Is Liberal Democracy Possible Without God?

A rare handwritten copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence is seen at the West Sussex Record Office in Chichester, England, on April 27, 2017. Hannah McKay/Reuters

Commentary

As Western society becomes increasingly secularized, can our liberal democracy survive without God?

John Adams wrote to the Massachusetts Militia in 1798 that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

The claim made by Adams makes eminent sense if we consider that liberal democracy is founded upon the equality and human rights of all people.

How can we make sense of equality without God?

If we are judged against our fellow humans, or against the state, then none of us would seem to be equal. But if our value is judged in relation to God, then we can make the claim to equality.

In the Jewish-Christian tradition, and other faith traditions, people have infinite value and inalienable dignity, and it is the infinite value of every human person that makes us equal.

But what happens when people’s value is judged in relation to other people?

That path leads to inequality, something exploited by Marxism and its condemnation of people to perpetual class struggle.

Protesters throwing the statue of Edward Colston into Bristol harbour during a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Bristol, England, on June 7, 2020. Ben Birchall/PA Media

That is also something happening in Australia right now with the proposed constitutional change that will give some people, but not others, a “Voice to Parliament.”

Instead of defining people by their common humanity, people are being defined in opposition to each other. Australia is thus risking a permanent two-class constitution in which not all are equal or, to borrow Orwell’s phrase, some will be more equal than others.

What about the human rights that our liberal democracy upholds?

There was great clarity from a Chinese communist leader when he was challenged about the Tiananmen Square Massacre and asked whether the students’ human rights had been violated. He answered that the state had not granted those rights.

Against that view is the United States Declaration of Independence, which asserts that the inalienable rights of people “are endowed by their Creator.”

Human rights are made manifest when they are guaranteed by a divine Creator, but they are not always guaranteed when they are subject to the whims of a state or even other people.

It is clear that, throughout history, human rights and human equality have been advanced and protected by belief in a Creator God from whom those rights and equality originate.

However, it can be objected that equality and human rights can also be philosophically defended. That is true, but it only a rigorous and truth-seeking philosophy reality can do that.

Greatest Fear of Dictators Is Belief in God

Contemporary relativist or woke philosophies certainly cannot articulate, let alone defended, equality or human rights. So, it is only a serious philosophy that can be used to protect liberal democracy.

I would therefore argue that belief in God, or a rigorous philosophy, is needed to defend human rights and equality and thus to uphold our liberal democracy.

That point was surprisingly made clear by perhaps Europe’s worst dictator Adolf Hitler, who claimed that the great mass of humanity consists neither of philosophers nor of saints.

German troops parade in front of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Generals after entry into Warsaw on Oct. 5, 1939. Keystone/Getty Images

Believing, as he did, that people lacked the faith in God to oppose Nazi ideology, he was able to steal from the German people whatever hope they had for liberal democracy and plunge the world into a war that was not only over land and resources, but over the rights and equality of all people.

It is easy to understand, then, that while it is hard for a liberal democracy to survive without God, it is near impossible for a totalitarian regime to survive with God and religious belief.

That helps make clear why authoritarian dictatorships are driven so hard to persecute people of faith.

Belief in God and transcendent values is a direct threat to those who would divide their people according to class and condemn them to perpetual class struggle, those who would regard some as more equal than others, and those who would dispense with the human rights of people when it suits the state.

While I write from the Jewish-Christian tradition, it is clear that other faiths help protect and sustain liberal democratic values and, at the same time, present a direct threat to totalitarianism.

A good example is the fear that the Chinese Communist Party has of Falun Gong practitioners and the Muslim Uyghurs and their harsh persecution of such people of faith.

Police detain a Falun Gong protester in Tiananmen Square as a crowd watches in Beijing, China, in this Oct. 1, 2000 photo. Chien-min Chung/AP Photo

These ideas may be somewhat academic and theoretical, but they should challenge us. If religious faith and rigorous philosophy have advanced human rights in our own countries, what are we doing to protect them?

The reality right now is that, even in so-called free countries of the West, human rights are being trampled on, and people are being divided by movements and educational institutions that are opposed to religious faith and the pursuit of truth and wisdom.

The question is, “What shall we do about that?” Shall we tolerate these attacks on faith and truth or allow our liberal democracy to die?

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.