Natural Law: the Essentials of National Constitutions

Natural Law: the Essentials

NATURAL LAW: THE ESSENTIALS. Many constitutions have followed the US model since the year 1789. But the US Constitution itself derived from the Declaration of Independence and, in turn, from the Bible.

The Declaration states that these truths are “self-evident”: that the Creator created all men equal. That He endowed them with inalienable rights. And that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

All people know we have a Creator according to Romans 1:19-21. Since creation people know the Creator’s “evident” attributes through what He has made. Therefore, “they are without excuse.” What God has made we call nature. Nature, including fallen human nature, operates according to natural laws. Common sense, along with God-given conscience, allow people to recognize natural laws.

Both Jews and Gentiles “show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them” (Rom. 2:15). Natural laws are impartial and just, and show the difference between right and wrong.

We know God considers all people equal because “God does not show favoritism” (Acts 10:34). He created each of us in His image and gave us dominion over the earth (Gen. 1:26-28). As His “likeness” (verse 26), each of us can learn His thoughts.

We can learn how to rule ourselves and whatever part of earth He has given each of us dominion over. He also gave us freedom of choice and, in the beginning, only one law or limitation on our freedom. “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden.” Except from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17).

Why we need natural laws

But man sinned against this natural, God-created order of things. Therefore we need more laws to define what sin is, according to our conscience in Romans 2:15 above. We can live within those laws by exercising our fundamental God-given freedoms. They include not only conscience, but freedom of expression, religion, assembly, and association.

We have a natural right to such freedoms. We need them to can carry out our God-given rule over ourselves and our proper domains. God created each of us equal in the sense that we should have equal opportunity and rights to use what God has given us without trespassing on others’ rights. To “do to others what you would have them do to you” (Mt. 7:12).

The government makes laws to protect our natural freedoms. The laws limit us from abusing our freedoms and from trespassing on others’ freedoms. We have God-given “inalienable” rights to these limited freedoms which government cannot take away.

Natural law recognizes the way God created us and the earth we have dominion over. Contrary to natural law, artificial law creates artificial rights which violate God’s justice and created natural order.

For that reason, Chileans rejected an artificial woke constitution by a 62 percent vote. So far, members of Belize’s Constitutional Commission have rejected similar measures. Because they violate our Constitution’s preamble which is based on natural law. Natural law comes natural to any nation that considers a change to its constitution.

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