We should doubt the theology espoused by Thomas Jefferson. In the US Declaration of Independence, he wrote, “…all…are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We can be critical of this assertion that rights are a gift of the Creator.
God was not handing out such gifts, not before or after Yosef was first interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh, and especially not as Egypt brought nation after nation into slavery. God did not hand out such gifts as Moses led the Israelites out of bondage. The people of Jesus’ time knew little of the freedom of self expression, nor of freedom from fear and want. God did not hand out such gifts during the life time of Mohammad. Nor when 95 theses were nailed to a monastery door. Over all the ages, God has been a constant and has not changed. We need not believe Jefferson who, during the era of the Enlightenment, thought that human rights appeared from the hand of a changed God.
And why would we reduce human rights to the status of mere gifts?? All of us have been through the practices of gift giving. When the wrapped package first appears, the recipient acts humble and shows some level of disbelief. The pretty wrapping is dispensed with and the shock and wonderful excitement and gratitude are expressed. Finally, the gift is laid aside, to be put away later on. When the gift is brought back out, the occasion is a special time, not “every day,” and the giver is praised again for the gift. We should not be treating human rights like we treat physical gifts we have received! Human rights are to be part of everyday life, are to be recognized with us at all times, they are something more than a gift.
Around December of 1948, speaking about the adoption of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Hernán Santa Cruz of Chile, a member of the Declaration’s drafting sub-Committee, wrote: “…a consensus had been reached as to the supreme value of the human person, a value that did not originate in the decision of a worldly power, but rather in the fact of existing—which gave rise to the inalienable right to live free from want and oppression and to fully develop one’s personality.”
From Santa Cruz’s grasp of the matter, rights come into existence simply when a person exists. Are human rights actually provided to every human?? Are human rights hanging in the air at all times, around every human? Let us ask the people of Myanmar in the year 2023. Or ask the people of Russia as they are expected to serve a war that does not benefit but a few Russians. Or check in with those fleeing violence and desperate want in Central American countries as they begin the arduous and unpredictable immigration to the north. Or look to those people living through the strife of Sudan and Ethiopia. Do any of those people see human rights hanging in the air to be enjoyed simply because they are human? Or has God forsaken those people, this omnipresent and omnipotent Creator??
As gifts or as flowing from the very existence of humans, these both appear to fall short in the role of giving us an origin of human rights, and begs the question, “If we can not be sure of their origins, how can we be secure in protecting and advancing human rights?”
From the history of the British Isles, I want to recall the importance of the Magna Carta. This is the start of "a worldly power" that eventually led to human rights. In effect, the Magna Carta was an effort by the noble families to pressure the British King to treat them with civility. Those noble families had suffered from whimsical and indifferent decisions from the King. In their Magna Carta, they demanded that the King stop mistreating them in that way. They were calling for a civil society between the royal family and all their noble families. In the course of their history, the House of Lords was created, in effect expanding the civil society on that exclusive level of community between ruler and nobles. Later a House of Commons was created, giving law-making abilities to a Parliament in British history, again advancing a civil society to even more of that island's population.
When Jefferson and his committee drafted the US Declaration of Independence, their demands were actually the result of more than 12 years of efforts to have the mother country in the British Isles treat the colonists better, to treat them in a more civil manner. Since the King and the Parliament were unwilling to heed those requests, the representatives of 13 colonies declared their separation from the colonial power, so they could explore self-governance and the creation of their own civil society.
Along with advancing the ideals of what a civil society could be, in each of these historic cases (Magna Carta, Parliament, US Declaration of Independence, UN Universals Declaration), those who demanded to be treated with civility also accepted some growing responsibilities. The responsibilities could be described along different dimensions. Through the Magna Carta, all those noble families promised each other that they would not abandon the principles they had set forth there. If some families had relinquished responsibilities, then the monarch might have moved back to their previous mistreatment of them all. By forming a Parliament, the Lords and the Commons agreed to rules of decorum and how they would stand behind the decisions they agreed to as a body. Building on independent decision making, the United States formed a brand new country that became a model for governments around the world, governments that wanted to aspire to self-governance and overthrow dictators and authoritarian forms of government. By taking up these never-ending responsibilities, those who were experimenting with self-governance, were exercising their civil liberties.
The existence of a civil society and the ongoing exercise of civil liberties then appear to be the source of human rights. Nations and other regions of people who cannot depend upon civil society, most probably will not find human rights, nor can they predict when their rights will be reliable. Plus, if no-one is free to exercise their civil liberties, and take responsibility for maintaining the civil society, they too might question how solidified their human rights are.
Meanwhile, if a civil society is strong, is reliably based on the institutions within it, and if people do routinely and intentionally exercise their civil liberties (unlike gifts you only bring out for special occasions), then the human rights can be offered to even those who can not exercise their civil liberties: infants, those with severe disabilities, new immigrants, people punished by living in cages, etc.
From this understanding of human rights, we need to concentrate our self-governing efforts on strengthening and maintaining our civil societies, and we need to recognize the importance of exercising civil liberties and responsibilities.
