Locke, Religion, Rights, and the Rise of Modernity

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” – so runs the beginning of the second paragraph of the American Declaration of Independence. If we ignore, for the moment, the “self-evident” problems of non-inclusive language or the fact that a society which paid lip-service to equal rights was propped up by a system of racial exploitation and slavery, Thomas Jefferson, the architect behind most of the Declaration, was making a point that many modern western democracies, at least in principle, still hold to be true: while government may be an artificial product of human creation, human rights are “unalienable.” In this sense, rights are more fundamental than government, for they precede it and are the end towards which government is directed. This raises the question of where does our concept of “unalienable” rights originate? What I want to pursue here is the notion that there is connection between the idea that human beings have certain unalienable rights, and the idea that the Creator endows humans with these rights. To proceed with this task, I want to take an indirect look at the theologico-political underpinnings of the Declaration. It is well known that Jefferson drew much of his theoretical scaffolding for the Declaration from the English political philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) and his Two Treatises of Government, especially the Second Treatise. For instance, the idea that “all men are created equal” or that government “derives its just power from the consent of the governed” can be traced to the Second Treatise, sections 54 and 99 respectively. What is perhaps not as well known is that Locke’s First Treatise contains a prolonged biblical argument with Sir Robert Filmer (1588-1653), a staunch advocate of the theory of the divine right of kings. Locke’s First Treatise is not often read these days, mainly because few are interested in the kind of polemical style that characterizes it, and even fewer are interested in the subject matter – an argument over the proper interpretation of Genesis. One also wonders why a philosopher of the magnitude of John Locke would even bother to trouble himself to expose the absurdities of Filmer’s biblical politics. Nevertheless, by hearkening back to Filmer’s argument, we can see why Locke’s First Treatise was so necessary, how it provides the theological framework for his political system in his Second Treatise, and how it can be said to found a system where rights are deemed “unalienable.” Filmer’s “biblical politics” are contained in a number of his writings though it is Patriarcha, republished in 1680, which seems to have provoked Locke to respond in kind with his own notion of a “politics from Scripture.” Filmer looked to Genesis to “prove” that God gave the first human being, Adam, an unlimited right to property, absolute political power, and dominion over everything – including other people – in the original grant of government. Adam, as father and as absolute monarch of the whole world, ruled by divine right. All individuals were to be subservient to the king in varying degrees within the hierarchical order: (a) women were subject to men; (b) younger brothers were subject to the eldest brother; (c) the eldest brother was subject to the father; (d) the father was subject to the king. In other words, no one was born in freedom. As Filmer writes in Directions for Obedience to Government in Dangerous and Doubtful Times: For Filmer, all people were …