Get Yourself a Locke on the Moral Laws of Nature

Photo: Martin Falbisoner / CC BY-SA / Creative Commons

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson mentions "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."

Most Americans have never taken the time to consider the meaning of "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." Do you know what they are?

The Founding Fathers did. They were well-read in the ancient Greek classical writers.

For example, the Greek philosopher Aristotle observed that things in nature behaved in a uniform fashion and asked if there could be a natural law that governed all human beings?

Or to put it more directly, the ancients asked if there could be an internal sense of right and wrong -  moral code if you will - that was the same in every person who has ever lived.

Aristotle observed that fire always burns in a similar manner, no matter where or when it was lit. The fires in Greece burn the same as the fires in Persia, whether they were lit today or a millennium ago.

Aristotle reasoned that human beings must have a similar moral code (Natural Law) regardless of when they live (civilization), where they live (culture), and how they live (customs).

Natural Law must be eternal and immutable, something easily distinguished from man-made (conventional) laws, and given by Nature's God (the Creator). By observation, Aristotle concluded that every human being intuitively knows that the following three actions are good, honorable, and moral.

1. The protection of human vitality. Every human being has the right to life, and the protection of life is moral and good. 

2. The promotion of individual liberty. The coercion of human beings to conform to the wishes authoritarians, be it kings, governments, or individuals, is a violation of nature. Natural Law must be seen in terms of a human being alone in nature, free to do as he pleases. Individual liberty granted by Nature is guaranteed by Nature's God, not government. 

3. The preservation of private property.  When an individual in nature takes possession of a piece of property and plows it for his sustenance, Natural Law demands that the individual has the right to preserve that property from being taken, damaged, or destroyed by another. The ancients defined this ability to pursue personal property and preserve it for their good as happiness, or the pursuit of happiness. 

Thus, the rights that Nature and Nature's God give to every human being are as follows:

LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT OF PROPERTY (Happiness).  

Fascism, communism, nazism, socialism, and every other ism in the form of human government removes Natural Rights. A just government is designed to secure Natural Rights and enforce Natural Laws. 

After Aristotle, there lived the Roman philosopher Cicero. He agreed with his Greek counterpart and wrote that Natural Law was "of universal application and unchanging." Cicero also said:

 "God is the author of this Natural Law (thus, Nature's God) and the Judge who enforces it."

After Cicero, came the Apostle Paul. In Romans 1, Paul writes that "the image of God" is seen in human beings by our capacity to reason. Man's reason is “the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking especially in orderly rational ways" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Even if a person had never heard of the Jewish God named Yahweh, or was unfamiliar with God's covenant with the Jews, or had no understanding of the Messiah, that person was accountable to the Creator because

"What may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." (Romans 1:19-20). 

Throughout the Middle Ages, the ultimate appeal regarding morals, politics, law, and also divinity was to Natural Law. This Law, according to Thomas Aquinas, was placed by God throughout Creation in a natural way, and it is known by human reason.

Unfortunately, throughout God's Creation, certain men (and a few women) have subverted the natural order and have conquered, coerced, and controlled other men, some "Kings and Queens" even claiming the Divine Right to rule over others.

But the coercion of people by force is not according to Nature or Nature's God.

Our Founding Fathers had their heritage in Europe where multiple wars had been fought between kings who wished to conquer and subjugate other kings, nations, and peoples, all in the name of God.

Enter John Locke. 

John Locke, in the tradition of the ancient great philosophers, opposed the kings of Europe, arguing through his writings that certain rights are inalienable to every human being, or incapable of being removed or transferred. These individual rights are granted by Nature and Nature's God. A just and honorable government only protects these rights, for Nature and Nature's God alone grants them.

John Locke believed that a person can understand his or her Natural Rights by simple reasoning, rational observation, and human experience.

He wrote:

 "God having given man above other creatures of this habitable part of the universe a knowledge of himself which the beasts have not, he is thereby under obligations, which the beasts are not, for knowing God to be a wise agent; he cannot but conclude that he has that knowledge and those faculties which he finds in himself above the other creatures given him for some use and end. If therefore he comprehends the relation between father and son and finds it reasonable that his son whom he has begot and nourished should obey, love, and reverence him and be grateful to him, he cannot but find it much more reason- able that he and every other man should obey and revere, love and thank the author of their being to whom they owe all that they are. If he finds it reasonable to punish one of his children that injures another, he cannot but expect the same from God the Father of all men, when any one injures another; if he finds it reasonable that his children should assist and help one another and expects it from them as their duty, will he not also by the same reason conclude that God expects the same of all men one to another? If he finds that God has made him and all other men in a state wherein they cannot subsist without society and has given them judgement to discern what is capable of preserving that society, can he but conclude that he is obliged and that God requires him to follow those rules which conduce to the preserving of society?"

CONCLUSION: 

I am a Christian. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Savior of the world. I believe that God has expressed Himself to us in His Word and that those who trust the Person and work of Jesus Christ, will find peace with God.

But America is built on Natural Law, not Christian laws. 

My Muslim American friends ought to be free to worship as they please. My homosexual American friends should have the same civil liberties, the same freedoms, and the same privileges as those of us who believe marriage is only between a man and a woman. My American friends who disagree with me politically, religiously, and those who are different economically and intellectually, should all enjoy the same liberties as I.

Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness.

Civil liberties are built on Natural Law.

Natural Laws are higher than all conventional or governmental laws.

"When the government takes over an American's personal property (home or business) without due process (court ordered through legal action, precipitated by the individual's violations of Natural Law), or when the government takes away an American's individual liberty and coerces all Americans to conform to certain behaviors under threat of arrest, or when the government alone determines the course of an individual American's life, then that government has violated Natural Law and become detrimental to civil society, not beneficial."

Some might argue, "But the government demands conformity for the security of the American people." 

Any American willing to give up individual liberty for the sake of national security will one day lose both.