The Declaration & Divinely Endowed Rights
Another one of the core principles articulated in the Declaration is that all human beings “are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights,” which simply means these rights cannot be taken or given away by any other human being because they don’t come from any other human being. They are divinely endowed, they come from God.
The profound spiritual and theological implications summarized in this clause are hard to miss. The Founders begin with the three-fold cord of inherent rights, nature’s laws and the divine Creator as inseparable, and therefore, present it as one of the Declaration’s founding assertions.
Moreover, they did so by reinforcing the biblical presupposition that natural law is inscribed in the hearts of all men. As Jefferson put it, “We had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up Royal parchments, or to investigate the laws & institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. We appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved in our hearts.”
The point the Founders were making was a radical paradigm shift from how previous nation-states viewed human rights. The right to live and the right to live free were at the heart of “divinely endowed rights,” and the assumption that they were inherent because they were sacred was an idea informed by not only their civic assumptions but their religious worldview as well.
For any creature to be divinely endowed by the Creator is to elevate its significance, putting it in a different category from other creatures that have not been similarly graced. That means that in the natural order of things, because of this divine aspect, it gives humanity a unique quality. Echoed by classical philosophy and informed by Christian theology, human beings are expressly created in the image of God.
This infers at least three things: (1) humans are not animals and should not be treated as such; (2) all humans have value and should be respected as such; and (3) all human beings are equal and should be recognized as such.
Take the first one, humans are not animals. When John Adams said, “All Men are Men and not Beasts: Men and not Birds: Men and not Fishes,” he was actually saying that because humans are not animals, they should not act like animals, they should not be treated like animals, and they should not treat others like animals. (This explains why Adams never owned a slave and was so vehemently against the institution to his dying day.)
Moreover, Adams’ words were also implying that human beings are in a different category from the animals in a number of key ways: we have a conscience, we can reason morally, and therefore, we are responsible for our actions.
The fundamental difference between humans and animals is another one of those self-evident truths implied in the Declaration. As historian Matthew Spaulding explains it, “It is not unjust to saddle the horse or for man to ride and direct it as a beast of burden because the relationship between man and horse is that of master and domesticated animal. We do not debate with the horse which of the two wears the boots or the saddle and need not ask for the horse’s consent to ride it. We should treat animals humanely … but that does not mean they have inherent rights or liberties.” (The Making of the American Mind, p. 204)
Secondly, bearing God’s image imbued humans with value, which meant they all have worth, which meant they should all be treated with dignity. Slavery, of course, did the exact opposite in colonial days. So does sex trafficking, pornography, rape and abortion in our day. So does rudeness, disrespect, discrimination, name-calling, slander, stealing, murder, neglect and abuse.
And thirdly, all men are equal because they are created that way. In John Adams words, “The genuine Equality of human Nature really means little more than that We are all of the same Species: made by the same God: possessed of Minds and Bodies alike in Essence: having all the same Reason, Passions, Affections and appetites.”
Humans are not animals, humans have value, all humans are equal, and all have God-given rights. Either you believe that or you don’t. The Founders did and were prepared to act on it, and when they signed the Declaration of Independence, we became the first society to do so.
Brian Schroeder is the former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction, an ordained minister and founder/president of the ChrisCorps Commission.