John Locke, the 17th Century English thinker who founded the modern theory of rights, believed rights were grounded in our duties to God. For him, human freedom was divinely ordained.Gray goes on to point out that many people today who are indifferent or even hostile to the idea of religion have adopted the idea of universal human rights with a similarly religious belief, not only in their existence, but also in their innate ability to set everything right, if only they were universally accepted (similar to how evangelicals feel about their own beliefs). In the Christian world, this would be termed an "other gospel", a solution to the world's ills other than following Christ. It may be true that God ordains freedom for humans, but the logical conclusion that there is a set of rights than can attain this freedom is tenuous at best. Gray points out that this is not guaranteed to protect universal values or resolve conflicts.
The ideal of a world ruled by rights distracts us from an unalterable reality - we'll always be mired in dangerous and only partly soluble conflicts. Human rights can't get round the fact that human values are at odds with one another. The freedom from conflict that many people seek in rights is just an illusion.He goes on to suggest that tolerance often works better than a rights orientation to help people resolve their differences and get along, citing the Ottoman Empire, and England.
Now, in my monotheistic and in particular, Christian, point of view, what we have here is an elegant secular argument for grace over the law.
Human rights and universal values (ie things that are inherently good for everyone) are not even universally agreed to in theory, and so in practice there are constant conflicts. It is the knowledge of good and evil, our innate tendency to see things in terms of right and wrong, that is actually the original cause of these conflicts, and while we have instituted governments to try to resolve them, it is with obviously limited success. As Mr. Gray says,
This isn't only because every society is bound to be less than perfect. It's because we lack any coherent idea of what a perfect society would actually be like.But Jesus offers a solution: love. Love God with all your heart, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets; surrendering your "rights" to him will result in his personally assisting you to be loving as He is loving. Thus begins a life-long transformation.
The law, even the Law of Moses, is weak through the flesh. A system of human rights is still just a system, and humans have a way of convincing themselves that they can't follow the system on various occasions. But Christianity offers not a system, but a loving person to follow. Only with grace and love, flowing from the Spirit of God, can we overcome the inevitable conflicts of life. Check out Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 8 for a more complete discussion of this.
One other thing about evangelism, and the incessant work to convert people to any religious belief: even if we were successful in doing so, it would not resolve all human conflict, whether the entire world converted to the Human Rights gospel or the Christian gospel or the Corporate Greed gospel, there would still be conflicts going forward. Even Christianity, which I believe is the true way, states that in the world you will have conflict; but be of good cheer: Jesus has overcome the world. And someday this work of art, the World, will be brought to an end, and God will make right every miserable error that He has lovingly tolerated for so long. Only then will there be an end to human conflict.
