us is because we desire freedom, we want to know that we have certain entitlements that cannot be taken from us; when some tries to take away those endowments, we become combative. However, when we believe that something is a right when it is not, our aggression is misplaced; similarly, when we withhold what is a right, we are wrong. Let us start at the beginning. Whether we are talking about civil rights, gender rights, abortion rights, marriage rights, the right to children, and so on, we must be certain our definition of rights is on sure footing.
What is a Right & Where Do Rights Come From?
Before we can employ rights correctly, we must understand what a right is. A right in the biblical sense is the ability or authority to act without consequence; such authority cannot be reasonably denied.[1]Civil liberties are correctly considered rights. Civil rights are such because we are all made in God’s image and therefore have inherent dignity and are worthy of respect. Denying someone fundamental authority to act, e.g., eat at a restaurant, is a violation of their rights. Some may say that they do not accept the authority of the Bible, or that they do not believe in God. That is certainly an option; however, the one who makes this claim bears the burden of explaining where rights come from; if not God, the only sensible option left is man[2], e.g., governments. The one who makes this claim further bears the burden of explaining how anything can be a right; rights that are given by man can be taken away by man, meaning it is not a right after all. Therefore, unless rights come from God they do not exist.
The founders of the United States obviously understood this as they were careful to point out that we have certain[3] God-given, and therefore, inalienable rights. This highlights a second common mistake; often people say that they have constitutional rights. However, the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence clearly states that rights come from God which cannot be denied. Further, the Declaration states that the job of the government is to secure rights.
Moreover, it is also important to understand that both positive and negative rights exist. A positive right is a right that allows for something, e.g., the right to life. A negative right prevents something, e.g., harm, theft, hinderance of rights. If someone has a right to property, they necessarily have the right not to have their property unjustly seized.
Rights vs Desires
Immediately, the above definition presents problems for many alleged rights; if a right comes from a wholly pure, loving, and sinless God, there are limits to what constitutes a right. For example, currently, one of the most frequently cited “rights” is the right to abortion. Of course, abortion is often misnomored as women’s healthcare because that sounds more aggregable than the killing of a preborn child. Clearly, the 6thcommandment forbids murder, but God had already done so in Genesis 1:27, which says that He created man in our (meaning God’s) image. If we are made in God’s image, and life begins at conception,[4] it follows that we should not murder each other, regardless of whether we have exited the womb or not. Further, the right to do what one pleases with their body has limitations because, again, we are made in God’s image. Further, the “my body, my choice” argument is a strawman; bodily autonomy does not trump God’s command not to murder, nor does it trump the baby’s right to life. For nonbelievers, one does not need to invoke the Bible to argue against abortion. We all know that life begins at conception, and we all agree that murder is wrong. One may have a desire to have an abortion; however, there is no right to an abortion.
Another example is the alleged right for same-sex couples to have children. Immediately this claim is problematic because same-sex couples willingly entered what they knew was a sterile relationship. Same-sex couples cannot produce children yet claim a right to children. Beyond this bizarre consequence-ignoring claim, there is not a right to children, whether homosexual or heterosexual. Psalm 127:3 says, “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.” God does not guarantee us children, we are blessed when given them; the heartbreaking inability for some to bear children is a result of the fall. Likewise, as the book of Genesis tells us and basic biology affirms, conception requires both a man and a woman. We cannot violate God’s law and engage in a behavior that eliminates a certain outcome, then demand what was never promised to begin with. Many of us desire children; none of us have a right to children. Oddly, many who claim the nonexistent “right to kill preborn babies whenever they so choose, also claim a “right” to children.
One more example I’ll provide is the “right” to do what one wants with their body as it pertains to transgenderism. In this instance the claim is to a right to live one’s truth. However, our bodies are God’s temples, indwelt by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16-17), we are told to honor God with our bodies (1 Cor. 6:20), and to offer our bodies as spiritual worship, by offering them as a living sacrifice to God (Rom12:1). These passages make clear that there is a right and a wrong way to use our bodies. Mutilating our healthy bodies in an effort to deny God’s created order is not a right. Likewise, demanding that others deny God’s created order by affirming a false reality is not a right. Finally, for the nonbeliever, there is no right to force others to participate in a lie simply because the other party prefers the lie rather than the truth.
Rights and Responsibilities
What is also often forgotten in our me-centered society is that rights are always accompanied by responsibilities, namely the responsibility to use our rights morally. Our right to own property does not convey a right to do whatever we want on our property, or to unlawfully seize the property of others. The right to pursue happiness is neither a guarantee of happiness, nor authority to pursue our happiness at the expense of others. We all have a right to liberty; however, we do not the liberty to do whatever we want. Our freedom can be taken away in the event we break the law. The point is, yes, we have rights, but we are not entitled to use those rights however we want. Rights without restraint results in chaos.
One of the reasons we know that God is loving is because he sets boundaries. God knows what giving us sinful humans unfettered freedom would lead to; we would bring on our own destruction. As parents, we set boundaries and restraints for our children because we love them. God, the perfect father, does the same for us. It does not take in-depth analysis to see the results of our choices to go beyond God’s boundaries in our society: the sexual brokenness, the skyrocketing rates of depression, suicide, and substance abuse; the genocide of over 60 million preborn babies and the scars those abortions leave on the mothers, the historic levels of crime, the ever-increasing rates of fatherless homes. Freedom without limitation is not love, it is antipathy.
Rights and the Impact on Legislating Morality
When discussing rights and restraints, some will say that we should not legislate morality, that no one should force their morals on others. This is particularly common for those who oppose the monotheistic beliefs of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What this objection ignores is that every law legislates morality because every law allows for or prevents a certain behavior and allows for or prevents the opposite behavior. Just as rights allow for a specific behavior and thereby prohibit the opposite, a law prohibits a certain behavior and allows the opposite. For example, criminalizing theft denies the freedom to unlawfully take what belongs to others, while allowing for a right to own property. Criminalizing assault denies the right to commit violence to others for no reason, while allowing for the right to live without being assaulted.
It is not possible to make laws without legislating morality; the only question is whose morality will be legislated. We have already discussed the depravity that follows ignoring God’s restrictions. It is our arrogance and self-worship that prevents us from acknowledging that legislating our own morality is a fool’s errand. The reason we have so many people complaining that our legislative branch (mainly the Supreme Court) is broken, or that the legislative branch is broken, is because we have abandoned the biblical foundation on which our country was founded. As John Adams once wrote,
“because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other[sic].”[5]
[1] Kevin A Lewis: Theology of Civil Government, page 6.
[2] Some, mainly those who hold a naturalistic worldview claim that rights and morality have come from evolution, but this is an unsustainable claim. Nature has ability to created metaphysical concepts such as rights and morality.
[3] This is an important word, certain. It means not everything we want is an inalienable right.
[4] Though denied for a long time, this point is widely accepted today by Christians and non-Christians alike. See the following study: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3211703. That life begins at conception has become so undeniable that this point is no longer disputed, hence why those in favor of abortion now argue personhood rather than when life begins.
[5] John Adams, in a letter to the Officers of the First Brigade f the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 11 October, 798, italics mine.
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