gross@dg-rtp.dg.com (Gene Gross) (03/12/91)
Jeff writes: #Which has, of course, zilch to do with morality as it is expounded in your #Bible. Laws are passed to protect the rights of the innocent from #violence, persectution and opression. All of which are accepted (and even #encouraged) in your Bible. If some (or many) laws correspond to ideas you #consider to be from the Bible, fine. They are not law because the Bible #says they should be, they are law because they have to do with the protection #of someones "inalienable" rights. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ And where do these "inalienable rights" come from? This idea of "inalienable rights" derives from the work of Samuel Rutherford who wrote _Lex Rex_. Jefferson, a deist, and others, knew that they stood in the course set by John Locke. Locke secularized _Lex Rex_, and drew heavily from it. These men, our founding fathers, did indeed know what they were doing. They understood very clearly the roots of what they were about. The very mention of "certain inalienable rights" proves this. Who gives the rights? The state? Then they are no inalienable because the state can change its "mind" and take them away. So where do they come from? The founding fathers clearly understood that they were founding the country upon the concept that goes back into Judeo-Christian thinking that there is Someone there who gave the inalienable rights. Another phrase also points this out clearly: "In God we trust." This removes any confusion of what they were talking about. This is public recognition of the fact that law could be king because there was a Law Giver, a Person to give the inalienable rights. Also consider what is said in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, passed by Congress in 1789, "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind ... schools and the means of learning shall forever be encouraged..." In 1811, Chief Justice Kent, of the New York state court, said, "We are Christian people, and the morality of the country is deeply engrafted upon Christianity." Fifty years later, this same court said, "Christianity may be conceded to be the established religion." The Pennsylvania state court said, "Christianity, general Christianity is, and always has been, a part of the common law of Pennsylvania...not Christianity founded on any particular religious tenets; nor Christianity with an established church and tithes and spiritual courts; but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men..." William Blackstone believed that there were only two foundations of law, nature and revelation, and he stated clearly that he was speaking of the "holy Scripture." Joseph Story, in his 1829 inaugural address as Dane Professor of Law at Harvard, said, "There never has been a period in which Common Law did not recognize Christianity as laying at its foundation." Our legal heritage is based squarely upon the Judeo-Christian view. The Bible is the basis for much of our law today. But for the past 50 years, this has been changing. Hardly any law student reads Blackstone anymore, unless they are taking a history of law course. We live in a secularized society and in secularized, sociological law. By sociological law I mean law that has no fixed base but law in which a group of people decides what is sociologically good for society at the given moment. It has ushered in the age of the relative. Frederick Vinson Moore (1890-1953), former Cheif Justice of the US Supreme Court, said, "Nothing is more certain in modern society than the principle that there are no absolutes." William Bentley Ball, in his paper entitled "Religious Liberty: The Constitutional Frontier," says: "I propose that secularism militates against religious liberty, and indeed against personal freedoms generally, for two reasons: first, the familiar fact that secularism does not recognize the existence of the "higher law"; second, because, that being so, secularism tends toward decisions based on the pragmatic public policy of the moment and inevitably tends to resist the submitting of those policies to the "higher" criteria of a constitution. "Our problem consists also, as perhaps this paper has well enough indicated, of more general constitutional concepts. Let me refer to but two: the unconstitutional delegation of legislative power and 'ultra vires.' The first is where the legislature hands over its powers to agents through the conferral of regulatory power unaccompanied by strict standards. The second is where the agents make up powers on their own -- assume powers not given them by the legislature. Under the first, the government of laws largely disappears and the government of men largely replaces it. Under the second, agents' personal "homemade" law replaces the law of the elected representatives of the people. "Fundamentally, in relation to personal liberty, the Constitution was aimed at restraint of the State. Today, in case after case relating to religious liberty, we encounter the bizarre presumption that it is the other way around; that the State is justified in whatever action, and that religion bears a great burden of proof to overcome that presumption." The humanists posit that there is another ground for morality, ethics, and law. Yet, in "The Humanist" magazine of February 1977, Will Durant summed up the humanist problem with regard to personal ethics and social order: "Moreover, we shall find it no easy task to mold a natural ethic strong enough to maintain moral restraint and social order without the support of supernatural consolations, hopes, and fears." Dear Will, it is not just difficult; it is impossible. The agnostic Renan said in 1866: "If Rationalism wishes to govern the world without regard to the religious needs of the soul, the experience of the French Revolution is there to teach us the consequences of such a blunder." The Durants themselves say as much: "There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion." Law, Jeff, is based upon something. I have yet to see anything from the materialist/Rationalist point-of-view that says that they have anything upon which to base their morality. The view of the materialist is that there is no "higher law." The state is the sole authority in these matters, because only the state has the power to set and enforce law. Left to the state, what inalienable rights do any of us have? Any right that we claim is subject to change by the state. Actually, it will be only the elite few that make this decision, as we've already found out on a number of rulings in the past several decades. To argue that "inalienable rights" come from any source other than the Judeo-Christian is specious at best. Kevin sez: >How do we define what is acceptable and inacceptable behavior? Jeff answers: #Inacceptable behavior is any behavior that violates someone's rights as a #human being and a citizen of this country. Its not as difficult as you #make it appear. Nice dodge, Jeff. But you have not answered the underlying question: from whence comes "inalienable rights" that need protecting? Kevin sez: >Man starting from himself (an agnostic) cannot give any >philosophically compelling reason why anyone should be ethical if they >don't want to be. Jeff answers: #Again, I base my morality on how my behavior affects those people around #me. I need no book to threaten me with punishment if I don't conform to #its concept of "morality". So then, Jeff, morality is relative with no absolute foundation. So if morality is relative, who is to say that it is wrong for me to take what you have if I see that you have more than I do? I can make a very good argument, as many have done and through their thinking brought about major revolutions, that you having more than me is immoral. But let me offer a more concrete example of this relativistic view as it impacts upon liberal theology. Charles Hartshorne wrote an article entitled "Concerning Abortion, an Attempt at a Rational View" in the January 21, 1981 issue of "The Christian Century" magazine (pages 42-45). In it, he begins by equating the fact that the human fetus is alive with the fact that mosquitoes and bacteria are also alive. He assumes that human life is not unique. He even sees a birthed baby as somehow still not human. He says, in this context, "Nevertheless, I have little sympathy with the idea that infanticide is just another form of murder. Persons who are already functionally persons in the full sense have more important rights even than infants." Then he takes this to its logical conclusion, "Does this distinction apply to the killing of a hopelessly senile person or one in a permanent coma? For me it does." So much for the value of life under the relativistic view of morals. The question remains, upon what do we base law and "inalienable rights"? Peace, Gene
kwilson@urbana.mcd.mot.com (Kent Wilson) (03/19/91)
[A couple of people have mentioned the concept of "inalienable"
rights, This posting had enough levels of widgets that I couldn't be
sure who said what, but there was an issue of whether the cnocept is a
Christian one, or came through John Locke's secularization of
Christian ideas. --clh]
Throwing my two cents worth in...
The Universtiy of Houston did a study to try and determine what sources
our founding fathers drew upon in the course of establishing our country.
They found that the Bible was used as basis for ideals, sixteen times
more than any other set of books, papers, works, etc..
Kent
===============================================================================HWT@bnr.ca (H.W.) (03/19/91)
Dave Gross presents cogently the case that law must be based on a moral framework. He then palms a card by introducing 'relative morality', and concludes in left field, at least. John Stuart Mill's famous "your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins" is far closer to the minimal framework. The pagan ethic 'Do no harm' is quite sufficient (and I'd argue necessary) as the basic of a tolerant multi-cultural system of law. This has consequences, of course, that may be offensive to many: no laws on sex. marriage, or other 'moral' issues. Forty-five people want to marry each other - fine. There are, of course, points at which there is disagreement on what is or causes harm - that's what judges and legislators are for. So, although Dave is right that historically 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' were derived from Judeo-Christian axioms, they can be derived from pagan/humanist principles. P.S. in Canada, we're only guaranteed 'peace, order, and good government'. Henry Troup - HWT@BNR.CA (Canada) - BNR owns but does not share my opinions "If you have taken a vow of perpetual poverty, you must take your deduction on line 256" - 1990 Canadian Tax Guide