HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2013 / SPRING / THE LIFE AFTER WITH CHRIS LEE
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VOLUME 14, ISSUE 1
D E P A R T M E N T S
The life AFTER with Chris Lee
The world has just celebrated Easter, and with Jesus’ resurrection vivid in my mind, I find my thoughts turning in an unexpected direction. I am repeatedly drawn to a scrap of paper lying on my desk, covered with notes I scrawled while listening to my daughter’s high school debate team. The two debaters were deliberating over when, or if, it is acceptable for one government to intervene in another government’s affairs for the purpose of enforcing human rights. The debater advancing the argument that governments should intervene contended that there are rights which are intrinsic to humanity; to deny or abuse these rights is immoral and dehumanizing. Therefore, governments have a moral obligation to act when rights are being violated.
While I found the reasoning compelling, the antithetical argument, governments should not intervene, seemed to score strong points as well. I found myself writing questions such as, “What makes a right intrinsic to humanity? Which rights are truly intrinsic versus granted? Which abuses do we allow and which do we intervene in? Why is it immoral to dehumanize someone? Who defines this morality?” In the absence of answers to these key questions, either position could appear valid on the surface.
It seems to me that the associated ideas of human dignity and innate human rights are meaningless apart from an underlying supportive worldview. If humans are merely the product of time plus chance, then concepts of dignity and innate rights are absurdities. If there are such things as dignity or inherent rights, then these qualities must be derived by some objective standard. Apart from such a standard there is only relativistic subjectivity or the assertion that there is no right or wrong. Apart from any objective external standard, there is simply that which is.
A purely materialistic world view cannot satisfactorily answer why humans should be afforded dignity and rights or why this is an issue of morality. There is no strong reason why humans should have rights beyond that of any other species of animal if we are here through random mutation and survival of the fittest. There is no particular dignity in winning a genetic lottery.
Humans only have intrinsic dignity if that quality is in some way built-in. In Christian theology, human dignity is indeed built-in, bestowed by a Creator. Humans have intrinsic value because they bear the image of God and reflect some of His attributes. We have certain inalienable rights because those, too, are endowed by the Creator. These natural rights are not contingent upon human law, custom, culture, or government, but upon the universal natural law that God has established within His creation.
These rights are not all we’ve been given, though. Our God did not merely create us, then leave us to fend for ourselves. Rather, He came into the world and became human to dwell with us. He came to those He created, and we humans put Him to death—but that’s not the end of the story. He rose again and lives today. To any that believe in Him He gives the right to become children of God, born of God (Jn. 1:9-13). Because He rose again and sits at the right hand of God, those who believe are raised up with Him and seated in heavenly places (Eph. 2:6). Because of Easter, we need not question whether we have dignity or rights. We have been afforded the ultimate human right; we have been adopted into the family of God. We have been given these great riches, not because we in any way deserve them, but because of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, that’s a right we can celebrate! †
Copyright 2013 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Casa Grande, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised April 3, 2013. Contact email: proclamation@gmail.com
Chris Lee lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife, Carmen, and daughters, Ashlyn and Alyssa. They attend the Lincoln Berean Church. Chris is a self-described "theology junkie" whose mission is to proclaim the unfathomable grace of Christ in a clear, understandable, and Biblical way. Chris is the editor of the Proclamation! Blog at ProclamationMagazine.com. You may contact Chris by email at ambulater@gmail.com.
