God-given rights?

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Metaphysically yes; theologically it is more difficult. Even if Christianity could ground human rights theologically it may not be possible to do the same with all religions.



This sort of theological argument requires a degree of knowledge of all religions that very few (if any) thinkers have the capacity to write on in any convincing way. Theologically grounding human rights would need to occur in a way that either transcends theology or finds common ground with all. The first option is possible by using the concept of God as the basis for objective moral values. The later option would be a nearly impossible task.

In my own work on human rights; I argue them practically from an international consensus; I leave the question of objective grounding open as most people do, so as to make them as approachable as possible.

There is no reason why a theologically-based conception of human rights must be based on a multitude of religions; it needn't transcend theology or find any common ground. I am interested in seeing how any given individual who upholds this kind of idea could defend it within their own religious framework.

And AG is correct in saying that Phil has not addressed my questions. There is a notion advanced by some that the human rights upheld in liberal societies are divinely ordained. I do not see any evidence of this in Scripture, and I am interested in hearing what arguments people can actually produce for it.

Interesting question. Would have to start at the beginning, where we are given dominion over the Earth.

AG: - and Orwell, you are in here too, your thread after all:

El Glorioso hat mir geschrieben:

"You are not actually acting in full awareness of the context that Orwell is trying to bring back to the surface, that is the efforts by theists to ground the notions of human rights we have in our modern societies in theology. As such, your answer is a failure to address this. (Interestingly enough, this does not seem like the first context failure you have had. I'll have to watch more carefully, and some of your posting style makes this difficult)"

So, nae doot yo have more awareness of what Orwell was asking than I. I, after all, have only the English language.

I read:'

A common claim is that human rights come from God. Is this true? Is there any solid theological basis for such a belief? Do any major religions or religious texts show a strong emphasis on human rights, and make any claim that those rights are granted by God?

Well, silly me, I thought that was asking is there evidence from the theology or scriptures of major religions to support the claim human rights come from God. Stupid, BAD, ignorant Philologos, imagine responding with citations from Jewish and Christian scriptures to a question that SO obviously has nothing to do with that.

Of course, I did not expand on the "strong emphasis" clause. I believe that I could support that, though Orwell does not say HOW strong the emphasis would have to be. But I did not address that point in my first response.

But that is just as well, because I would have been DEAD WRONG. I would have been talking about human rights, not *Human Rights*. I actually did not understand that rights common to human beings were NOT the same things as *Human Rights*.

I certainly did not think I had to be supporting the claims of specific modern theists [ancient and medieval and old-fashioned theists apparently do not count]. I thought - HEY - I am a modern theist, I have a right [no, this is not one of the ones listed as God-given, and clearly it is not AG-given either] to speak to a question asked of modern theists.

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Problems with my postings? Likely enough. I have problems with some of yours. You often - I shall not claim always - post as a person grounded in a particular tradition and arguing within that tradition, as a String Theorist might speak following the conventions of String Theory. You therefore - correctly for all I know - took Orwell's "human rights" as meaning a particular theory of human rights native to a particular thought tradition.

I post as that increasingly rare thing, an academic who checks the available evidence and makes up his own mind, for whom no ideology is normative. I therefore - correctly for all you know till Orwell speaks - took Orwell's "human righs" as meaning "rights of human beings", answering only to the grammatical rules and semantic parameters of contemporary educated English.

I happen to feel you are too up tight about your conventions, but have noted with pleasure that you do break out into original thought on occasion.

You may feel - this is extrapolation, how can I KNOW what you feel till you say? - that I am too free-form, too unsocialized.

Whatever. De gustibus, coloribus, et cursibus equorum ...

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Also, Orwell, O man of sanity:

When you say "A common claim is that human rights come from God. Is this true? Is there any solid theological basis for such a belief?", is you IS or is you AIN'T asking a simple question in Standard English that one such as I might legitimatel answer?

Or are you as our yellow-faced friend claims addressing only the Adepts versed in a very particular and peculiar understanding of *human rights*, implying Abeste profani?

So then, we have a right to breathe and a right to eat and drink from the earth and a right to travel to-and-fro upon it ...

Yes but not what I meant; it's our god given right as humans to rule this planet.

It was in the context of comments that had been made in previous threads, as noted in the OP. AG's interpretation of my intent in asking the question was correct; we have had a few posters trying to ground notions of human rights (always in the context envisioned in modern Enlightenment liberal ideals) in being divinely ordained; they say our rights to life, liberty, property, etc are granted by God. I disputed whether there is a solid Scriptural basis for this claim, and instead of arguing it over three or four different threads I tried to branch it off here.


This just seems silly on your part. You did not come close to demonstrating a comprehensive human rights ideal from Scripture, certainly not including liberty, which is often taken to be the most important.


I would be interested to see what you could try.


In this case, at least, correctly. Sorry if I did not make my intention clear enough in the OP.


Basically, are Lockean natural rights, or any other major, prominent modern conception of human rights, actually to be found enumerated and defended in Scripture? If so, where?


I might have missed a reference there. I am addressing an American and Western context, specifically that men "are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights... to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men." I do not find any explicit Biblical basis for the specific rights enjoyed or claimed by US citizens, and the proponents of divinely ordained rights have thus far declined to assist me in looking for one. This leads me to doubt that men are actually given rights by their Creator, and government's only role is to protect them; rather, I tend to think that in the absence of a structured society with a government, rights do not exist either.

There does not need to be a scriptural basis for the claim; at least not the sort of grounding you seem to be after. Personally I do not like doing an individual religion grounding of Human Rights; there are too many grounds upon which very bad countries claim exceptionalism already. If one wants to claim rights as being divinely ordained, it is enough for them to be metaphysically grounded.

Yes, there really does. Otherwise proponents of this idea are just making crap up.


The grounding I'm after is "some sort of theologically justifiable reason for believing this." It doesn't have to be universal across all religions; it does not even have to be from a religious tradition that I adhere to or respect in the slightest. But it has to be something legitimate and substantive, not just completely made up.


For purposes of this thread, I don't care. Any solid justification for divinely ordained rights, within any religious framework than any respondent cares to choose. That is what I'm looking for. Obviously since this is mostly in an American context, it would be ideal if they were able to support it within relatively mainstream Christian/Protestant theology, but I'd accept a Zoroastrian Bill of Rights as an answer at this point.


No, it really isn't, because claims are made as to what those specific rights are, and without any theological justification whatsoever, there is no basis for saying that people do or do not have any given right.

Sorry, wrong. Logic and scientific inquiry are also useful in determining theological concepts. Your statement would only be true for someone who takes the Bible to be sole basis upon which one can infer truths about God. I do not really know of many people here who do that (I know that I do not and it is a fair bet that Philologos is of a similar mind to my own, on this matter). You are coming very close to putting forward a straw man argument.

What, so you're basing a theological grounding of human rights on the Catholic Church's long history of respect for civil liberties and intellectual freedom?

Be realistic, 91. Give me something to work with, anything at all. It doesn't have to be sola scriptura, but it has to be something other than completely arbitrary claims with absolutely no theological or scriptural support. I don't care if you cite theological tradition, the apocrypha, the writings of some deranged fourth-century heretic, or a pagan shaman. Just come up with something other than a bald assertion.

Rule? We do not rule this planet. We live on it. And most of us do not live upon it very well.

ruveyn

The theological aspect of this discussion is not really an important aspect of why I hold this view. I hold it because objective moral truths are best grounded in God. It naturally follows that if this is true; then a morally objectively true right would follow from the same.

That's a real problem for the large proportion of the world not interested in theology, which includes believers in God/s

There are no objective moral truths. There are only moral opinions. If there were such things as objective moral truths we would not have so many moral systems and moral codes. There are objective arithmetical truths which is why there is only one system of natural integers (expressed in various symbolic schemes but the same and only underneath). In morality and ethics there is no factually grounded system. There are only judgments.

ruveyn

Agreed. Thats why in my work I tend to cite Human Rights as an agreed international norm based on a universal values (one can mount a very persuasive argument that freedom is an inherent want of human beings). The objective truth of the rights is a separate issue.



Not necessarily true. The latter does not directly logically contradict the former.