I saw this on another website I frequent and thougth it was an excellent question. So I decided to post it here for comment.
I’ve frequently heard of our “God-given rights”. How would you Biblically defend the following rights?
- Life (probably the easiest of these)
- Liberty
- Pursuit of Happiness
- Personal property
- Privacy
I think if we look at these writes in their negative counterparts things will become more clear, so for example, we have a right to life, and the negative counterpart would be. Does anyone have a right to take your life?
so…
LIFE
Does anyone have the right to take my life? (excluded justified self defense, things of that nature) No, no one has the right to murder me or take my life unjustly. (5th Commandment)
LIBERTY
Does anyone have the right to enslave me? I would say no, of course not. I am no ones property. I appeal to 1 Tim. 1:8-10
[8] But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully: [9] Knowing this, that the law is not made for the just man, but for the unjust and disobedient, for the ungodly, and for sinners, for the wicked and defiled, for murderers of fathers, and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, **[10] For fornicators, for them who defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and whatever other thing is contrary to sound doctrine, **
the part in red, menstealers, refers to slave traders and or kidnappers. So naturally, no one has the right to treat you like property and sell you into slavery or kidnap you.
PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
Well this one is harder because to some extent we have this right in regards to our faith. We have the God given right to know, love and serve Him, and no government can force us to do otherwise.
But in regards to other forms of its application, it is really more of a man made thing I believe. Maybe the Christian version of this would be, Pursuit of Destiny? because we have the right to pursue our destiny which is to be with God forever. Pursuit of the vague concept of happiness opens to the door to having the right to do things that make you happy even if they are immoral.
PERSONAL PROPERTY
Thou shall not steal
No one has the right to deny us possession of the things that rightfully belong to us.
this also applies in the sense that no one has the right to cheat us out of anything that we are entitled to as exemplified here in 1 Tim 5:17-18
1 Tim. 5:17-18 17The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 18For the Scripture says, “Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.”**
PRIVACY
I think this related to property in a sense.
No one has the right to fiddle with things that belong to me without my permission. This applies to theft and vandalism which are both immoral.**
