When the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution of the United States, they made liberal use of the concept of rights. They famously held that such rights were “self-evident,” and were an endowment from the “Creator.” This assertion made perfect sense in 1776 when Western civilization had been Christian for a thousand or more years. But historically speaking, there is a problem here. If human equality and the existence of a Creator are really self-evident truths, then what are we to make of societies that recognize neither? The confident assertion of self-evidence is connected to the general immodesty of the Enlightenment,
Articles tagged with natural law
Anxiety as Byproduct of the Rejection of Natural Law
Saturday, my host family took me to visit the town of Ely, which is near Cambridge where I’m enjoying a short sabbatical. Much of the medieval cathedral and its monastic buildings are still in existence. While I was there, the Worchester Cathedral Chamber Choir offered a short concert of pieces by Elgar, Handel, John Ireland, and others. Afterward, we all had tea. It was a splendid day.