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1 in Faith: A Christian Bible Study |
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Notes: Chapter 13 - Global 1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, ed. G. E. M. Anscombe (New York: Macmillan Company, 1983), 20e.2 Wilfred Cantwell Smith, letter to author, 19 June 1987.3 John Courtney Murray, S.J. presents a clear and concise argument for a natural law philosophy of human rights over against the alternative theories of "Liberal individualism," Marxism, and "the new rationalism" based on the premises of the autonomy of the human person in a dynamic and evolving world. Murray unmasks this new rationalism as an ethical relativism which merely transforms the "wants" of a given time and place into concepts of "rights." Moreover, he suggests that when this philosophy is combined with scientific technology and the power of the modern state, it tends to absolutize the values and functions of the state. Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (Kansas City, Mo.: Sheed and Ward, 1960), 320-27.4 Jerome Hall affirms that what really counts is not arguments about faith, but "action expressing faith." Hall, "Religion, Law and Ethics—A Call for Dialogue," The Hastings Law Journal 29, no. 2 (July 1978):1280.5 Wilfred Cantwell Smith, "Belief and History (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977), 19.6 Charter of the United Nations, in Basic Documents on Human Rights, ed. Ian Brownlie, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 3. In declarations of human rights this statement is often included in the preamble, as in the "Declaration of the Rights of the Child," proclaimed by the General Assembly of the UN on 20 November 1959 (G.A. resolution 1386(XIV)): "Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have, in the Charter, reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person. . .."7 In 1988 during its "Human Rights Now!" campaign Amnesty International collected almost three million signatures in support of implementing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The appeal was distributed in fifty-eight languages to people in almost every country in the world. While over one million signatures were collected in the United States, support was also strong in some of the Third World countries. For instance, in Uruguay one out of every forty-seven people signed the document. Most of the signers were ordinary citizens, many of whom attended the "Human Rights Now!" concert tour. "A Plea to the Nations: Keep Your Pledge," Amnesty Action (November/December 1988):1.8 Max L. Stackhouse, "A Protestant Perspective on the Woodstock Human Rights Project," in Human Rights in the Americas: The Struggle for Consensus, ed. Alfred Hennelly, S.J. and John Langan, S.J. (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1982), 145.9 Prem Kirpal, "The Contemporary Situation—Looking Ahead," in Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights (Paris: UNESCO, 1986), 288.10 Jacques Maritain, Man and the State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 111. V. C. Chukwuloziel, participant in the Adenauer-Foundation and the Muslim-Christian Colloquy in Mohammedia, Morocco in April 1985, discusses Maritain's position in his essay "A Nigerian Viewpoint," in The Mohammedia Colloquium of 1985 (Selly Oak, Birmingham, U.K.: Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 1985), 1-19.11 Cornelius F. Murphy, Jr., "Ideological Interpretations of Human Rights," De Paul Law Review 21, no. 1 (1971):290. Within the pluralism of the American context John Courtney Murray, S.J. also argues for a kind of consensus: "The American consensus therefore includes a great faith in the capacity of the people to govern themselves." He finds this faith "not unrealistic," but is concerned that it makes particular laws—such as the two articles of the first amendment—"articles of faith" when they ought only to be "articles of peace." This is as much a temptation for the religious person, Murray argues, as it is for the secularist. Murray, We Hold These Truths, 343, 48-56.12 Earl Warren, "Address," The International Observance: World Law Day—Human Rights: 1968 (Geneva: World Peace through Law Center, 1968), 44-45. The reference is most likely to Hebrews 11:1 in the Christian Bible which, in the Revised Standard Version, reads: "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Similarly, Mohammed Allal Sinaceur argues that in the human rights struggle, "Islam will strengthen and confirm man in his faith in himself, and in the encounter with other men." Mohammed Allal Sinaceur, "Islamic Tradition and Human Rights," in Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, 219.13 Vratislav Pechota, "East European Perceptions of the Helsinki Final Act and the Role of Citizen Initiatives," Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 13, no. 2 (Spring-Summer 1980):468. He is quoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.14 Hernán Montealegre, "Institutional Aspects of Human Rights Teaching and Research in Latin America," in Frontiers of Human Rights Education, ed. Asbjírn Eide and Marek Thee (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 84.15 Thurgood Marshall, "Special Message to the 48th Annual NAACP Convention (1957)," The A.M.E. Church Review (April-June 1985):51-52. Long before most American civil rights leaders were speaking of human rights, Marshall wrote: "The Fourteenth Amendment and the human rights doctrine inherent in our democracy require the elimination of race and caste as determining factors throughout the United States."16 "On Human Rights," from "Enlightenment," in The Fifth Modernization: China's Human Rights Movement, 1978-1979, ed. James D. Seymour (Stanfordville, N.Y.: Human Rights Publishing Group, 1980), 123.17 In Osnos, "Review," Manchester Guardian Weekly (30 January 1983):18; quoted in Paul H. Brietzke, "Consorting with the Chameleon, or Realizing the Right to Development," in "Symposium: Development as an Emerging Human Right," California Western International Law Journal 15, no. 3 (Summer 1985):600.18 Paul Brietzke, "Consorting with the Chameleon, or Realizing the Right to Development," California Western International Law Journal 15, no. 3 (Summer 1985):600.19 Torkal Opsahl, "Introduction to the International Human Rights Protection Systems," International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg, lecture 8 July 1987, notes by author.20 Louis Pettiti, "The Philosophy of Human Rights as a Means of Fighting against Perversion of the State," Convergence, nos. 1-2 (1984):21.21 In "U. S. Responsibilities toward Peace and Human Rights," Dept. of State news release (2 November 1977). Quoted in Rockwood, "Human Rights and Wrong: The United States and the I.L.O.—A Modern Morality Play," Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 10, no. 2 (Spring 1987):398. Jimmy Carter affirms: "As the world community recognized more than four decades ago, peace and human rights are closely interconnected. Humanity's yearning for peace and freedom cuts across ideological boundaries and unites the human family." Carter, "The State of Human Rights in the World," Human Rights Law Journal 9, no. 1 (1988):108.22 Introduction to the first issue of the new Soviet annual publication, "Human Rights, Yearbook" (Moscow: 1983), 8.23 James D. Seymour, The Fifth Modernization, 254.24 Peter K. Y. Woo, "A Metaphysical Approach to Human Rights from a Chinese Point of View," in The Philosophy of Human Rights: International Perspectives, ed. Alan S. Rosenbaum (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), 123. Robert Maynard Hutchins affirmed a half-century ago that education "is an act of faith" and that translating this "faith into reality is our responsibility as educators and concerned citizens of a nation 'conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal'." Quoted in Wilson Riles, "The Relationship of the Rights and Responsibilities of the Individual to Public School Education—Its Meaning for the Nation," in Rights and Responsibilities: International, Social, and Individual Dimensions (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980), 280-81. Hutchins is quoting from Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address."25 Louis Henkin, The Rights of Man Today (Boulder: Colo.: Westview Press, 1978), 5126 John Courtney Murray, S.J., We Hold These Truths, 316.27 Jeanne Hersch, "Human Rights in Western Thought: Conflicting Dimensions," in Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, 139.28 Terje Wold, "Remarks," in The International Observance, 15.29 Leo C. Ferrari, Human Rights in a Changing World: The Problem of Preserving Human Values in the Upheavals Caused by Science and Technology, rev. ed. (Fredericton, New Brunswick: The New Brunswick Human Rights Commission, Department of Labor and Manpower, 1977), 74.30 Carl J. Friedrich, Transcendent Justice: The Religious Dimension of Constitutionalism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1969), 115.31 Jerome J. Shestack, "The World Had a Dream," Human Rights 15, no. 2 (Summer 1988):45.32 Ibid., 93.33 Ibid, 35.34 See F. J. M. Feldbrugge, "The Soviet Human Rights Doctrine in the Crossfire between Dissidents at Home and Critics Abroad," Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 13 (Spring-Summer 1980):451-66; Georg Brunner, "Recent Development in the Soviet Concept of Human Rights," in Perspectives on Soviet Law for the 1980s, ed. F. J. M. Feldbrugge and William B. Simons (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982); and József Halász, ed. Socialist Concept of Human Rights (Budapest: Akad‚miai Kiad¢, 1966).35 Margaret E. Crahan, "National Security Ideology and Human Rights," in Human Rights and Basic Needs in the Americas, ed. Margaret E. Crahan (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1982), 116.36 David Sidorsky, "Contemporary Reinterpretations of the Concept of Human Rights," in Essays on Human Rights: Contemporary Rights and Jewish Perspectives, ed. Sidorsky (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1979), 89.37 William Korey, "Final Acts and Final Solutions," in Human Rights and World Order, ed. Abdul Aziz Said (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1978), 117.38 Samuel Rayan, "Theological Priorities in India Today," in Irruption of the Third World: Challenge to Theology, ed. Virginia Fabella and Sergio Torres (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1983), 40.39 Pavel Litvinov, "The Human-Rights Movement in the Soviet Union," in Essays on Human Rights, 124.40 The annual International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg has been described by John Warwick Montgomery as the most "sophisticated human rights teaching program in the world." It was founded in 1969 by French jurist René Cassin, who donated his Nobel Peace Prize to the program. In July of each year over two hundred law students, lawyers, jurists, and scholars meet to examine developing international human rights law. For a description of the 1979 study session, see Montgomery, "Strasbourg: The Capital of Human Values," Human Rights 9, no. 1 (Spring 1980):39-41.41 Study conducted by the author.42 Harold J. Berman, The Interaction of Law and Religion (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1974), 13.43 Papers delivered in 1985 at Columbus Law School, the Catholic University of America, in a "Symposium on the Religious Foundations of Civil Rights Law," are very relevant to this discussion. See The Journal of Law and Religion 5, no. 1 (1987).44 John Warwick Montgomery, "Strasbourg: The Capital of Human Values," Human Rights 9, no. 1 (Spring 1980):41. See Marc Agi, René Cassin, Fantassin des Droits de l'Homme (Paris: 1979), 284-85.45 Louis Henkin, "Human Rights: Reappraisal and Readjustment," in Essays on Human Rights, 72.46 Arthur Blaser lists eleven religious organizations with major international human rights activity, four Jewish and five Christian. He also mentions the involvement of the World Muslim Congress and the World Federation of Buddhists in human rights activities. Blaser, "The Dialectics of Transnational Human Rights Activity: A Study of NGO's," Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University, 1979, 47 and 61.47 James M. Childs, Jr., "The Church and Human Rights: Reflections on Morality and Mission," Currents in Theology and Mission 7 (February 1980):15.48 Gordis, "The Vision of Micah," in Judaism and Human Rights, ed. Milton R. Konvitz (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1972), 281.49 H. Morren, "Joining in the Promotion of Human Rights: An International Meeting on Human Rights Organized by Pax Romana and the Information Center of International Catholic Organizations in Geneva, 19-21 March 1980," Convergence, no. 1 (1982):2.50 Wilfred Cantwell Smith, "Philosophia, as One of the Religious Traditions of Humankind: The Greek Legacy in Western Civilization, Viewed by a Comparativist," in Différences, Valeurs, Hiérarchie: Textes Offerts ... Louis Dumont et Réunis par Jean-Claude Galey (Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1984), 268.51 M. C. Bassiouni, "The 'Human Rights Program': The Veneer of Civilization Thickens," De Paul Law Review 21, no. 1 (1971):271.52 Final Document, UNESCO Congress on Teaching Human Rights, September 1978, quoted in David P. Forsythe, Human Rights and World Politics (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), title page.53 Ricardo Antoncich, S.J., "Evangelization and Human Rights," in Human Rights: A Challenge to Theology, 56.54 Ibid.55 See Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Faith and Belief (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); and also Raimundo Panikkar, The Intra-Religious Dialogue (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), 8.56 Robert Gordis, "The Right of Dissent and Intellectual Liberty," in Judaism and Human Rights, 190, 210.57 Moses Mendelssohn, "Freedom of Religion—Absolute and Inalienable," in Judaism and Human Rights, 184.58 Wilfred Cantwell Smith, "The Buddhist Instance: Faith as Atheist?" Faith and Belief, 32, 20-32. See also Sung Bae Park, Buddhist Faith and Sudden Enlightenment (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983); Morris J. Augustine, The Buddhist Notion of Faith, Ph.D. diss., Graduate Theological Union, 1978; Francis H. Cook, "The Second Buddhist-Christian Theological Encounter: A Report," The Eastern Buddhist 19, no. 1 (Spring 1986):133; and Jan T. Erghardt, Faith and Knowledge in Early Buddhism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977).59 C. Jinarajadasa, The Reign of Law in Buddhism (Madras, India: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1948), 38.60 Mark Juergensmeyer, Fighting with Gandhi (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984), 19.61 Ibid. Gandhi wrote that "Truth is my God." Young India, 8 January 1925. He affirmed "faith in God and human nature." Harijan, 15 April 1939. Quoted in The Essential Gandhi: His Life, Work, and Ideas, ed. Louis Fischer (New York: Vintage Books, 1983), 199 and 315.62 Charles Taylor writes: "Every moral system has a conception of what one might call human dignity, that is to say, of the quality which, in man, compels us to treat him with respect or, in other words, a conception which defines what it is to have respect for human beings." Taylor, "Human Rights: The Legal Culture," in Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, 53.63 Harlan Cleveland believes that the idea of human rights "is on its way to universality." Quoted in Jonathan Power, Against Oblivion: Amnesty International's Fight for Human Rights (Great Britain: Fontane Paperbacks, 1981), 217.64 Rhoda E. Howard and Jack Donnelly argue that history is creating "one international community of modern men and women" and thus is providing a convincing argument for the universality of human rights over against notions of cultural relativism. They see evidence of this in the volume of essays they have edited, in that "Despite the authors' diversity of experience and perspectives, all accept the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as an authoritative international standard." Howard and Donnelly, "Introduction" and "Preface," International Handbook of Human Rights, ed. Donnelly and Howard (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1987), 18-20 and ix-x.65 By the end of 1949 the Universal Declaration was available in nineteen languages, including the five official languages of the United Nations. "It is now printed and circulated in more than 70 languages and copies can be found in almost every nation on earth." "The Universal Declaration: A Living Document," in 40th Anniversary: Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United States Department of State (December 1988), 11.66 Alwin Diemer argues to the contrary that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been viewed in the Third World as a European document. However, he believes: "we must go back to viewing the 1948 Declaration as a statement of the problem of human rights in universal terms and renounce the tendency to regard it merely as the specific product of a European culture—however that may be conceived. The whole issue must be seen in the context of both universal principles and a worldwide culture." Diemer, "The 1948 Declaration: An Analysis of Meanings," in Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, 111.67 Willibald P. Pahr, "Human Rights in a Pluralistic World," Revue des Droits de l'Homme/Human Rights Journal (December 1985):102. See "Human Rights and Cultural Relativism," in R. J. Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 37-57.68 David Sidorsky, "Contemporary Reinterpretations of the Concept of Human Rights," in Essays on Human Rights, 102. Alison Dundes Renteln writes that "the requirement of relativism that diversity be recognized in no way destroys the possibility of an international moral community." Renteln, "The Unanswered Challenge of Relativism and the Consequences for Human Rights," Human Rights Quarterly 7, no. 4 (November 1985):540. See Abdullahi A. An-Na'im, "Religious Minorities under Islamic Law and the Limits of Cultural Relativism," 1-18; and Pierre de Senarclens, "The Universality of Human Rights," in Human Rights Teaching 2, no. 1 (Paris: UNESCO, 1981), 3-5.69 Ibid., 103. Leo C. Ferrari asserts that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is "an expression of the more obvious implications of the common elements in the loftiest religions of mankind." Ferrari, Human Rights in a Changing World, 55.70 Robin Lovin, "Re-examining Human Rights," The Christian Century 98 (26 August-2 September 1981):830.71 Ibid.72 See Towards World Community: The Colombo Papers, ed. S. J. Samartha (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1975); Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Towards a World Theology: Faith and the Comparative History of Religion (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1981); B. R. Singh, "The Phenomenological Approach to Religious Education for a Multi-faith Society," Churchman 100, no. 3 (1986):231-48; and Patricia M. Mische, "Human Rights in the Social Dynamics of an Emerging Global Community," Breakthrough 10, nos. 2-3 (Winter/Springs 1989):10-12.73 Vratislav Pechota, "East European Perceptions of the Helsinki Final Act and the Role of Citizen Initiatives," Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 13, no. 2 (Spring-Summer 1980):468. R. J. Vincent refers to "the establishment of a global culture" and a "world society." Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations, 1, 2 and 105. Kenneth W. Thompson claims international lawyers are more apt to argue for "an embryonic world community" than are diplomatic analysts. Thompson, "Tensions between Human Rights and National Sovereign Rights," in Rights and Responsibilities, 131. International lawyer Richard Lillich does indeed speak of the "international human rights community." Lillich, "Discussion," in United States Ratification of the Human Rights Treaties: With or Without Reservations?, ed. Lillich (Charlotteville: The University Press of Virginia, 1981), 73 and 78.74 James M. Childs, Jr., "The Church and Human Rights: Reflections on Morality and Mission," Currents in Theology and Mission 7 (February 1980):17.75 Robert Gordis, "The Vision of Micah," in Judaism and Human Rights, 282.76 Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Towards a World Theology, 193.77 John Courtney Murray, S.J. argues for an American consensus, which is not just "majority opinion" or the "convergent trend of opinion," but "is a doctrine or a judgment that commends public agreement on the merits of the arguments for it." Murray, We Hold These Truths, 105. Similarly, I am arguing that there is now in the world a consensus, that fundamental human rights are the necessary conditions for human dignity.78 Jerome Hall, "Religion, Law and Ethics—A Call for Dialogue," The Hastings Law Journal 29, no. 2 (July 1978):1278.79 Mohammed Allal Sinaceur, "Islamic Tradition and Human Rights," in Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, 199.80 Christopher F. Mooney, S.J., Public Virtue: Law and the Social Character of Religion (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), 66.81 Huston Smith, "Does Spirit Matter: The Worldwide Impact of Religion on Contemporary Politics," in Spirit Matters: The Worldwide Impact of Religion on Contemporary Politics, ed. Richard L. Rubenstein (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987), xiii.82 Huston Smith, "Another World to Live In: How I Teach the Introductory Course," presentation at "A Teachers' Workshop on the Introductory Course in Religious Studies," Berkeley/Chicago/Harvard NEH Institutes: A Global Approach to the Study of Religion, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Calif., June 1987, 11.83 Richard John Neuhaus, "What We Mean by Human Rights, and Why," The Christian Century 95 (6 December 1978):1180.84 Ibid.85 Ibid.86 Ibid., 1178.87 Ibid.88 Quoted in Robert Bellah, "Faith Communities Challenge—and Are Challenged by—the Changing World Order," in World Faiths and the New World Order: A Muslim-Jewish-Christian Search Begins, ed. Joseph Gremillion and William Ryan (Washington, D.C.: Interreligious Peace Colloquium, 1978), 150.89 Ibid.90 Alan Paton, "Religious Faith and Human Brotherhood," in Religious Faith and World Culture, ed. William Amandus Loos (Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1951, reprinted 1970), 197.91 Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham City Jail," in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James Melvin Washington (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1986), 300.92 King, "A Time to Break Silence," in A Testament of Hope, 242.93 King, "Showdown for Nonviolence," in A Testament of Hope, 64-72, and "An Experiment in Love," in A Testament of Hope, 19.94 King, "Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech," in A Testament of Hope, 226. |
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