My personal freedom originates either from within me or outside of me.
If it is from within me, then it is from within all. If that is so, who is the arbiter of my freedom among the freedoms of all others? How can I grant freedom to myself? What power do I have to bestow upon myself such a right? And when all of us exercise such a self-bestowed right, then our individual definitions of that freedom will certainly vary and even contradict each other.
If my freedom originates outside of me, then that is true for all. If so, who gives me, and everyone else, that freedom? Do we grant freedom to each other? Do those who know us grant freedom to us? Perhaps a social club, a school or a church grants freedom to me. Does government grant it to me? Local government? County or state? Federal government? Do I receive my freedom from world government?
If so, then I do not have lasting, enduring, inalienable freedom, for it can then be suspended or removed. This granted freedom is not inherent freedom, for granted freedom can be removed at any time, depending on the beneficence of the grantee.
As a being, I desire freedom from birth to death. I want freedom when I am strong and when I am weak. I want freedom as a defenseless, developing child in the womb to a defenseless, dying one ready to be laid in a tomb. I want freedom to think and act. I want freedom to not act. I want freedom to choose without coercion. I want to act without intimidation.
A studied look around, a mere glance around, convinces me that everyone else has the same desire. I am not unique, for it is in the heart of everyone to be free. How did we all come to have this passion in all our hearts? Why do we all like independence and self-government? Damage or cut off my leg—I want freedom to be mobile. Paralyze me completely and I still desire independence, perhaps more so precisely because my freedom has been impaired. And there I find my freedom in thought. Freedom courses through my brain.
Why do we all have freedom coursing through our minds? Is it because we all consist of the same chemical makeup? If so, how do those chemicals, mere molecules, impart freedom to us as well as the desire to exercise that freedom? How does the physical impart a desire, a passion so hard to quell that life itself may be risked to gain liberty? How do chemicals impart a passion for freedom so strong that it may include risking the destruction of those very molecules?
Freedom is indeed within each of us, but it originates not from us, but from our Creator. In granting life to each of us, our Creator bestowed freedom upon us and the desire to exercise that freedom. It is a right given and unalienable. Those who risked all to gain liberty declared:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.When our founding fathers declared their intent to throw off the yoke of the British Crown, they grounded their intent, not in political philosophy of the day, but in the Hebrew thought of the Bible that was at least 4,000 years old. The Judaeo-Christian God created and endowed each person with freedom. Further they asserted, "We hold these truths to be self-evident. . ."
We all are created equal and each of us is endowed, an act performed by our Creator, who must of necessity be free. This endowment consists of bestowing rights upon each created one that are granted by God and no one else. These rights are unalienable. They are intrinsic to our being. These rights cannot be stripped from our being because they are indelibly imprinted on each created person by the Creator. These rights include, but are not limited to, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Our freedom is a derived liberty, bestowed by the Creator. This Christian view of liberty stands in stark contrast to any view that declares government bestows liberty upon individuals. Any government that is so arrogant to conceive it grants freedom can also retract it. Any government that is so arrogant to conceive it grants rights can also retract them.
Any government that recognizes each individual has certain intrinsic, God-bestowed rights which that government should not violate, will tend to be good government. Any government that believes it grants rights will tend toward bad government because it will manufacture rights that are not inalienable and/or it will retract rights that are inalienable or even those manufactured by that government.
Our founding fathers gave us a form of government that was grounded upon individual freedom that is inalienable because it is bestowed by God. Government cannot make freedom inalienable in truth, but in practice. Can we keep it?
