I Wish They Were Self-Evident

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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

--From The Declaration of Independence

Along with many Americans, I love the Declaration of Independence. However, I must admit, and have come to discover only recently, that there is a fundamental flaw in the crucial sentence quoted above. The truths, namely, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the nature of governmental power as being derived from the consent of the governed, and the right of revolution are, alas, not self-evident. It almost sounds treasonous to say that, but I think if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit the truth. A self-evident proposition is one which needs no additional evidence to support its factuality. For instance, the statement 2 + 2 = 4 is self-evident. This does not mean that is it obvious. The statement may appear obvious, it may even be obvious, but not all self-evident statements are obvious. A complex mathematical equation, if true and properly executed, is self-evident, but it is by no means obvious or easily understood, especially to one mathematically challenged, such as myself. We must ask ourselves, is it really self-evident that men are created with specific rights? Is it really self-evident that governments derive their power from the consent of the governed? Is it really self- evident that the people have a right to violent revolt when governments become destructive to the stated ends? Do those who disagree, and there are many, have some sort of serious malfunction in their grasp of logic and reality? Of course not. Obviously, many of the British did not see all of these things as self-evident in the least, yet I suspect no one would consider them a rag tag lot of intellectual dolts. The fact is these propositions are not self-evident. They are reasonable propositions based on arguments from other propositions, entailing such notions as the existence of a personal Creator, the fundamental goodness of that Creator, the willingness of that Creator to endow His rational, created beings with definable rights, the greater ontological status of the divinely created individual over the artificial, humanly created, collective institution, and many others. One could argue that all, most, many, or some of these notions are self-evident, but, even if so, the self-evidential nature is not necessarily commuted to derived deductions. The fact is the Declaration propositions are the product of a long, historical development of political science, with direct, profound, and necessary influence from certain religious and philosophical presuppositions and assertions. Interestingly, many do not know that the term “self-evident” was not what Jefferson originally penned. Originally, he claimed that such rights were “sacred and undeniable.” In my humble opinion, the young American Congress should have stuck with the original. The propositions are not self-evident, but they are sacred, for they are derived from the principles of true religion. They are undeniable, not because they are self-evident, but because they are based on higher principles of natural law, divine revelation, and even pragmatic desires, which cannot be denied without wreaking havoc within the human condition. Now, my patient reader may be beginning to wonder where I am going with this, that is, what is my point. Well, I am glad you asked. My point is not to deny the objective existence of the rights in question, for I do believe them to be sacred and undeniable. My point is to remind us that our ideals do not stand in a theological and philosophical vacuum. One does not have to hold to any specific theological or philosophical principles, at least not directly, to realize that 2 + 2 = 4. However, one does have to hold to certain theological, philosophical, and even anthropological principles to believe in such a thing as unalienable human rights. I wish such rights were self-evident, for then it would be highly unlikely that they would be trampled upon by even remotely reasonable people. But, alas, it is not so simple and easy. If the supporting principles are eroded, the ideals, the rights, will erode as well. If the intellectual underpinnings and buttresses are removed, the ideals will fall like a building without a foundation. Many today fancy that they can throw out what they perceive to be the bathwater and keep the baby. Unfortunately for them, the analogy does not hold, for the principles they would eschew are not to our American ideals as used bathwater is to a clean baby. The principles are to our American ideals as the womb is to the fetus.

Honor, Liberty, Truth!