Some thoughts about human rights, morality, and God

"The word rights is meaningless outside the context of some moral framework that extends its protection to the whole human family."
-- Study Guide for Whatever Happened to the Human Race?,
Francis A. Schaeffer & C. Everett Koop, MD, 1979

"There can be no Rights of Man except on the basis of faith in God."
-- William Temple

"The tragedy is that "human right" have not always meant "equal rights". The good gifts of the Creator are spoiled by human selfishness. The rights God gave to all human beings equally, easily degenerate into my rights on which I insist, irrespective of the rights of others or of the common good."

"The Bible says much about defending other people's rights, but little about defending our own. On the contrary, when it addresses us, it emphasizes our responsibilities, not our rights. ... It emphasizes that our responsibility is to secure the other person's rights. We must even forego our own rights in order to do so. Of this responsible renunciation of rights Jesus is the supreme model." [Philipians 2.6-7]
-- John Stott

"Since God is His own standard, His moral precepts do not have validity apart from Him. But, His moral revelation does have intrinsic validity in relation to us. When we violate God's standard, there are always built-in consequences."

"...the moral laws of God can not be altered. We can not obliterate God's standards just because 51 percent of the people favor a change in moral codes. The only difference between physical laws and moral laws is that the consequences of ignoring physical laws are immediately apparent: In the case of moral laws the consequences are just as certain, though often delayed."
--Erwin Lutzer,
The Necessity of Ethical Absolutes,
(Dallas, Texas: Christian Free University Books, Zondervan, Dallas, 1981, pp.83-84)