¹ These texts are cited parenthetically by page number throughout.

² Witte, John Jr. God’s Joust, God’s Justice: Law and Religion in the Western Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006)Google Scholar.

³ Witte, John Jr. The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)Google Scholar. Other related works are listed in a complete bibliography of Witte’s publications in Faith, Freedom, and Family, 733–62.

⁴ Biggar, Nigel, What’s Wrong with Rights? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ Biggar, What’s Wrong with Rights?, 435. For similar arguments from a legal perspective, see Greene, Jamal, How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021)Google Scholar.

⁶ Moyn, Samuel, Christian Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)Google Scholar.

⁷ This definition is a reconstructed version of T. E. Jessop, s.v. “Natural Rights,” in The Dictionary of Christian Ethics, ed. John Macquarrie (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), 225.

⁸ The use of coercion or physical force may, on a natural rights understanding, be initiated by individual persons or groups of them only in response to the necessity of averting an imminent palpable wrong, and exercised only in a way that is proportional and undertaken with right intention. For a fuller account, see Little, David, “Self-Defense and the Organic Unity of Human Rights,” Journal of Law and Religion 36, no. 3 (2021): 459–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹ This description of the natural rights model applies both to Protestant and to earlier Conciliar (Roman Catholic) interpretations. Conciliarists, beginning in the twelfth and culminating in the fifteenth century CE, took the “strongly anti-Thomist and anti-Aristotelian” view that secular society was the result of sin: Skinner, Quentin, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978)Google Scholar, 2:116. Persons in the state of nature possess the right to exercise force in their own defense, but they decide on the basis of reason (because self-enforcement is unreliable and unstable) to grant the right of enforcement to political authorities (the origin of secular political society). That is, self-enforcement in the protection of rights readily turns into the violation of rights (sin) because of (in John Locke’s words, which reflect the Conciliar view) “passionate heats” and the “extravagance of will” that are easily aroused by the exercise of force: Locke, John, Second Treatise of Government (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952)Google Scholar, ch. 2, sect. 8.

¹⁰ Donahue, Charles Jr. “ Ius in Roman Law,” in Christianity and Human Rights: An Introduction, ed. Witte, Jr. John and Alexander, Frank S. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 64–80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹ Donahue states that “rarely, if ever, is the term [subjective right] used [in Roman law] to describe the right of a citizen against the state.” Donahue, “Ius in Roman Law,” 78.

¹² Tierney, Brian, The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies in Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law, 1150–1625 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001)Google Scholar; Pennington, Kenneth, The Prince and the Law: 1200–1600: Sovereignty and Rights in the Western Legal Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³ Tierney, The Idea of Natural Rights, 76–77.

¹⁴ D’Arcy, Eric, Conscience, and Its Right to Freedom (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961), 156 Google Scholar.

¹⁵ The claim that people might rightfully rebel against a tyrannical pope suggests a right against religious persecution, as did the claim, mentioned earlier, that attempts to coerce belief are unjustified. Also, Bartolome de las Casas (1484–1566) appeared to support the idea that Central American indigenous persons had a right of religious liberty against the Conquistadores. Tierney, Idea of Natural Rights, 272. Still, as far as I know, the notion of a discrete, legally enforceable right of freedom of conscience was probably not entertained until the 16th century by Sebastian Castellio (1515–1563). Although the Conciliarists seemed favorable to such a right in theory, they certainly did not practice it. They summarily condemned Jan Hus to death for heresy at the Council of Constance in 1415.

¹⁶ Tierney, Idea of Natural Rights, 314–15.

¹⁷ Tierney, 207–35.

¹⁸ Quoting Philip Melanchthon, Melanchthon on Christian Doctrine: Loci Communes 1555, trans. and ed. Clyde L. Manschrek (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), 335–36.

¹⁹ Johann Oldenthorpe (1486–1567), a Lutheran jurist whom Witte discusses, resembles Melanchthon in playing down natural rights thinking and affirming instead that the Bible “is the highest source of law for life in the earthly kingdom” (Blessings of Liberty, 136).

²⁰ Quoting Luther, Martin, D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, repr. ed., 78 vols. (Weimar: H. Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1883–1987)Google Scholar, 11:262 (Witte’s translation).

²¹ Quoting Confessio et apologia pastorum & reliquorum ministrorum Ecclesiae Magdeburgensis [Confession, instruction, and admonition of the pastors and preachers of the Christian congregations of Magdeburg] (Magdeburg, 1550), A1v, J4r–K1r, K2R–L1r, N.

²² See Little, David, “Calvin and Natural Rights,” Political Theology 10, no. 3 (2009): 411–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 417n27.

²³ Quoting various of Calvin’s commentaries, sermons, and lectures collected in Ioannis Calvini opera quae supersunt omnia [All the surviving works of John Calvin], ed. G. Baum et al., 59 vols. (Brunswick: Schwetzke, 1863–1900). See Faith, Freedom, and Family, 94n47; see also Witte, Reformation of Rights, 57–58.

²⁴ See Little, “Calvin and Natural Rights,” 421–27. In an editorial inquiry on a draft of this essay, M. Christian Green wonders whether in the light of his exposition of Romans 2:14–15 Calvin implies that the idea conscience, grounded in natural law, constitutes a “natural” basis on which people agree to be bound or not by human laws. Calvin says as much elsewhere: When “the whole world was shrouded in the densest darkness of ignorance, this tiny little spark of light remained, that men recognized … conscience to be higher than all human judgments.” Accordingly, he goes on, “human laws, whether made by magistrate or by church, even though they have to be observed (I speak of good and just laws), still do not of themselves bind the conscience. For all obligation to observe laws looks to the general purpose, but does not consist in the things enjoined.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battle, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), book 4, chap. 10, para. 5, 1183–84 (hereafter Institutes). Elsewhere, Calvin unequivocally affirms the universal availability of natural morality:

²⁵ Calvin, John, Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Romans and Thessalonians, trans. Mackenzie, Ross, ed. Torrance, David W. and Torrance, Thomas F. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 283–86Google Scholar.

²⁶ Citing John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), chap. 2, para. 28, at 62 (hereafter Institutes [1536]).

²⁷ This term urtumlich Natur- und Freiheitsrechte (the original natural rights of freedom) is used by Josef Bohatec as a fitting summary of Calvin’s understanding of natural rights: Josef Bohatec, Calvins Lehre von Staat und Kirche [Calvin’s teaching on state and church] (Aalen: Scienta, 1961), 94.

²⁸ Calvin, Institutes, book 4, chap. 20, para. 24, at 1512.

²⁹ Little, David, Religion, Order, and Law (New York: Harper & Row, 1969)Google Scholar, 46n66; see also Little, Essays on Religion and Human Rights, 255n96.

³⁰ See also, Witte, Reformation of Rights.

³¹ See also Witte, Reformation of Rights, 143–208. Althusius’s brand of nationalism, like that of other Calvinist resistance theorists, is an incipient form of what is now called, “liberal nationalism,” as opposed to “illiberal nationalism,” so familiar these days. Liberal nationalism defines citizenship on the basis of equal rights for all, whereas illiberal nationalism discriminates on the basis of religious, racial, and ethnic identity. I say incipient in Althusius’s case because while advocating an equal rights foundation for citizenship, he nevertheless accords special status to Reformed Christians.

³² Quentin Skinner comments that Althusius and another resistance theorist, the Scottish Calvinist George Buchanan, make clear in their works that “they now see themselves as talking exclusively about politics, not theology, and about the concept of rights, not religious duties.” Skinner, Quentin, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, vol. 2, The Age of Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 341 Google Scholar.

³³ Witte, Reformation of Rights, 171, citing Johannes Althusius, Politica methodice digesta atque exemplis sacris & profanis illustrate [Politics methodically arranged and illustrated by sacred and profane examples], 3rd ed. (Herborn, 1614), reprinted as Politica Methodice Digesta [Politics methodically arranged], ed. Carl J. Friedrich (Cambridge, MA, 1932), VII.4–7, with translation adapted from Politica Johannes Althusius [Politics of Johannes Althusius], trans. and ed. Frederick S. Carney (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1935).

³⁴ Witte, 199.

³⁵ Witte, 170. Althusius’s comments elsewhere, however, sharply narrow the idea. For example, and as paraphrased by Witte: “Tyrants who offend God and defy true religion [!] should be removed” (Faith, Freedom, and Family, 172).

³⁶ Witte, Reformation of Rights, 169. See above note 8.

³⁷ Witte, Reformation of Rights, 118–19.

³⁸ Milton, John, “The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates,” in Complete Prose Works of John Milton, ed. Sirluck, Ernest et al. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953–)Google Scholar, 3:198–206, quoted in Witte, Reformation of Rights, 223.

³⁹ Witte, Reformation of Rights, 242.

⁴⁰ Witte, 244.

⁴¹ Witte, 246.

⁴² Overton, Richard, “An Appeal from the Commons to the Free People” (1647), in Puritanism and Liberty, Being the Army Debates (1647–9) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents, ed. Woodhouse, A. S. P. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 323–37Google Scholar, at 325.

⁴³ Witte, Reformation of Rights, 215–18.

⁴⁴ Witte, 318.

⁴⁵ Williams, Roger, Complete Writings of Roger Williams, ed. Miller, Perry (New York: Russell & Russell, 1963), 3:398 Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ See also Witte, Reformation of Rights, 274–75.

⁴⁷ For a fuller discussion, see Little, “The Right of Self-Defense,” 12–14.

⁴⁸ Ketcham, Ralph, James Madison: A Biography (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1990), 293 Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ G.A. Res. 217 (III) A, preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Dec. 10, 1948).

⁵⁰ See above, note 8.

⁵¹ For an elaboration of the claim that arbitrary attacks amount irrefutably to “senseless (i.e., morally indefensible) acts of violence,” as they are typically described, see Little, “The Right of Self-Defense,” 463–68. It should be added here that pacifist Christians do not refute the absolute wrongness of arbitrary attacks or the belief that it is always right to prevent them. Based on their reading of New Testament prescriptions against using force, they challenge the right of lethal defense in two ways: (1) they argue that nonviolent means are always a better way of prevention than the use of force (force begets force), which is an argument about proportionality and is still within the terms of the right of self-defense; and (2) they argue that the right of lethal defense applies to everyone and that the prescriptions against force apply only to Christians, who electively waive the right, supposing that either the first argument is correct or God will act to prevent or punish such acts, thus fulfilling the terms of the right of self-defense supernaturally. On this view, non-Christians, including governments, are fully entitled to exercise the right of lethal defense. Non-pacifist Christians, like Augustine and Calvin, came close to the second argument, except that they, unlike Mennonites, for example, believed that Christians may participate in the (legitimate) use of force as public officials.

⁵² Rawls, John, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” University of Chicago Law Review 64, no. 3 (1997): 765–807, at 803CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵³ Rawls, “The Idea of Public Reason Revisited,” 774.

⁵⁴ The point here is that Rawls’s idea of public reason, which Witte accepts, explicitly rejects reliance on any supernatural authority (or nonreligious equivalent). Rawls’s views do not rest on natural rights thinking, and whether they might be improved by embracing it is another matter. For suggested revisions, see David Little, “Religion, Human Rights, and Public Reason,” in Essays in Religion and Human Rights, 112–42, at 122–24.