An explanation of natural law and natural rights. Most of the old literature on natural law and natural rights, notably the writings of John Locke, has become incomprehensible because we no longer have the background knowledge of natural law that those writers assumed. This article makes the concept of natural law intelligible to modern people.
Natural law and natural rights follow from the nature of man and the world. We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.

Was the Founding of America rooted in the Christian heritage and natural law? Or, is it a product of the Enlightenment, infused with the idea of the perfectibility of man, and therefore inimical to the Christian conception of reality and to world view that natural law implies? Was the Founding fatally flawed in its origins? If so, are present day evils simply a logical working-out of this fatal flaw? Or do current maladies result from a fundamentally sound proposition gone awry? The answers to these questions determine whether America is founded on basic principles that are true or just — ones which we can unqualifiedly support — or whether republic is based on ideas that are false and unavoidably lead corporate and individual evil. If the United States is, as I believe it is, founded on the highest moral principles of any government that ever existed, then we owe her and the principles on which she was founded our grateful support. If, on the other hand, America is founded on principles that are malign, then we are actually complicitous in anything we do to advance America's two hundred-year-old experiment in democracy.
So, where does the truth lie? There is no denying that the Enlightenment influenced the Founders, but does a partial influence make American political origins solely a product of the Enlightenment? To answer this and other questions we have asked, we must grapple with yet another: How much of the Constitution is derived from concepts of the Enlightenment and how much implies the Christian world view and a respect for natural law? A close reading of the Constitution lends any fair-minded reader to the inescapable conclusion: divorced from natural law and Christian principles, the Constitution would be utterly incomprehensible — a philosophical mish-mash devoid of cogent argument, compelling moral vision, or unifying principles.
However, the proof for this thesis is somewhat indirect because there are no Christian principles per se embedded in the Constitution: rather, the Constitution is embedded in Christianity. The Constitution does not declare principles, it provides for their implementation. It considers the principles on which America is founded so self-evident it does not even name much less defend them. In its short Preamble the Constitution briefly mentions, without defining, justice, general welfare and the blessings of liberty, clearly indicating that these are commonly accepted ends.

The Christian idea of government was understood completely by the framers of the Constitution. In the preamble to the Constitution they stated their full intent: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Because our government derives its power, its form and its very existence from Christianity and the laws of God, the modern attempt to secularize society and divorce government from Christianity spells destruction.