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HUMAN RIGHTS
M.A. Krasnov*
CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Abstract. The article offers arguments that are aimed at proving that the idea of human rights not only complies with the Christian teaching but is actually rooted into it. With this view, the point that the idea has an antichristian nature is being criticized. Those who support the point think that«the natural law in its orthodox interpretation» stipulates no rights, only obligations to God. Thus, they conclude that the natural law does not contain any inalienable human rights. Contrariwise, the author of the article states with reference to the Holy Scripture and works of church fathers that the commandments of God are not obligations of a human being to God, but conditions that allow him or her to come up closer and closer to the image and likeness of God. Moreover, God by definition can not be a subject of either ethics or law. He is omnipotent, and a human being can give nothing to Him. Commandments are necessary to people, as they, as a whole, present a formula of human dignity value. At the same time the commandments point out the natural limits of man's freedom. Disregard of the point leads to immoral extension of human rights in the modern world.
Key words: law, human rights, human dignity, Christianity, Mosaic law, values, moral imperative, legislation.
t is known that the Russian Orthodox Church has a somewhat strenuous attitude towards the idea of human rights. To make sure of it, you may turn to the The Basis of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church 1(August 2000) and The Russian Orthodox Church's Basic Teaching on Human Dignity, Freedom and Human Rights2 (June 2008). These documents do not deny the category of human rights, but they do not specify its great civili-zational significance either. Their central thought is that human rights are means to legitimate vice, that they are the creation of vicious secular world that are practically barring the way to salvation.
Thus, the Basic Teaching of 2008 says, «The weakness of the human rights institution (italics and other font markers in the article are made by the author. — М.К.) lies in the fact that while defending the freedom of choice (auxe^ouoiov), it tends to increasingly ignore the moral dimension of life and the freedom from sin (eAeuBepia)» (II. 2). However,
1 The official website of Moscow Patriarchate. URL: http:// www.patriarhia.ru/ db/text/ 141422.html (date of access: 10.03.2006).
2 The official website of Moscow Patriarchate. URL: http:// www.patriarchia.ru/ db/text/ 428616.html (date of access:
20.07.2008).
the idea of human rights is not about «defending the freedom of choice», but about defending from «political freedom», that is from arbitrary rule, from viewing a human being as an instrument to achieve some political (public) purposes, no matter whether they are noble or vile (more than that, there are often interests of separate politicians and leaders behind them, which are presented as common interest). Anyway, as B.N. Chicherin shrewdly observed, «any rational being is an objective in itself; it should not be degraded to the level of a mere instrument»3.
No wonder that generally unfavorable attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church to human rights incites some representatives of humanitarian and social sciences, including legal experts, to speak about antichristian nature of human rights. Let us refer to the argument of a legal professional, B.A. Kurkin, who claims that «human rights ideology in its predominating — liberal — interpretation has nothing to do with the Christian view on human being and society, on individual rights, contradicting it in
3 Chicherin B.N. Obshchee gosudarstvennoe pravo / pod red. i s predisloviem V.A. Tomsinova. M., 2006. P. 16.
© Krasnov M.A., 2014
* Krasnov Michail Alexandrovich — Doctor of legal sciences, chair of department for constitutional and municipal
law of the National Research University «Higher School of Economics».
119017 Moscow, Malaya Ordynka Street 17, room 213.
its very metaphysical grounds»4. In fact, he rejects not the interpretation, but the very idea of natural rights of an individual, creating the following logical construction for this.
In works of church fathers, he says with reference to the works of V.A. And V.V. Rogovs5, there is an approach to the «analysis of the phenomenon of right» that is altogether different to that of works by Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, which are usually referred to in order to establish the «ideologeme» of human rights. The Rogovs state that it was Saint Irenaeus6 who «introduced into the Christian theory the notion of «natural right» as the system of «obligations» of human beings, as the concept of overall accountability to God that goes beyond the legal scope»7. Here out B.A. Kurkin makes a conclusion that the natural law in its orthodox interpretation, that is in the law synonymous the Law of God given in the original commandments, dwells on «obligations of a human being to God, and not about human rights devised by protestants»8. Is it true?
The major survived worked by St Irenaeus contains a chapter that is called: «Christ Did Not Abrogate the Natural Precepts of the Law, But Rather Fulfilled and Extended Them. He Removed the Yoke and Bondage of the Old Law, So that Mankind, Being Now Set Free, Might Serve God with that Trustful Piety Which Becometh Sons». Some words are marked specifically as they are paramountly important in order to understand what the great church father says.
First of all, it is necessary to understand what stands behind the words «the natural precepts of the law». «Natural» means originally matching the nature of mankind (any human being) that was instilled by the Creator. In other words, it is a norm given to us by God. The tragedy of the ancient mankind (the modern one has its own tragedy) was in losing this very norm. They had forgotten their Creator and were worshiping other gods; moreover, they began to treat each other as beasts — indulging in lust, the strong taking life, freedom, possessions and women from the weak. And that could not be helped even through such formidable corrections as the Flood, the destruction of the tower of Babel, of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Then God, in order to return the utterly corrupted mankind to its natural state, chose a people
4 Kurkin B.A. Ideologema prav cheloveka i ee interpretatsiya v sovremennoy otechestvennoy pravovoy teorii // Pravo. Zhurnal Vysshey shkoly ekonomiki. 2008. № 2. P. 117.
5 Rogov V.A., Rogov V.V. Drevnerusskaya pravovaya termi-nologiya v otnoshenii k teorii prava (Ocherki IX — serediny XVII vv.). M., 2006.
6 Most probably, they speak of St Irenaeus, Bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul (now Lyons, France) (130-202 AC).
7 Rogov V. A., Rogov V.V. Ibid. P. 223.
8 Kurkin B.A. Ibid. P. 112.
through which rules that are natural to mankind would be extended onto all other peoples. St Ire-naeus says that God entrusted the chosen people with keeping the truth, as «For the law, since it was laid down for those in bondage, used to instruct the soul by means of those corporeal objects which were of an external nature, drawing it, as by a bond, to obey its commandments, that man might learn to serve God»9.
Actually the idea was expressed earlier by Paul the Apostle: «Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was given through angels and entrusted to a mediator»10.
It may seem that using such words as «obey its commandments» and «serve God» St Irenaeus really understands the natural law as a set of obligations to God. But in fact, he speaks about a different thing. For him the central notion is «instructing the soul». The ten commandments called for people to fight their vile habits in the prospect of the Savior's advent. The same idea was voiced by those who commented on this excerption from the Epistle to the Galatians. Thus, Theodoret of Cyrus wrote, «The law was imposed... for the tutelage of the race from which that offspring was going to sprout according to the flesh»11. And Saint Jerome specifies: «It was after the offense of the people in the wilderness, after the adoration of the calf and their murmuring against God, that the law came to forbid transgressions»12.
Commandments are not obligations of mankind to God; they are conditions that allow, after the Fall of forefathers, to come up closer to His image and likeness. As if the Creator tells us with His commandments, «If you want to be a human, not a beast, obey my commandments. Only thus you can restore your human nature». Another point is that very few of the Israel people of that time were aware that with the commandments God assists in restoring the natural social nature of mankind. The fact can be explained by the low ethical level and the consciousness being in many ways primitive. For that reason Moses, when speaking to people, often appealed not so much to high notions as to the sense of self-preservation. As the people of Israel were to cross the Jordan after forty years in the wilderness, Moses reminded them, «And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God, ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the
9 Saint Irenaeus. Against Herecies. Book 4. Ch. XIII. 2. URL: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/irenaeus-book4.html/
10 To Galatians. 3:19.
11 Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. New Testament VIII. P. 43. URL: http://goo.gl/TRc7FT/
12 Ibid. P. 44.
Lord's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?»13.
On the surface the obligating modality is obvious. But only on the surface, as Moses speaks about conditions («if..., then...»), which corresponds to the contract-mode relationship between the people and God. In another chapter Saint Irenaeus says, «They (the Jews) had therefore a law, a course of discipline, and a prophecy of future things. For God at the first, indeed, warning them by means of natural precepts, which from the beginning He had implanted in mankind, that is, by means of the Decalogue (which, if any one does not observe, he has no salvation), did then demand nothing more of them»14.
And what about Christ? Did He offer new laws? No. The God who came down from heaven just showed that there existed higher levels of ethics. Let us remember what Our Savior answers to a man's question 'what good thing must I do to get eternal life?» He answers, «Keep the command-ments» and then voices those that describe the way people treat each other in Deuteronomy15. And only when the man asks what else is required, Jesus answers, «If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me»16.
That is what St Irenaeus implied when explaining the meaning of the natural law and the instruction of soul. He continues his thought as follows, «But the Word set free the soul, and taught that through it the body should be willingly purified. Which having been accomplished, it followed as of course, that the bonds of slavery should be removed, to which man had now become accustomed, and that he should follow God without fetters: moreover, that the laws of liberty should be extended, and subjection to the king increased, so that no one who is convened should appear unworthy to Him who set him free, but that the piety and obedience due to the Master of the household should be equally rendered both by servants and children; while the children possess greater confidence [than the servants], inasmuch as the working of liberty is greater and more glorious than that obedience which is rendered in [a state of] slavery»17.
With the advent of Savior it is no more the matter of obligations to God, but of a way to perfection. Christ gave the mankind a radically new ethical system preserving the fundamental norms of the Old Testament (ten commandments). He introduces the notion of ethical perfection. It is especially pronounced in the sermon on the Mount, where Jesus,
13 Deuteronomy 10:12-13.
14 Saint Irenaeus. Against Herecies. Book 4. Ch. XV1 URL: http:// www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/irenaeus-book4.html/
15 Matthew 19: 16-19.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
although using the formula of logical counterposi-tive « You have heard that it was said to the people long ago... But I tell you that», does not cancels with it the «normative» minimum of the Old Testament, but names criteria for perfection. It is for good reason that the sermon is finished with the words: «Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect»18.
To follow or not to follow the examples of perfection is the matter of a one's free will, an answer to God's calling, but not of accomplishing one's obligations.
But some may remind me of the fact that it is referred to obligations to God, not to those of one man to another, to society or a state. Still I will be bold enough to claim that it is not so, as such an idea does not in the slightest take into account the «factor» of God's love, agape. Without this love, God would command us to sing Him praise, to build him temples and make sacrifices (that is exactly the case with heathenism). But that is not what God wants of us.
Obligation, even moral, implies that the one to whom you owe it needs something — some benefit, protection, redemption, etc. But Almighty God does not need anything, and a man can give Him nothing. Then why the Creator tells us to «do this and not do that»? Because He loves mankind as His child, his Creation. Is it the matter of obligation or responsibility of the child when we as parents prohibit him or her to poke wire into power outlets or to hang over the window at floor 5? It is not a formidable and cold lord who prohibits us to murder, steal, to perjure, etc. in the name of some order that is known only to himself, but a loving Father who wants to save His children from death.
That is why God leaves the choice to us. Even when He, on the surface, «obligates» us to love God, He cares not for Himself, but for us, because only such kind of love may expect conscious and voluntary abidance by other requirements and bans. The choice that is granted to us by God is not such as in the earthly positive law: if you violate a ban or do not accomplish an obligation, you will be punished. The choice is different: if you do not want to turn into a beast, follow God's example. As Paul the Apostle says, «Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God»19.
This is a fundamental difference from any choice offered to people by a «wordly authority».
Paul the Apostle shows how much the love of God tears down all our familiar concepts, including legal ones. In the Letter to Hebrews he reminds us of the prophet's words:
18 Matthew 5.
19 Ephesians. 5:1-2
«The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned way from them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear»20.
You see, God concluded an agreement with His people (the Old Testament). But the people (a party of the agreement) did not fulfill its obligations. In legal practice the party would be subjected to punishment (sanctions), and the agreement would be terminated. But God did a different thing. He did not only preserve His agreement when the people repeatedly violated it, but he even took responsibility and concluded a new agreement with the perpetrator (the New Testament). More than that, he gave Himself in the image of the Son of Man as a «pledge» of fidelity.
B.P. Vysheslavtsev, as if developing Saint Ire-naeus' thought, wrote, «God wants us to fulfill His will (and wants obedience in this sense), but not as slaves or hirelings, but as friends and sons (and in this sense he does not want a common obedience). God wants love, and any love has freedom of choice, any love has a combination of two wills and two freedoms. «Thy will be done» is the expression of love to the Father, to the high and valuable, to Him, Who stands above me and, thus, can sublime my will. [...] The relationship God-Son is the only adequate symbol of sublimation; «from above», from the Father, the highest in the hierarchy, comes the call. The son answers the «call» with free love. A tyrant's order he would answer with disobedience»21.
The idea of love is literally pervades Christianity, and that is its major difference from other religious, world-view and ethical systems. That is why the position which does not take it into consideration and narrows natural rights to obligations of mankind is a one that lowers the mankind and clips their wings. As soon as the word «love» is pronounced, we should at once forget such words as «obligation», «must», as well as all other legal notions. Saint
20 Hebrews 8: 8-13.
21 Vysheslavtsev B.P. Vechnoe v russkoy filosofii // Vysheslavtsev B.P. Etika preobrazhennogo erosa. M., 1994. P. 200.
Nikolai Velimirovich, I think, means just the same, when he says, «God is love, but God is not equality. Equality would drive away justice and love, and morals. Does husband love wife for equality? And does mother love her child for equality? Do friends love each other for equality? Inequality is the basis of justice and the incentive of love. As long as love lives, no one remembers about equality. As long as justice dwells, no one thinks of equality. When love goes away, people speak about justice and think of equality. When love is followed by justice, people start speaking about equality and think of immorality, that is, they substitute driven-away morals with corruption»22.
A human being has no and can not have any rights before God. Although we do find words about God's «obligations», they are nothing more than a symbol of His support to the ever-doubting mankind. Such «God's oaths»23 can not be formalized (juridized), because, as the Apostle said, «But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'"24
In case such as this what can make the basis (if it is altogether possible) for the idea of human rights?
Different books of the Old Testament — Exodus, Levit, Deuteronomy — offer different versions of the ten commandments, nevertheless their general meaning and the construction of the Decalogue are the same. The first four commandments refer to, so to say, to the exceptionally religious sphere of human life (although in Mose's time there was no distinction between religious and secular life). The rest of the commandments refer to the sphere that may conditionally be called social. Moreover, there are two commandments of ten (the first and the last) the abidance by which can be judged by God alone, no earthly institution can do this — no state, tribe, community, etc. These are bans on polytheism and envy: «I am the Lord yor God, who briught you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no gods before me»25 and «You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's»26.
It is clear that the two commandments do not contain the essence of the human rights idea; any legal matter necessarily implies the existence of earthly, not Heavenly, institution. Then what of the other eight commandments could be (at least supposedly) the ground for the idea of human rights?
22 God dushi. Pravoslavnyy kalendar' s chteniem na kazhdyy den', 2004. Edinets, 2003. P. 317.
23 See, e.g., Genesis 24:7; Exodus 32:13; Numbers 14:30.
24 Romans 9:20
25 Exodus 20: 2-3.
26 Exodus 20:17.
The Savior, in modern terms, had integrated all commandments into two major ones: «Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments»27. Ontologically they are surely interconnected. To love God while hating other people or even being indifferent to them, means not to love God himself. But what means to love God? First, to feel gratitude for all he has done, is doing and will do for us, for his love for us had been manifested before our reciprocal love to Him. John the Apostle says, «This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins»28. Who of men is capable to sacrifice his own sun to win his offender's forgiveness? Second, to love God — with one's heart, soul and mind — means to fully and implicitly trust Him, to obey Him in full measure. As God commands us to love each other, then we, at the very minimum, should not wrong our neig-bours, we should help them, and, at the outside, to lay down «one's life for one's friends»29.
God does not need our formal expression of love to Him, He needs our love for each other. Such love is considered by God to be love for Himself. Jesus Christ states directly, «The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me'»30.
Surely, if all of us obeyed the two commandments, we would have no use for human rights or law as an external instrument to regulate our behaviour altogether. As the Apostle says, «Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law»31. The drama of the mankind is that there is little love on earth: there are few people who obey God's commandments and, consequently, love their neighbours. And if so, in order to prevent the beast law to take over the natural law, when the strong devour the weak, an external substitute of love is required, or a «prosthetic device», so to say. And such a device is the positive law.
However, legal control itself should be based on something. Positive legal regulation may be nonlegal, that is, it may not comply with the natural right (natural law32). Then, where lies the criterion of the legal nature of acts of law? It is in God's command-
27 Matthew 22:37-40.
28 1 John 4:10.
29 John 15:13.
30 Mathew 25:40
31
Romans 13:8.
ments that this criterion lies, as they contain the most primary, elementary and, thus, most fundamental values of human coexistence.
As A.M. Osavelyuk noticed that the religious morality «directs the mankind to two groups of values: «earthly» and «heavenly»33. These two groups also correspond to the commandments that comprise, conditionally, two parts of the Decalogue.
The first, «heavenly», group contains four commandments that secure the highest spiritual value — belief in God, love for Him, worshipping of him and loyalty to Him. I deliberately use the term value in singular, as all the four religious rules make up one value — a man's perception of oneself as God's creation. This perception, by the way, determines the imperative character of all other rules. As we are speaking of the Decalogue as the spiritual source of human rights, I have to point out at once that it would be inaccurate, in terms of the modern statehood at least, to connect the first four commandments directly to law in general and to human rights in particular (although they are interconnected vicariously).
Another thing is earthly values that correspond to the «social» rules of the Decalogue. A.M Osavelyuk divides them, in turn, into two groups: «It is worth mentioning that they are enunciated in a certain hierarchic order: first there stated moral imperatives and then the major postulates of right»34. To the first group he refers commandments on filial piety, ban on infidelity and envy («You shall not covet...), and to the second — bans on murder, greed and defamation (false witness).
Let us think, why the Decalogue includes these very commandments? Why did God think them pivotal for «instructing souls»? My point may be, certainly, argued, but I, having analyzed the «social» part of the commandments, will state once again: it is because they combined serve to protect human dignity.
However, freedom is also one of the key components of dignity and, correspondingly, of human rights. But it is not mentioned in the Decalogue. This puzzle, I suppose, may be solved the following way. Freedom of will is immanent to the mankind created as the image and the likeness of God, as many reverend fathers said. For example, John of Damascus says: «If man has been made after the image of the blessed and super-essential Godhead, and if the divine nature is by nature endowed with free-will and volition, it follows that man, as its image, is free by nature and volitive»35.
Freedom is not mentioned in the commandments exactly because they, presuming freedom,
32 Considering the fact that the notion of «law» and «right» are not distinguished in patristic literature, that is, the notion «rightis» almost never used, in this article we use both terms as synonims. However, the other adheres to the doctrine which states that not every law is a right.
33 Osavelyuk A.M. Gosudarstvo i Tserkov': monografiya. M., 2010. P. 137.
34 Ibid. P. 137.
35 D.B. Makariy, Arkhiepiskop Khar'kovskiy. Pravoslavno-dogmaticheskoe bogoslovie. T. 1. SPb., 1868. P. 132.
are aimed to show the mankind its natural bounds and to lay foundation for legal responsibility if they are violated. The bounds are represented by the values covered in the Decalogue.
Ignoring this pivotal moment the secular world, to my mind, determines the immoral extension of human rights, which, in turn, explains the explicable anxiety of the Church.
Absolutization of a sinner's freedom would lead to a total reign of evil on earth, which is illustrated, for example, by the scene when inhabitants of Sodom wished to abuse Lot's sacred guests36. This evil will, so that not to let it triumph, should be limited by legal bans, obligations and sanctions. The afore mentioned Saint Irenaeus writes: «For since man, by departing from God, reached such a pitch of fury as even to look upon his brother as his enemy, and engaged without fear in every kind of restless conduct, and murder, and avarice; God imposed upon mankind the fear of man, as they did not acknowledge the fear of God, in order that, being subjected to the authority of men, and kept under restraint by their laws, they might attain to some degree of justice, and exercise mutual forbearance through dread of the sword suspended full in their view, as the apostle says: "For he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, the avenger for wrath upon him who does evil"»37.
Thus, the existence of a state as an instrument to reign fury of morally ignorant men is not denied by the commandments, it is even presumed by them. It is a state that is able to ensure accomplishment of the basic «social» commandments. This way, a state, by guarding life, property and dignity of its citizens, ensures their natural rights. As P.I. Novgorodtsev wrote, «the aim of a state is not so much to get rid of turmoils of the natural state, as to save the natural rights, equality and freedom, to protect an individual and property»38. Not coinci-dentally the ten commandments are accompanied by many rules derived from them (Mosaic law), which necessarily stipulates society organised as a state.
Well, some may argue, that a state is aimed to guarantee fulfillment and abidance by certain bans and obligations. But these bans and obligations refer to private persons, not to a state. What from do you make a conclusion that these bans and obligations, corresponding to certain human rights, should be extended onto it as well? My answer is that a state is just a human institution and has nothing sacred about it.
Opponents to human rights offer, openly or covertly, as an argument the sacred character of
36 Genesis 19:1-9
37 Saint Irenaeus. Against Herecies. Book 5. Ch. XXIV. 2. URL: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/irenaeus-book5.html/
38 Novgorodtsev P.l. Lektsii po istorii filosofii prava. Ucheniya novogo vremeni. XVI-XVIII vv. i XIX v. M., 1912. P. 150.
a state, which does not allow to speak of any obligations to people, as well as of any human rights towards a state. For example, V.I. Ivanov plainly states, «The old question, whether a man is for a state or a state is for a man, will never receive a conclusive answer without addressing the matter of genesis of the mankind and the state. If the state and the power are from God, them a man is for God. Why is it so? Recognizing the state as created by God (!? — M.K.), a man serves to it as to God's representation, being one with it as coming from the Creator»39.
The Holy Scripture says about the divine origin (creation) of man, not of a state. A state is undoubtedly blessed by God, but only as far as it serves as an institution that regulates human coexistence; it means that ontologically it is to serve to the mankind, no matter what those in power might think of it. Saint Nikolai Velimirovich said very good words to the point, answering his parishioner's letter: «You regret the Roman «culture» thinking of it as of «beautiful marble sculptures that had adorned the streets and squares of Rome». But don't you regret thousands of wretched people in chains and shackles that had been dragged past those sculptures to be executed? Here lies the main difference between the Roman and Christian understanding of values. Roman heathenness valued state and culture above human life, and Christianity has valued human soul above state, culture and the whole world. As both state and culture are for man, and man is not for state or culture. Man creates state and culture not as the final life's objective, but as a supplement to achieve spiritual and moral goals»40.
I think that is the best answer for those who oppose the principle «Man, his rights and freedoms are the supreme value» (the Constitution of the Russian Federation, Article 2), who, as B.A. Kur-kin, consider it to be destructive for a state: «The principle of human rights precedence over rights of a state, if it is realised in practice, will inevitably lead to dissolution of a state and, consequently, to wreckage of human rights, as there will be nothing to protect them without a state»41.
This idea is wrong, if for no other reason, but for the fact that a state has no and cannot have any «rights» at all, if, of course, we do not view a state as a party in civil law relations or a subject in international law. A state functions on the basis of other principles than an individual; a state is represented by its bodies invested with certain authority. This authority in general is directed (should be directed) at detecting and realizing common interest, that is the interest of society in general, which in the mod-
39 Ivanov V.I. Religiya i prava cheloveka // Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya. 1998. № 6.
40 God dushi. Pravoslavnyy kalendar' s chteniem na kazhdyy den, 2009. M., 2008. P. 144.
41 Kurkin B.A. Ibid.
ern world means, first of all, providing national security, social standards and legal justice, as stated by constitutions.
That is why, the common interest is the key notion of statehood; recognition of man as a supreme value does not imply obliging the desires of each and everyone, but the necessity to protect man from arbitrary rule of a state. Hegumen Veniamin (Novik) rightfully pointed out that «such viewpoint fits well into the liberal tradition, but it is not more liberal that the behavior of Christ Himself in His earthly embodiment, who did not force, but invited people to follow him»42.
On the other hand, technocratic liberals really absolutize the idea of man as a supreme value, and, thus, in fact, play into the hands of their opponents. The Christian liberalism does not interpret this principle as an absolute predominance of human rights over common interest. For example, B.N. Chicherin, developing the idea of man as an objective, not an instrument, wrote that a state has the right to demand sacrifice of man, «even up to overall sacrifice of life for the sake of the whole community»43. Is there a contradiction to the idea of man as objective there?
No, as under a real threat to a whole human community the state has «the right to demand sacrifice», although, in fact, it is not so much about the right of the state, as about absolute responsibility of a citizen.
Article 2 of the Russian Constitution does not lay down man's responsibility to other people and the state. The existence and accomplishment of such responsibilities is means of self-preservation for the state and, consequently, for those who live in it. This article may have failed to formulate it clearly, but the true point is that it is human dignity that is a supreme value. So, when B.A. Kurkin denies that man is a supreme value, making it sound primitive, he also denies human dignity, which can be proved by his bewilderment: «Fallen man is still man. Shall he be «a supreme value»?»44. Yes, he shall, I will answer following the New Testament, where we witness that Jesus Christ turns, first of all, to these «fallen» people spurned by the Israel society of the time. The first man to whom he gave the chance to go to Heaven was exactly the «fallen man», a thief. Jesus warned his disciples and all of us against contempt to «these little ones»: «See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost»45.
When this Christian principle is ignored it leads to an utterly antichristian reasoning: this man is worthy of respect, and that one can be abused as being worthless. Such attitude was remarkably illustrated some time ago by the deputy Chairman of the Federation Council A.P. Torshin who made a statement on the case of a man who had been abused by police officers to death. A.P. Torshin said that Tatarstan's interior minister Safarov had the moral right not to investigate the case as «the man (the victim Sergey Nazarov. — M.K.) ... was far from an angel and not of elite society, the man had six criminal convictions»46.
It is not right to interpret the idea of man's supreme value as an idea of vulgar aggrandization of man against all other values. I will repeat, the point is about the supreme value of dignity immanent to any man, even to a tough criminal who should be punished, but never humiliated. Neglect of this value, which leads to neglect of human rights, is a major vice of any state. And then, according to Saint Augustine, it becomes no better than a gang of robbers47.
Sometimes opponents to Article 2 of the Russian Constitution may be heard saying that God, not man, is the supreme value. But, first, the article is intended for a different purpose; it is to remind that man for the state is not an instrument, but an objective. Second, such norm, if stated in the Constitution, would relegate the very idea of God to the secular level, as the Creator of all things stands above the earthly life, including all its values.
And third, if we reject the principle of man's supreme value, we will have to recognize the opposite principle, that is that the state is the supreme value. This will be an open challenge to the Christian teaching which is a brilliant example of anti-totalitarian world-view.
The position, assuming that man serves to the state, is an example of holism, a world-view that recognizes the priority of wholes over collections of parts. Plato was one of the first prophets of holism; in particular, he wrote: «Now I, as the legislator, regard you and your possessions, not as belonging to yourselves, but as belonging to your whole family, both past and future, and yet more do regard both family and possessions as belonging to the state. [...] But I will legislate with a view to the whole, considering what is best both for the state and for the family, esteeming as I ought the feelings of an individual at a lower rate»48.
Holism is directly opposed to the Christian teaching which is individualistic (although not in
42 Veniamin Novik O. Pravoslavie. Khristianstvo. Demokrati-ya: Sbornik statey. SPb., 1999. P. 366.
43 Chicherin B.N. Ibid. P. 17.
44 Kurkin B.A. Ibid. P. 116.
45 Mf. 18:10-11.
46 Gazeta.ru. 2012. 13 marta // URL: http://www.gazeta.ru/ news/lenta /2012/03/13/n 2241101.shtml/
47 Avgustin Blazhennyy. O Grade Bozhiem. Minsk: Kharvest, M.: AST, 2000. P. 165.
48 Plato. The Laws. Book 11. URL: http://classics.mit.edu/Pla-to/laws.11.xi.html/
the meaning of «individualism» which implies confinement to one's own world and selfishness). As early as in the Old Testament we come across quite a few examples, when it is the majority («people»), as a rule, that is wrong, and they are separate people that are right (are true to God). It is for good reason that we find the following commandment beyond the Decalogue: «Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong. When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd»49. Another point is that more often it is people (which is a grave, but not thoroughly comprehended lesson for us) who follow their leaders, who, according to Our Savior, become «blind leaders of the blind»50.
The idea of personal freedom of choice, of individual responsibility and salvation is even more pronounced in the New Testament. It is known that God did not intend to save the Jewish people from the Roman conquerors or restore the kingdom, although it was what the majority, being nationalists, as many of us today, expected from the Messiah, and afterwards got disappointed and rejected Our Savior. One essay writer once accurately said: «Our ideologists should not despise human life, forgetting the fact that Jesus had come down to earth to save man, not state, nation, race or ideology. And it was exactly for this (for placing man in the center of his preaching) that he was crucified by «state», «nation», «ideology» represented then by the Roman Empire, Jewish patriots and pharisees. Today, two thousand years later, they are again to play their part»51.
No Christian volume contains any hint about priority of the whole over parts. On the contrary, all the pathos of the New testament is in its address to a separate individual, not imaginative, but alive and sinful. Archpriest Alexander Shmeman wrote, «When it (Christianity. — M.K.) speaks about man, it really means every separate living man. It is for him, the New Testament says, ninety nine other people should be left52, he is created to the image and likeness of God and called for eternity and, this way, his destine, even the destiny of the most insignificant and socially worthless man, is as important as the destiny of a leader, genius or scientist»53.
The importance lies not only with «the scope the size of man» of the Christian teaching, but with its appeal to the most «socially worthless man».
This appeal emphasizes the supreme generosity of Christianity54, which is, at the same time, the greatest hope for the weak, the outcast, for those who seem worthless for the state, society or themselves, for outsiders, loosers; for those who, as one Catholic writer well said, «do not believe in themselves and stay captive of their incorrigible shyness; people who lack either imagination to meditate a better future, or moral courage to put it into practice. [...] These quiet people who do not touch anything with their wish; but who often look up to admire clouds and the azure of skies, because they know that no one lays claim to the sky»55.
So, legal protection of man from arbitrary rule of a state, that is primarily manifested in human rights, is not just familiar for Christianity, it is actually rooted in it.
However, I do understand one motive for rejection of human rights. Adversaries of human rights think that there is some immoralism inherent in them, that they are morally destroy society. It would be foolish to deny that our time is the time of incredible extension of the notion «human rights», on the one hand, and oblivion and neglect of their true spiritual roots, on the other hand. It would be more correct to interchange the position of the «parties», as the extension of «human rights» is the consequence of ignoring their spiritual roots, while the extension resulted in appearance of «queer rights», «monster rights».
Then a question arises: is this the nature of human rights or do we have to do with the common phenomenon of ideas being perverted? In order to answer the question we should return to the initial point of the problem: what is the «set» of these human rights like?
We may, certainly, turn to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by UN in 1948. However reputable this document may be, I still think, that it comprises not only human rights themselves, but also their guarantees, as well as rights and freedom that are derivative from human rights, but are not such. The natural character of human rights means (depending on a researcher's position) that they are either given by God or result from nature or human mind. Therefore, they belong in equal measure to all people by birth and inalienable from them.
49 Exodus 23:2.
50 Matthew 15:14.
51 Mozhegov V Khristos prihodil spasat' cheloveka, a ne gosu-darstvo // GlobalRus. URL: http://globalrus.ru/ opinions/784292/
52 See Christ's parable on «If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off» (Mf. 18:12-13).
53 Shmeman A., prot. Sobranie statey. M., 2009. P. 110.
54 José Ortega y Gasset wrote: «Liberalism — it is well to recall this to-day- is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities» (José Ortega y Gasset . Revolt of the Masses. URL: http://goo.gl/ftLAA8). That is, naturally, not true, as the limit of generosity, or generosity beyond human comprehension, was given by God. However, I also see liberalism as a form of generosity, and do not feel any discord between my adherence to Christianity and feeling liberal in my secular life.
55 Santuchchi Luidzhi. «Ne khotite li i vy otoyti?». Raz-myshleniya o zemnom puti Iisusa Khrista / per. s ital. L. Khaus-tovoy. M., 1994. P. 114.
But do such rights as the right to social security (the Universal Declaration, Article 22), or the right to work or to form trade unions (the Universal Declaration, Article 23) have natural character? № I am not sure that all political, economical, cultural and ecological rights and freedoms together are directly human rights. The former are just derivatives of the latter. Today they have become familiar for a modern state, but it does not allow us to make a conclusion that they have a natural law character.
How shall the bounds of human rights be specified so that to prevent their broad interpretation aimed at legitimization of vice?
It has already been mentioned that «social» values stated in the Decalogue combined with the implicit principle of free will it contains serve to protect human dignity. Actually, only this integrated value may justify the existence of the idea of human rights, the idea that appeared in the early modern period but, in fact, spiritually roots back to the basis of the Christian teaching. Consequently, the bounds of human rights should coincide with the bound of the notion «human dignity».
There exist hundreds, maybe thousands, ways to humiliate and impinge dignity of an individual. What is then: should everyone have his «separate human rights». Certainly not. The fact is that in the notion «human rights» we falsely interpret the word «rights» literally, believing them to be common legal rights. The problem is that they are not. Human rights are bans to threaten major values that comprise human dignity. For example, there is «the right to life», but it does not mean that man is granted the right to live. In fact, it is referred to prohibition to attempt man's life. The statement can be applied to all other «social» values specified in the Decalogue.
In fact, I think there are three such values: 1) prohibition to deliberately attempt man's life; 2) take away man's property; 3) sully man's good name (so, it is more correct to speak of human freedoms, not rights). Other values reflected in the commandments can not be human rights, because they are not subjected to law (state) and constitute the direct relationship of man and God that can not be destroyed (or controlled) by other people or state.
The well-known Russian Biblical and legal scholar A.P. Lopukhin, when studying Mosaic law, noticed that the difference between law and morality «is only in the volume of the spiritual life circle they are in charge with. While morality covers the whole life of human spirit up to its most subtle movements that are beyond control, law embraces only that part of spiritual life that manifests itself externally and can be subjected to external check, evaluation and limitation»56. But what moral imperatives
should become legal depends on the «level of development». There, where «the area of morality up to its most subtle manifestations is ascribed to Divinity»57, there is no necessity to draw the line between morality and law, and for this reason «thanks to the special vitality of the religious source, purely moral rules may be important for legal resolutions. So, in the Decalogue. For example, along with the purely legal resolutions, such as «thou shall not kill» and «thou shall not steal», there appear purely moral rules, such as «thou shall not covet your neighbor's wife», etc., and for people they had equal binding force»58.
This observation is essential, because «judicial» (logical) extraction of human rights does not imply that it is necessary to distract oneself from other values that are not formalized in modern legislation and, from the whole meaning of the Decalogue. The task is to see the ten commandments in their ontological unity. Then we inevitably cone to the conclusion that human rights and free will are naturally limited by certain moral requirements. As L.O. Ivanova truthfully pointed out, «"Human rights" as rights to "sin and crime" are an oxymoron, that is by no means possible or acceptable»59.
Unfortunately, there are few people today who share this opinion. The well-known futurist A.Toffler gives an example of rights «extension»: «Just ask Riki Anne Wilchins, a Wall Street computer expert who also happens to be what The New York Times described as a post-operative male-to-female transsexual. Wilchin heads GenderPAC, a group that lobbies Washington on issues pertaining to gender rights and argues that categorizing people as "he" or "she" is itself oppressive, force-fitting into one of those two roles all those who more accurately fit into neither»60. Still he draws quite a fatalistic conclusion that whether we like it or not we will have to put up with the new image of the world, as «anyone who underestimates the revolutionary character of today's changes is living an illusion»61.
Should the world really develop in this direction, then man will not just change, but destroy society. And they will not be human rights, born by the noble idea of equal respect to the dignity of everyone, to blame, but their false and warped interpretation.
56 Lopukhin A.P. Zakonodatel'stvo Moiseya. Issledovanie o semeynykh, sotsial'no-ekonomicheskikh i gosudarstvennykh zakonakh Moiseya. Sud nad lisusom Khristom, rassmatrivae-
myy s yuridicheskoy tochki zreniya. Vavilonskiy tsar' pravdy Ammurabi i ego novootkrytoe zakonodatel'stvo v sopostavlenii s zakonodatel'stvom Moiseevym / pod red. i s predisloviem prof. V.A. Tomsinova. M.: Zertsalo, 2005. P. 5.
57 Ibid.
58 Ibid.
59 Ivanova L.O. Religiya i prava cheloveka // Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya. 1998. № 6. P. 106.
60 Toffler A., Toffler H. Revolutionary Wealth. URL: http://goo. gl/8kWO8n/
61 Ibid.
LEX 'PSSlia_Human rights
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Перевод С.В. Гузеевой,
преп. кафедры английского языка № 2 Университета имени О.Е. Кутафина (МГЮА)
