Human or Divine?

reflections on revolutions

“Liberty, freedom! Tyranny is dead!”

These are the first words proclaimed after the murder of Caesar. The conspirators are quick to have this cry proclaimed in the streets and pulpits of the Capitol. They want to take control of the narrative, and frame their acts as noble to the public. They may have murdered in cold blood, but they prefer to be seen as liberators than killers, sacrificers not butchers, honorable men rather than vulgar Romans. And so they go to the streets and pulpits with their propaganda.

These pages of the play could lead to hours of discussion on perennial themes like revolution, righteousness, and reality. We could easily spend thousands of words on the importance of revolution, and as Catholics and Americans, we’d be well-placed to reflect on these things. We could spend thousands of words on the importance of righteousness in driving social change, and as Catholics and Americans, it’d be good timing to reflect on these things. And though I desire deeply to ponder the historical undercurrents on King Henry 8th’s betrayal of the Catholic church, today, I prefer to consider something else. I’d like to use Shakespeare’s pivotal scene as the basis for a reflection on human rights.

The power of Julius Caesar’s betrayal is that it’s slap in the middle of the play. We have the lead up to this momentous occasion, but we also have the fall out, the aftermath. And as Catholics, we give thanks and praise for this reflection on usurpation. Also as Americans, for when our revolution against the British empire took place, our founding fathers were deeply versed in two canons of writings, the canon of Sacred Scripture and the canon of William Shakespeare. Both canons teach us how to conduct righteous revolution.

Sacred Scripture Starts with a Revolution

The Sacred Scriptures exist because of a revolution. God desired for slaves to walk in freedom. And so he sends his Prophet to confront Pharaoh and proclaim his message, “Let my people go.” This is the birth of the nation of Israel.

50 days after the birth of a new nation we have the giving of the law (Pentecost). This law written on tablets of stone by the finger of God have 10 commandments that are the basic foundations of a thriving society.

Reading through Saint John Paul II's encyclical, The Splendor of Truth, one realizes that the 10 commandments are not simply a divine law given to a particular people, but they form the firm foundation for human rights, and not only a foundation, but also the key particulars that must be recognized and obeyed if you would wish your society to flourish.

These particulars include key ideas like the necessity of allowing the true God to be worshipped in spirit and truth (commandments 1-3) as well as honoring family, marriage, life, truth, property, and loving your neighbor as yourself (commandments 4-10). These ingredients to a healthy and thriving society are to be cherished and respected as sacred gifts and institutions for the health of every nation.

So, the first recorded revolution of this world, the freeing of God’s slaves from Pharaoh’s household, comes with holy scriptures to help slaves walk in freedom.

Another great revolution of this world came with the defeat of sin and death and another set of writings to help slaves walk in greater freedom with their Lord and Savior. Thankfully, the Church preserved both these sets of writings in one canon of Sacred Scripture to share with the world as the manual, method, and way to hold divine revolutions, revolutions that bring healing, freedom, and love to the world, not war, hatred, and destruction.

The moral of these stories delivers the powerful truth: our freedom is revealed in relationship with God.

Our human rights are based on his eternal truth. And nothing else.

What other option is there?

If we don’t base our human rights on God, are we to base it on mankind? On the animal kingdom? On some fleeting and failing ideology? By no means! Our existence begins within the eternal and everlasting God, and so do our rights.

Again, what’s the alternative? To have rights determined and dictated by men? Even decent men have their flaws. All men die, the good and the bad. And all men can be deceived, led astray. If we were to base our rights on the beliefs and ideas of men we’d be bound to find them fall out of fashion quickly. This was among one of our most grievous errors of the last few centuries.

We misunderstood and misapplied ideas that explain aspects of the animal kingdom like “adapt or die” or “survival of the fittest” or “only the strong survive” and thought they’d be suitable ideas to describe the relationship that men should have with one another. That’s a devilish play on words and ideas, just like the play that happened in the garden of Eden, casting doubts on truth to have humanity live with lies and succumb to poison, poison encouraged by the devil, the father of lies and deceit.

No, the only objective standard we can have on this earth is the standard that’s beyond this world: God. We’re all relative. We relate to each other, we relate to God.

We are all bound in space and time, bound by laws of nature, bound by sin and death. We are bound. The only freedom comes from the eternal one beyond space and time, beyond nature, whose conquered sin and death, who is not bound by anything in heaven or on earth, the one who offers life abundant and everlasting. Life with no bounds. We are relative, thankfully, we are invited to relate to God.

One of many testimonies of our relationship with God is how we tell time, by the birth of his Son. It is only right we do so, he is our standard. He is our divine standard.

And so, the scriptures of the first recorded national revolution tells the story of slaves made free and a nation under God. And in these stories is hidden for revealing the necessary basis of our human rights, the divine principles that we must structure society if it is to survive and thrive.

The American Revolution: God-given rights

When certain colonists of the 18th century declared their independence from an empire, it’s a great gift for humanity that they were well-versed in the stories of Sacred Scripture. They understood the need to root their revolution in the God who knows no bounds. They rooted our revolution in the divine. And so, they recorded for all the world to know, the principles by which this nation is formed, a nation under God.

The unanimous declaration of the thirteen United States of America.

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world…

Our founding fathers rooted our revolution in divine principles, the God-given rights of mankind. That’s the wisdom of our founding fathers; our folly comes if we forget these basic and divine truths.

Henry’s Revolution: the divine right of kings

Shakespeare lived through another revolution, one that he chronicles as a usurpation, the usurpation of the English church by the English Crown. It’s a great gift that we have the well-versed stories of William Shakespeare to chronicle these times. Henry rooted his usurpation of the Church on his foolish idea that as king who could do whatever he wanted; it was his divine right.

The successor of his daughter, King James gave name to this belief and called it the divine right of kings. In their particular and popular use of the theory, they used their Crown as a means to do evil and call it good. They forgot the truths of what the divine king taught and did, “the greatest among must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave; even as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The greatest leaders are those who serve.

Who did Henry serve? His bride? He cast her off and had her imprisoned to die alone. Others he imprisoned and beheaded. His children? He had different kids proclaimed illegitimate and hated their mothers for the singular purpose of finding a male heir. He sold his kingdom for a horse. And he sold his heirs for a fleeting kingdom. His people? He had many imprisoned, impoverished, and impaled for greedy and avaricious reasons, stealing from them to fill his treasuries with stolen goods. He served none but his flesh and the devil.

In the end, Henry destabilized a nation by creating an environment that any revolution against him or his successors have valid claims of justice attached with them. He violated every single one of the 10 commandments, and England suffered tremendously for it. “Liberty, freedom, tyranny is dead” may have been their battle cry, but it was a lie.

We found a greater wisdom, “rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”

Shakespeare chronicles the unjust revolution of Henry and in Julius Caesar he teaches us to see through the lies and propaganda. We will cover this in more detail in coming weeks, but for this week, we reflect on the two types of revolution available to us in this world: the human and doomed revolutions or the divine and life-giving ones.

Choose wisely, and choose well, it’s not only the ends that matter but also the means. And if we learn to hear Shakespeare, we’ll love God and fight fiends.