God is in Declaration
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Editor,
Mr. Bell may want to carefully reread my letter. I was commenting on Mr. Tester’s “Independence Day” email and referring to the “document that instigated this great day of celebration.” That would be the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration does indeed refer to the God that its authors and signers believed “endowed” individuals with “unalienable rights.” The terms are common references, used reverentially, to the Lord God of the Bible in sermons, speeches, lectures, and writings, especially in colonial America: first paragraph, “Nature's God;” second paragraph, “Creator;” last paragraph,”Supreme Judge of the World” and “divine Providence.”
After acknowledging that some “truths” are “self-evident,” the Declaration states that the purpose of government is “to secure these rights.” If one embraces the notion that our rights come from men, or any man-made institution or document, as Mr. Tester’s message conveyed, these rights cannot be “unalienable.” In fact, within that worldview, we no longer have rights but rather government granted “privileges,” which are only as “secure” as the ever changing whims of despotic dictators or majoritarian mobs, whichever wields political power at the time, allow them to be —which is not at all.
Our rights are “unalienable” only because they come from an authority that is greater (higher than, superior to) the authority of man. This is the point of Jefferson’s statement and his rhetorical and timeless question: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” Mr. Bell will get no argument from me regarding his contention that “political power (is used) to control” our personal lives, liberty, and property far too often. I would suggest, however, that it is exactly the presuppositions expressed by himself and Mr. Tester that precludes any limitations on the jurisdiction of civil government. For if our “liberty” is granted only by the authority of men, on what basis is there any limitation on that authority? The authority of other men?
Rick Jore
Polson
