Human Rights are God-Given ?

There are very few, if any, clear cut examples of "God-given rights" in the Scriptures.

 

Hi Pinoy, good observation but IMO you loaded the deck with the words "no implied truths".

But here is as direct a statement as I can find/remember.

Psalm 4:8 I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.​

Or the one which just about every group on earth quotes:

John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Which has the "implication" that the freedom is attached to the knowledge of the truth.


BTW, there is no direct statement which says that "God is sovereign" either but it is "self-evident" and/or implied from the Scriptures.​

HankD​

 

This is not a promise of a God given right. It is a statement of God's protection. Without checking into it I think David was on the run from Saul when this was written.

God promise His peace and protection - this is not a right, but a God's reward for His man who was in danger.

 

Hi C4K, The reason I used this verse is because there are no conditions attached to it within the verse itself.

Implied perhaps by the preceding verses but pinoy himself excluded implications. Although IMO, these as well as other principles are implied by the Scripture.

Another "implied" sphere of influence that the founding fathers perhaps drew upon is the status of the "stranger" in the midst of the Hebrew nation.

They had these rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness provided by the Torah even within the bounds of the Nation of Israel.

Obviously their rights were limited as are ours.

We are not allowed these rights when they infringe upon the rights of others or the established law of the land. For instance robbing banks may be your thing in the exercise of liberty and the pursuit of happiness but definitely not allowed.

Leviticus 19:34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.​

Leviticus 19:33 And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.​

Leviticus 19:10 And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God.​

Leviticus 25:6 And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee.​

And many others...​

In addition the founding fathers used terms such as "self-evident", for these rights not claiming that they were specifically found in the Bible (although perhaps implied).

"self-evident" meaning just what it says.

Of course they weren't all Baptists adhering to the Baptists distinctives.

HankD​

 

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Well, God gave life, and we know that. So do we have a right to life? In that sense, I think we do. Considering that God commanded capital punishment for murder in Genesis 9, I think that also would qualify as a biblical backup for right to life.

Liberty? No. We are, spiritually, either slaves to sin or to righteousness and in the physical world God did not prohibit slavery but rather established rules governing it.

The pursuit of happiness? Don't people WISH that were a 'right'! We would each like that to be 'our' right, often regardless of what it does to the happiness of others!

When I think of the biblical indications of God-given rights, I remember God creating Eve for Adam and saying that for this reason a man shall leave his home, etc. I think this might indicate that we have a right to be married and have a family, should God allow conception...

And, and NO I am not trying to start a war here, I do think the Bible from start to finish gives one more God-given right: the right to choose our eternal destiny in our reaction to God.

I'm ducking....

 

pursuit of happiness -- wow did the Lord just hit me with that one...

I was sitting here taking a break and put on some music for our retarded 22 year old son. He loves music. One of the praise choruses was pretty chipper and rhythmic and he started rocking back and forth on his feet in back of me while I was playing "Hearts" here on the computer. He was also waving one of 'his' magazines so it was hitting me on the head...in rhythm.

And I growled at him, "Chris, BACK OFF" and he went and sat down in his 'corner' with his magazines and a sort of sad look on his face.

Because I valued my 'right' to play a game on the computer and ignore him.

Excuse me while I go put that praise chorus back on and 'dance' with him...

Lord, 'open the eyes of my heart...'

 

We hold these truths to be self–evident,
That all men are created equal,
That they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
That among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

These principles are "self evident" not specifically biblically based but derived from a natural law evident to all mankind.
It is a political statement not a theological or biblical statement.

Biblically:
>As mankind we have all been given the same life-image by God (Gen 1:27)

>Because we were created in his image, he is the only one with the right to take if back.

>God has given us the ability to choose whom we serve (Josh. 24:14,15)

>And all of us were created to desire happiness (is this not clearly evident to everyone?)

Of course as Christians:

We acknowledge that all are equal; we are all sinners (Rom. 3:23)

...as Christians, we are to cast aside our life (Rom. 12:1)

....we place ourselves under bondage to Christ (Rom. 6:18)

...and find our happiness in submitting to him (John 13:16,17).


Politically:

Because we were all created by the same Creator we are equally given the right to life, liberty and happiness.

So, in the course of the creation of man, God inherently granted each of us with equal rights; no one is more worthy than any another.

Rob

 

"Liberty" = free-will?

Are people at liberty to accept or reject Jesus Christ or are they bound in unbelief by the slavery of the will to reject Him?

At another level we have Liberty that is in the non-theological realm.

For instance, the right of the "stranger" in Israel was "liberty" to enter and be to the greatest extent possible a citizen at large in the Hebrew nation without suffering some sort of degrading or "dhimmi" status.

HankD

 

James 1:17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow (NASB)

I'm pretty sure that covers it reasonably well.

 

I don't read where it says 'slavery of the will', Hank. We can want all kinds of things that are impossible for us, and even a slave can want freedom...

 

Oh yes, that's a point of agreement.

HankD