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The Anglo-American Tradition of Natural Law: Its Philosophical and Governing Principles
By Micheal Rawlings, a.k.a., Ringtone
Unpublished © November 2021
Excerpt:
John Locke (1632 – 1704) was a devout Christian raised in the Puritan tradition who wrote, arguably, history’s most famous defense of the faith, The Reasonableness of Christianity. He was a British physician and history’s chief empiricist philosopher of the tabula-rosa episteme. The impact of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding on the development of scientific methodology eclipsed the work of Aristotle, the progenitor of the episteme, and that of Francis Bacon, the progenitor of the scientific method itself. . . . If that were all Locke had achieved in life, his historic notability would have been established, but he didn’t stop there.
His contribution to the social contract theory of republicanism eclipsed his contribution to scientific methodology. He’s not only regarded as the Father of Classical Liberalism, which is not to be confused with the pablum of postmodernity, but the preeminent authority on republicanism itself, so much so that republicanism is often referred to as simply Lockean natural law, meaning that his exposition of it is history’s most widely received. Like any other historically influential thinker, Locke has his detractors—not so much within the ranks of republicanism as without, meaning that his critics are of the Marxist persuasion. Commies. More than any other’s thought on republicanism, his informed the Blackstonian reforms of British law in the 18th Century and the political philosophy of America’s Founders.
Locke even influenced Rousseau, insofar as the idea of social contract theory in and of itself goes, but, of course, Rousseau went his own way after that, into the land of Oz of singing and dancing Munchkins and other magical creatures, imagining that government could perfect humanity. . . .
. . . The Declaration of Independence is the sociopolitical expression of Lockean natural law 101. Except for the list of specific grievances and the Thomistic construct of inalienable rights itself, every single idea of political philosophy in that document drafted by Jefferson is Locke’s. Every single one of them! But, tragically, comparatively few American students know who Locke is today precisely because the Deweyan public education system doesn’t want them to study his ideas. His Christian philosophy of government is anathema to Dewey’s cultural naturalism of the Darwinian paradigm and his democratic collectivism.
Locke’s political theory consists of his social contract theory and theory of labor, the bulk of which is expounded in his Two Treatises of Civil Government (1689), arguably the most outstanding work of political theory in history. But then again, Locke regarded himself as nothing more than God’s attentive mouthpiece. As virtually all of the ontological and epistemological justifications for his arguments are predicated on biblical imperatives, the Treatises are steeped in scriptural citations. Locke acknowledges Aquinas’ epiphany regarding the standard of human rights befitting the dignity of the Imago Dei, but he argues his thesis from Christ’s summation of Mosaic law:
Locke held that any other foundation for liberty than the above, commonly referred to as the Christian iteration of the Golden Rule, is either faulty or incomplete. He also averred from the above that government is not only the servant of God but that of the people. While the people are obliged to obey the law of the land (Romans 13:1–7), the government is equally obliged to observe the terms of the social contract established by the people. The people are to reverently serve only one master, and that Master is not the state. Thusly, the sociopolitical implications of Christ’s imperatives immediately follow and are parallelly twofold.
(1) God is the Source and Guarantor of human rights, and because He endows them, they’re inalienable. These rights cannot be granted, taken away, or transferred to another by the state. The state can only illegitimately suppress their outward expressions in violation of the social contract, thereby creating a state of war between it and the people. In the face of gross governmental criminality (tyranny), it’s the duty of the people to overthrow the government in the name of God—for His sake and the sake of His creatures. Why? Because such a state evinces the audacity to establish a cult of injustice in defiance of God’s authority. (2) The citizens of the body politic are obliged to observe the inherent rights of their fellow citizens (neighbors) and may lawfully use force, up to and including deadly force, if necessary, against social renegades (criminals).
Allow for the following summary:
A deeper analysis of the range of legitimacy divulges the latter two principles listed in the bullet summary above, which are latently inherent to the Christian Golden Rule. Locke draws an inverse correlation between Christ’s positive summation of natural law and Paul’s negative exegesis of natural law (Romans 1:18–25). Positive: as long as one exercises one’s natural rights within the range of legitimacy, one’s actions cannot be criminal, so the government shouldn’t infringe on them. That goes to the principle of limited government, i.e., the regulatory principle of civil justice between the state and the people. Negative: human beings know what the legitimate range of free exercise is. Everybody knows that it’s wrong to murder, oppress or rob, precisely because they would not wish that others murder, oppress or rob them. That goes to the regulatory principle of social justice in criminal law between the people of the social contract. The corollary in civil law holds that the range of the free exercise of one’s rights ends where those of others begin.
Does any of the above sound familiar?
As for the pursuit of Happiness, that was a phrase of art commonly voiced by the British and American proponents of Lockean natural law in the 17th and 18th Centuries. The expression doesn’t originate with Jefferson at all, as so many mistakenly believe:
The phrase pertains to Locke’s construct of private property as premised on his theory of labor, which entails the sentiment in the above excerpt from his Essay and is clarified by him in his Treatises.
Locke held that the discovery of “true and solid happiness” is realized by the process of an intellectually careful examination of things in the pursuit of it. This process is “the foundation of liberty” because it frees one from enslavement to the base desires of false or “imaginary” happiness. Throwing off the fleshly inclinations of immediate gratification is the path of spiritual wisdom toward “our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow.” Here Locke is echoing Christ: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31–32, KJV).
In the Treatises, Locke asserts the natural right of the ownership of one's labor and the natural right of human beings to acquire the ownership of nature’s common property by exerting their labor on it to create and build and produce. What the people create and build and produce are the fruits of their labor, which they may sell or trade. Unfettered by the state, the people are free to apply their skills to improve the resources of nature's bounty as their consciences lead them under God. In their daily pursuit of happiness, God provides for their material, intellectual and spiritual needs proportionally to their efforts and their fidelity to the truth.
Thus, we have the overarching theme of Locke’s theory of natural law: the inherent right of individuals to peacefully pursue their self-interests within the framework of the social contract of consent, free of undue governmental interference.
By Micheal Rawlings, a.k.a., Ringtone
Unpublished © November 2021
Excerpt:
John Locke (1632 – 1704) was a devout Christian raised in the Puritan tradition who wrote, arguably, history’s most famous defense of the faith, The Reasonableness of Christianity. He was a British physician and history’s chief empiricist philosopher of the tabula-rosa episteme. The impact of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding on the development of scientific methodology eclipsed the work of Aristotle, the progenitor of the episteme, and that of Francis Bacon, the progenitor of the scientific method itself. . . . If that were all Locke had achieved in life, his historic notability would have been established, but he didn’t stop there.
His contribution to the social contract theory of republicanism eclipsed his contribution to scientific methodology. He’s not only regarded as the Father of Classical Liberalism, which is not to be confused with the pablum of postmodernity, but the preeminent authority on republicanism itself, so much so that republicanism is often referred to as simply Lockean natural law, meaning that his exposition of it is history’s most widely received. Like any other historically influential thinker, Locke has his detractors—not so much within the ranks of republicanism as without, meaning that his critics are of the Marxist persuasion. Commies. More than any other’s thought on republicanism, his informed the Blackstonian reforms of British law in the 18th Century and the political philosophy of America’s Founders.
Locke even influenced Rousseau, insofar as the idea of social contract theory in and of itself goes, but, of course, Rousseau went his own way after that, into the land of Oz of singing and dancing Munchkins and other magical creatures, imagining that government could perfect humanity. . . .
. . . The Declaration of Independence is the sociopolitical expression of Lockean natural law 101. Except for the list of specific grievances and the Thomistic construct of inalienable rights itself, every single idea of political philosophy in that document drafted by Jefferson is Locke’s. Every single one of them! But, tragically, comparatively few American students know who Locke is today precisely because the Deweyan public education system doesn’t want them to study his ideas. His Christian philosophy of government is anathema to Dewey’s cultural naturalism of the Darwinian paradigm and his democratic collectivism.
Locke’s political theory consists of his social contract theory and theory of labor, the bulk of which is expounded in his Two Treatises of Civil Government (1689), arguably the most outstanding work of political theory in history. But then again, Locke regarded himself as nothing more than God’s attentive mouthpiece. As virtually all of the ontological and epistemological justifications for his arguments are predicated on biblical imperatives, the Treatises are steeped in scriptural citations. Locke acknowledges Aquinas’ epiphany regarding the standard of human rights befitting the dignity of the Imago Dei, but he argues his thesis from Christ’s summation of Mosaic law:
Locke held that any other foundation for liberty than the above, commonly referred to as the Christian iteration of the Golden Rule, is either faulty or incomplete. He also averred from the above that government is not only the servant of God but that of the people. While the people are obliged to obey the law of the land (Romans 13:1–7), the government is equally obliged to observe the terms of the social contract established by the people. The people are to reverently serve only one master, and that Master is not the state. Thusly, the sociopolitical implications of Christ’s imperatives immediately follow and are parallelly twofold.
(1) God is the Source and Guarantor of human rights, and because He endows them, they’re inalienable. These rights cannot be granted, taken away, or transferred to another by the state. The state can only illegitimately suppress their outward expressions in violation of the social contract, thereby creating a state of war between it and the people. In the face of gross governmental criminality (tyranny), it’s the duty of the people to overthrow the government in the name of God—for His sake and the sake of His creatures. Why? Because such a state evinces the audacity to establish a cult of injustice in defiance of God’s authority. (2) The citizens of the body politic are obliged to observe the inherent rights of their fellow citizens (neighbors) and may lawfully use force, up to and including deadly force, if necessary, against social renegades (criminals).
Allow for the following summary:
- The principle of inalienable human rights, Aquinas’ insight reiterated by Locke
- The principle that the state is the servant of God and the people
- The principle of the consent of the governed (or as Abraham Lincoln put it in his Gettysburg Address: “the government of the people, by the people, for the people”)
- The principle that the state solely exists at the behest of God to protect and promote the inherent rights of the people
- The inherent right of the people to keep and bear arms for self-defense against criminals and criminal regimes
- Specifically, the inherent right of revolt
- The regulatory principle of civil justice per the limited range of governmental power
- The regulatory principle of social justice per the legitimate range of human action
A deeper analysis of the range of legitimacy divulges the latter two principles listed in the bullet summary above, which are latently inherent to the Christian Golden Rule. Locke draws an inverse correlation between Christ’s positive summation of natural law and Paul’s negative exegesis of natural law (Romans 1:18–25). Positive: as long as one exercises one’s natural rights within the range of legitimacy, one’s actions cannot be criminal, so the government shouldn’t infringe on them. That goes to the principle of limited government, i.e., the regulatory principle of civil justice between the state and the people. Negative: human beings know what the legitimate range of free exercise is. Everybody knows that it’s wrong to murder, oppress or rob, precisely because they would not wish that others murder, oppress or rob them. That goes to the regulatory principle of social justice in criminal law between the people of the social contract. The corollary in civil law holds that the range of the free exercise of one’s rights ends where those of others begin.
Does any of the above sound familiar?
As for the pursuit of Happiness, that was a phrase of art commonly voiced by the British and American proponents of Lockean natural law in the 17th and 18th Centuries. The expression doesn’t originate with Jefferson at all, as so many mistakenly believe:
The phrase pertains to Locke’s construct of private property as premised on his theory of labor, which entails the sentiment in the above excerpt from his Essay and is clarified by him in his Treatises.
Locke held that the discovery of “true and solid happiness” is realized by the process of an intellectually careful examination of things in the pursuit of it. This process is “the foundation of liberty” because it frees one from enslavement to the base desires of false or “imaginary” happiness. Throwing off the fleshly inclinations of immediate gratification is the path of spiritual wisdom toward “our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow.” Here Locke is echoing Christ: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31–32, KJV).
In the Treatises, Locke asserts the natural right of the ownership of one's labor and the natural right of human beings to acquire the ownership of nature’s common property by exerting their labor on it to create and build and produce. What the people create and build and produce are the fruits of their labor, which they may sell or trade. Unfettered by the state, the people are free to apply their skills to improve the resources of nature's bounty as their consciences lead them under God. In their daily pursuit of happiness, God provides for their material, intellectual and spiritual needs proportionally to their efforts and their fidelity to the truth.
Thus, we have the overarching theme of Locke’s theory of natural law: the inherent right of individuals to peacefully pursue their self-interests within the framework of the social contract of consent, free of undue governmental interference.
