COMMENTARY: Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

(UNDATED) When it comes to patriotic celebrations and the role of religion in America’s founding, views typically range from a nostalgic exaggeration of our Christian roots to an outright (and equally misleading) denial of religion’s role. To find the truth, it might help if we could return to two original founding documents, both of which […]

(UNDATED) When it comes to patriotic celebrations and the role of religion in America’s founding, views typically range from a nostalgic exaggeration of our Christian roots to an outright (and equally misleading) denial of religion’s role.

To find the truth, it might help if we could return to two original founding documents, both of which promise “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

It’s not uncommon to trace the origins of this memorable Jeffersonian phrase to Enlightenment political philosopher Thomas Paine.


But Thomas Jefferson acknowledged a deeper, older source when he penned the famous lines, “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.”

Jefferson, a deist, believed “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” flowed not from a political philosophy or from any man or government, but rather from the creator described in a second founding document, the Bible itself.

In that ancient book’s first chapters we read of Eden, a proverbial paradise that was home for the first humans. The precise location of this mythic place is debated, but it is clear that the blessings God bestowed upon humans there included the three highlighted in our Declaration of Independence.

1. The blessing of life: “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” (Genesis 2:7)

Human beings hate death because we were created for life, and Eden was teeming with life. “Let the water teem with living creatures and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky …” Genesis tells us.

Biological life is a precious gift and we all marvel at birth, whether a puppy or a nesting bird or a tiny baby. Anyone who has been present for the birth of a child and has heard that first cry knows the surge of excitement when new life arrives on the planet. As William Blake said, “everything that lives is holy, life delights in life!”


2. The blessing of liberty: “And the Lord God commanded the man, `You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”‘ (Genesis 2:16-17)

Freedom is often defined as the absence of interference (by coercion or aggression) with the sovereignty of an individual. Humans yearn to be free precisely because we were created to be free.

History bears out the universal human struggle for freedom. When the Jews were exiled for 400 years in Egypt, God sent a message to Pharaoh through Moses, “Let my people go!”

In America, our independence was fueled by a succession of freedom lovers: pilgrims escaping religious persecution and patriots escaping the tyranny of colonialist rule. The landscape of 20th-century Europe is dotted with the overthrow of freedom-denying despots like Stalin, Hitler and many others.

Twenty years ago, students protesting in China at Tiananmen Square stirred our hearts; in the past weeks, we’ve followed the struggle of brave Iranians who are risking the wrath of a repressive government and a theocratic despot because they desire to be free.

3. The blessing of happiness: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” (Gen 1: 31). Humans yearn for the good & happy life because we were created for such a life. “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life,” Aristotle said, “the whole aim and end of human existence.”


Contemporary psychologist Abraham Maslow tells us the happy human life involves progressing, from our most basic human needs (air, water, sleep) to safety (personal and financial security) to social well-being (friendship, family) to personal needs (self esteem) to self actualization: creativity, intelligence, acceptance.

Eden was, and remains, the realization of the circumstantial setting Maslow could only imagine.

This year as we celebrate our national freedom, let us remember the founding documents that gave birth to the universal cry of all humans: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

(Dick Staub is the author of “The Culturally Savvy Christian” and the host of The Kindlings Muse (http://www.thekindlings.com). His blog can be read at http://www.dickstaub.com)

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