What are God given rights or entitlements?

[musingsofacac]

I tried posting this in another forum, but I think it actually belongs here.

Most Christians would say as believers we "deserve nothing but hell" or something like that.

Yet God grants rights and entitlements in the Bible.

Let me give a few examples from the scriptures where rights or entitlements are granted by God:

Man’s rights are granted by God

“5 God is mighty, but despises no one;
he is mighty, and firm in his purpose.
6 He does not keep the wicked alive
but gives the afflicted their rights.”

Job 36:5-6

Governments are supposed to protect the rights of the people

“It is not for kings, Lemuel—
it is not for kings to drink wine,
not for rulers to crave beer,
5 lest they drink and forget what has been decreed,
and deprive all the oppressed of their rights.”

Proverbs 31:4-5

There are several passages in the Bible that talk about God given rights – but I Corinthians 9:4-12 is one of the best passages on basic human rights granted by God:

“4 Don’t we have the right to food and drink? 5 Don’t we have the right to take a believing wife along with us, as do the other apostles and the Lord’s brothers and Cephas? 6 Or is it only I and Barnabas who lack the right to not work for a living?
7 Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? 8 Do I say this merely on human authority? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10 Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest. 11 If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? 12 If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more?
But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ.”

Paul expounds upon the right to marry, the right to eat and drink, the right to earn a living, the right of ministers to be paid for their service to their flocks. He also says in this case with this church(Corinth) he did no use the right to paid, because he knew it would hinder his ministry in that church. But in other churches they did take pay.

But he also warns to be careful in how we exercise our God given rights, that you don’t abuse those rights.

“Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.”

I Corinthians 8:9

I could go on, for the Bible grants many rights. But as Paul says, sometimes there are rights we do not have to exercise.

So here are the questions for all you philosophers out there:

Are there rights we must exercise?

Do we have the right to fight for our God given rights? Apparently our founding fathers thought we did(but that is a whole other discussion)?

Are there any rights we have that we are required to also exercise?

What are we entitled to?

I am asking all this of course from Biblical perspective.

 

[variant]

Rights are ideas. We have the ones we can convince people we have. Another idea "God" is one of the ideas people use to accomplish this.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I tried posting this in another forum, but I think it actually belongs here.

Most Christians would say as believers we "deserve nothing but hell" or something like that.

Yet God grants rights and entitlements in the Bible.

Let me give a few examples from the scriptures where rights or entitlements are granted by God:

Man’s rights are granted by God

Job 36:5-6

Governments are supposed to protect the rights of the people

Proverbs 31:4-5

There are several passages in the Bible that talk about God given rights – but I Corinthians 9:4-12 is one of the best passages on basic human rights granted by God:

Paul expounds upon the right to marry, the right to eat and drink, the right to earn a living, the right of ministers to be paid for their service to their flocks. He also says in this case with this church(Corinth) he did no use the right to paid, because he knew it would hinder his ministry in that church. But in other churches they did take pay.

But he also warns to be careful in how we exercise our God given rights, that you don’t abuse those rights.

I Corinthians 8:9

I could go on, for the Bible grants many rights. But as Paul says, sometimes there are rights we do not have to exercise.

So here are the questions for all you philosophers out there:

Are there rights we must exercise?

Do we have the right to fight for our God given rights? Apparently our founding fathers thought we did(but that is a whole other discussion)?

Are there any rights we have that we are required to also exercise?

What are we entitled to?

I am asking all this of course from Biblical perspective.

Well, biblically speaking, we don't have a right to believe in other Gods. So, the biblical concept of rights is only in relation to God's law, not those derived by human reason in an otherwise hostile world.

 

[Chesterton]

"Right" is a strange word. If I were an atheist I'd have to say there is absolutely no such thing as a right. A right can only be God-given, otherwise it is a human legal fiction which can be changed, amended, repealed, etc., which means it never was a right in the first place.

What are we entitled to?

Whether Christian or atheist, we are entitled to nothing.

 

[Ken-1122]

I tried posting this in another forum, but I think it actually belongs here.

Most Christians would say as believers we "deserve nothing but hell" or something like that.

Yet God grants rights and entitlements in the Bible.

Let me give a few examples from the scriptures where rights or entitlements are granted by God:

Man’s rights are granted by God

Job 36:5-6

Governments are supposed to protect the rights of the people

Proverbs 31:4-5

There are several passages in the Bible that talk about God given rights – but I Corinthians 9:4-12 is one of the best passages on basic human rights granted by God:

Paul expounds upon the right to marry, the right to eat and drink, the right to earn a living, the right of ministers to be paid for their service to their flocks. He also says in this case with this church(Corinth) he did no use the right to paid, because he knew it would hinder his ministry in that church. But in other churches they did take pay.

But he also warns to be careful in how we exercise our God given rights, that you don’t abuse those rights.

I Corinthians 8:9

I could go on, for the Bible grants many rights. But as Paul says, sometimes there are rights we do not have to exercise.

So here are the questions for all you philosophers out there:

Are there rights we must exercise?

Do we have the right to fight for our God given rights? Apparently our founding fathers thought we did(but that is a whole other discussion)?

Are there any rights we have that we are required to also exercise?

What are we entitled to?

I am asking all this of course from Biblical perspective.

Assuming such a right actually existed; what good is a God given right if God isn't going to enforce them?

Ken

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

I'm not entirely sure that this is the best forum for this, actually, given that it takes place in an explicitly Christian framework.

I think that, from a Christian perspective, the argument that we have rights comes from a combination of the theological points of God's mercy, human dignity, and of man's freedom to make decisions. God's mercy would keep people from immediately going to Hell. In the words of the late, not-so-great Jonathan Edwards, God's mercy holds us over the fires of Hell like a man holding a loathsome spider. Human dignity, in the Christian conception, comes from man's being made in the image of God and being capable of being in a relationship with the Creator. Human freedom comes from that same source. If people couldn't make a decision to be in a relationship with God, then there would be no risk of people making the opposite decision, but the relationship would not be as meaningful.

From an atheist perspective (and more precisely, the atheist perspective that I have as an individual, because there is no one atheist perspective), rights are a way of describing the basic necessary aspects for human happiness that the government should in some cases provide and in some cases protect from itself. That would include the right to life (including healthcare), liberty (including free speech and protection from unreasonable police searches or seizures), and the pursuit of happiness/property (which would include the right to worship as you see fit, or to do what you wanted as long as it was not harmful to anyone else).