by Norman D. Fox -
But adding “unalienable” to the phrase might confuse that average American by evoking the famous words in America’s Declaration of Independence, a document that collides head-on with the notion of unfettered royalty. This Essay will argue that Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration co-authors were doing much more than denying a human king’s divine right to govern them; they were insisting that ordinary people did have legitimate divine rights that were just as unalienable as the “rights” that kings and nobility had been falsely claiming.
Most importantly, this study will propel us quickly beyond 1776 and into the 21st Century where we will learn how close we are coming to foolishly throwing away our greatest blessings as Americans and depriving future generations of their rightful heritage.
THE MEANING OF “UNALIENABLE”
The average American we’ve been picturing would probably define “unalienable rights” as “rights that cannot properly be taken away.” This may sound reasonable, but it misses the whole point of the word and its revolutionary political and spiritual meaning. Jefferson knew that the word had been applied in Europe, and especially in England, to the hereditary right of kings and nobles to hold their titles and to pass them on to their children. Thus, the word really described “rights that cannot properly be given away.” These rights could not be forfeited, because they belonged to the king’s (or nobleman’s) descendants just as surely as they belonged to him. For this reason he did not have the moral authority to give them away.
Jefferson, et.al., in one sweeping paragraph declared as “self-evident” a truth that contradicted a centuries-old European dogma. The Creator had not given England’s king a divine right to oppress the Americans after all! Rather, the Creator had endowed each individual with divine rights that were unalienable. “Unalienable” would be a fighting word, the founders knew, because King George III would think it was his and his alone.
Furthermore, the Declaration was not just for England and the world to read; it was for the average American himself, reassuring him that he was “endowed” by God with rights that could not properly be taken away from him, nor could he properly surrender them because they belonged to generations of his descendants not yet born! That average American did not have the moral authority to give them away. They were unalienable.
WHAT ARE OUR DESCENDANTS’ RIGHTS?
The great Declaration (see Essay #33, The Declaration of Independence), and the subsequent U.S. Constitution (see Essay #2, Limited Government and “Legislating Morality”) presents an impressive Bible-based list of rights that a generation of American leaders were claiming “for ourselves and our posterity.” Samuel Adams, a Declaration signer, wrote, “The rights of the colonists… may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institution of The Great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church… in the New Testament.” There was no denying these were “divine rights” in their origin, and that the Bible itself was the ultimate written source of these rights.
The catalogue of rights included not only the famous formulation “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” but many related rights that emanated from those, or made them possible. They saw limited government, the very theme of the Constitution, as a divine right because it allowed maximum liberty for the individual as opposed to maximum government which would obviously allow only limited liberty.
We are accustomed to political charts that place liberalism at the left of a spectrum and conservatism at the right, but it is much more useful to chart the Founders’ views by placing “total government” (totalitarianism) at the extreme left and absence of government (anarchy) at the extreme right. On that chart, the nation’s founding documents created a government very close to the right edge, closer than any previous government had ever been, allowing maximum liberty for the individual on the understanding that personal morality would make most citizens self-governed. Limited government is an unalienable divine right that we have no moral authority to surrender on behalf of our grandchildren who are not yet even born.
A HERITAGE OF SOCIALISM AND BIG GOVERNMENT?
Historically America’s most cogent moral objection to socialism has been that it reduces personal liberty and requires an ever-increasing central government to administer, which is not an acceptable heritage for our children. (See Essay #49, Socialism, the Bible, and America.) It is inconsistent with the liberty that the Founders declared as unalienable and fought to defend, and it is not ours to give away if we intend to keep faith with our descendants. It also requires a level of taxation (see Essay #30, Taxation: “Rendering Unto Caesar”) that can become a drain on a citizen’s very life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
Worse yet, this pilfering of personal freedom becomes trans-generational when government runs extraordinary deficits that must be repaid by children who cannot yet vote, or might not yet be born. This time-warped taxation without representation has gone on for decades in America, but has exploded into unprecedented multi-trillion-dollar deficits within the first few months of 2009. When generations are born already burdened with oppressive debt, some of their divine rights have been “alienated,” surrendered, by people who had no authority to do so. This financial abuse of one’s descendants even violates a clear biblical principle (II Cor. 12:14) that parents should provide for their children, not depend on the children to pay the parents’ bills.
STAND FAST, THEREFORE
America’s founders clearly saw the connection between spiritual liberty and political liberty, and saw both being addressed in Gal. 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage.” They declared their independence from England in particular and from European philosophies in general, consciously renouncing the divine right of kings, but possibly anticipating also where the old continent was heading. In the following century, Europe specifically would spawn and then popularize the symbiotic theories Marxism and Darwinism, and soon after that, Fascism and Nazism. These developments were not random or unrelated, and they could not possibly have grown out of the biblical worldview of America’s framers. Blessed by their heroic withdrawal from the European orbit, it ill suits us now to compromise our way back into modern day European theories.
Current adult generations of Americans must rediscover our roots, realize that the blessings we inherited belong to future generations, and stop the giveaway of our children’s God-endowed resources and freedoms, unalienable divine rights that we have no moral authority to surrender.
For further study:
Barton, David, Original Intent, (esp. Ch. 11-15), 1997, Wallbuilder Press, PO Box 397, Aledo, TX 76008
Morris, Benjamin F., The Christian Life and Character of the Civil Institutions of the United States (especially Ch. 12), American Vision, 2007, www.americanvision.org,
Noebel, David A., Understanding the Times, (esp. Sec. 8, 9), 1991, Harvest House, Eugene, OR 97402
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Times and the Scriptures, 948 Darlene Ave, Springfield, OR 97477, http://timesandscriptures.org/
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