An Essay in Christian Social Theory

NEW Robert V Andelson (move author biog down so that you can enlarge type) ‘Professor Andelson’s book is a courageous endeavour to renew the metaphysical foundations of natural rights’

Russell Kirk This essay is a thoughtful analysis of the ground and nature of human rights. The author advances a theoretical basis for rights in general, and then deduces specific rights. Concrete, immediate moral and social issues are treated. He argues that human rights is an issue which is often invoked but seldom intelligently considered. Considering non-Christian theories of human rights - the radical-humanist, the utilitarian and the self-realization approaches - he notes the inadequacies of these positions, and observes that even most Christian theories fail to come to grips with that insight into human nature symbolized by the doctrine of the Fall of Man.
He then proceeds to develop an original thesis in which the absolute ground of rights is seen to be the will and grace of God. In this sense natural right flows from natural law which, as a term of jurisprudence and politics, may be defined as a body of rules of action prescribed by an authority superior to the state. These rules are presumed to be derived from divine intent, from the nature of man, or from the long experience of man in community. Natural law and natural rights therefore differ from positive or statutory law, decreed by the state, and also from the laws of nature in the scientific sense, that is from propositions expressing the regular order of certain natural phenomena. ROBERT V ANDELSON, was an ordained Congregationalist minister, specialising in social ethics as professor of philosophy at Auburn University. He had previously taught political science, philosophy and religion, and spent three years as director of the Henry George School of Social Science in San Diego. He was the author of From Wasteland to Promised Land: Liberation Theology for a Post-Marxist World and editor of Critics of Henry George: An Appraisal of their Strictures on ‘Progress and Poverty’.