Life, Freedom, Liberty, And Rights—Christian Concepts?
Bodie Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI
Biblical Authority Ministries, November 18, 2025 (Donate)
Think deeply for a moment. Rights, freedom, and liberty—are
they made out of material? Are they made of atoms and quarks? Can you trip on them
in the middle of the night? No.
With this in mind, can rights, freedom or liberty even exist
in a religious worldview that says the only things that exist are
material (e.g., matter and energy)? No. That would be inconsistent and illogical.
Sadly, citizens of the United States (and others in the Western
World) are being dupped into secular worldviews (think of religions like secularism,
atheism, evolutionism, naturalism, materialism) where they teach that the only things
that exist are matter and energy in motion within space-time.
These secular religions are permeating modern textbooks,
museums, education, and the media. Oddly enough, if these flavors of religion are
true, then truth can’t exist because it is not material either—but
freedom, liberty, and rights wouldn’t exist either!
Promoting secular worldviews undermines the founding documents
like the Declaration of Independence and Constitution which discuss
rights and freedom as real. These concepts make no sense in secular worldviews
but are, instead, predicated on the truth of the Bible.
Eastern religions fare no better as they are monistic
(i.e., all is spirit and all is one and the material world doesn’t exist
in their view but is an illusion). They can’t make sense of freedom and rights—since
having no freedom and having freedom are one and the same and having no rights
and having rights are one and the same!
It makes your brain spin, doesn’t it? I told you we were going
“think deeply”. In short, non-Bible-based religions fall short of concepts like
freedom, liberty, and rights.
Life, Liberty And The Pursuit Of Happiness
The Bible provides the true foundation for life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness because it presents God as the Creator, Lawgiver,
and source of all human dignity. Life comes from God alone, for He created
mankind in His image and breathed life into humanity (Genesis 1:26-27). Science
confirms this with the Law of Biogenesis.
Because every person bears His image, each human life—no matter
how old or how young—holds sacred worth and must be protected from unjust harm.
This divine origin of life is the basis for recognizing that life is an
unalienable right not granted by government but by God.
Liberty also flows from Scripture. The Bible teaches that
God made humans as moral beings capable of choice and responsible for obedience
to Him. True liberty is not the freedom to sin but the freedom to live
according to God’s righteous standards.
Christ’s redemptive work frees believers from the
bondage of sin and restores the ability to live as God designed. The moral law,
revealed by God, protects this liberty by restraining evil and promoting
justice. Without biblical morality, liberty collapses into relativism and
tyranny—sadly, this has happened to far too many societies of the past.
Christ’s work on the cross liberates the believer from the
power of sin and restores the capacity to live as God intends. This spiritual
foundation shaped the historic Western understanding that civil liberty must be
tied to God’s moral standard.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and
where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Corinthians 3:17, NKJV)
The pursuit of happiness, rightly understood, is predicated
on the biblical idea living under God’s hand of blessing. Happiness is found
not in self-centered and sinful pleasure but in living a virtuous life that
aligns with God’s purposes. Christ’s Word teaches that joy, peace, and blessing
come from walking in obedience to God’s commandments. Families, work life, church,
and community all flourish when grounded in biblical truth.
Freedom And Rights
“Therefore if the Son makes you
free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36, NKJV)
The Bible is also the supreme basis for freedom and rights because
God is the Creator of humanity and the ultimate source of moral authority.
Scripture teaches that all people are made in the image of God, giving every
person inherent worth and dignity.
This divine image establishes that basic rights do not come
from government but from God Himself. Because humans bear God’s image, they
possess an unchangeable moral claim to life, fair treatment, justice, and
protection from oppression. No earthly authority may strip away the rights that
God has given.
“Stand fast therefore in the
liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a
yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1, NKJV)
Biblical freedom is based on the truth that God created
people as moral agents capable of choosing good or evil. Freedom is not the
license to do whatever one desires but the ability to live in accordance with
God’s righteous standards without the rigidity. Sin brings bondage, while
obedience to God brings true freedom.
“But he who looks into the perfect
law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of
the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.” (James 1:25, NKJV)
The Bible is also presupposed as the reason for the concept
of rights. Old and New Testament law repeatedly defends the rights of the poor,
the vulnerable, the family, property owners, and the innocent. God commands His
people to uphold justice, resist partiality, and protect those who cannot
protect themselves.
“Do we have no right to eat and drink?” (1 Corinthians 9:4, NKJV)
These principles show that rights are grounded in God’s
character and His unchanging moral law. Because God is just, human beings are
called to uphold justice; because God is impartial, human rights apply equally
to all—even if their professed secular region can’t account for rights!
The Declaration of Independence appeals to several
unalienable rights, meaning rights granted by God that no human
government may legitimately remove. The most explicit rights listed are life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
· Life refers to the right to exist and to be protected from unjust harm.
· Liberty refers to the freedom to act, speak, worship God, and live without unlawful restraint as was done in England with Anglicanism being the national religion. This is done so long as a person does not violate the rights of others.
· The pursuit of happiness refers to the ability to seek virtue, property, family well-being, vocation, and the general flourishing that comes from living according to moral and natural law.
Beyond these three, the Declaration clearly
acknowledges other unalienable rights as well. It affirms the right to equality
under God by stating that all men are created equal. This means each person has
the same God-given dignity and inherent rights, not that all outcomes in life
must be the same. This often confuses people today thinking all should have the
same outcomes, but that is not the same thing.
The Declaration also teaches the right to government
by consent, asserting that governments derive their just powers from the
consent of the governed. The Old Testament speaks of the people asking for a
king and God gave them Saul (when they shifted from the times of the Judges to
the times of the Kings). In doing so, they rejected God as their direct king.
The United States appeals to God as the King of Kings above the
royalty in England for their governance. This establishes that authority is not
imposed by force but comes from the people under God’s higher authority.
The Declaration further confirms the right to resist
or abolish tyranny when a government becomes destructive of God-given rights.
When rulers refuse to protect life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the
people retain the right to alter or abolish such a government.
Along with this, the 1776 document recognizes the right to
establish new government in a way that best provides for safety and happiness.
Finally, the Declaration appeals to the “Supreme
Judge of the world,” acknowledging the right to seek divine justice when human
authority fails. These rights together form the foundation of the American
argument for independence and underscore that legitimate government exists to
secure, not redefine, the unalienable rights given by God.
Conclusion
The Bible provides the only coherent basis for these
unalienable rights. Life reflects creation in God’s image, liberty reflects
God’s moral order, and true happiness reflects living under His righteous
reign. These principles shaped the founders’ understanding of rights because
they recognized that God, not man, is the source of all human freedom.
Thus, freedom, liberty, and rights ultimately rest on biblical revelation. Without the Bible’s teaching on creation, sin, justice, and redemption, human rights become unstable and changing human opinions. With Scripture as the foundation, they stand as God-given truths that no government can overturn.
□
Bodie Hodge, Ken Ham's son in law, has been an apologist
since 1998 helping out in various churches and running an apologetics website.
He spent 21 years working at Answers in Genesis as a speaker, writer, and
researcher as well as a founding news anchor for Answers News. He was also head
of the Oversight Council.
Bodie launched Biblical Authority Ministries in 2015 as a
personal website and it was organized officially in 2025 as a 501(c)(3). He has
spoken on multiple continents and hosts of US states in churches, colleges, and
universities. He is married with four children.
