The Founders on Scripture
Jonathan Rowe on Feb 25th 2007
The key Founders, you know them — Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin and a few others — had a particularly nuanced view of Scripture that differed from that of the “Deists” on the one hand and the “Christians” on the other. Their view of Scripture perfectly illustrates how their religion was a hybrid of the two systems — in between Deism and Christianity — with rationalism as the trumping element.
The strict Deist point of view, ala Thomas Paine and Ethan Allen, categorically rejected all revelation in favor of man’s reason. Orthodox Christians, on the other hand, viewed Scripture as inerrant and infallible. And though some in the orthodox Christian tradition accepted natural theology — or what man can discover from reason — Christians elevated revelation over reason. See Luther calling man’s reason “the devil’s whore,” or Aquinas, who argued the findings of man’s reason must perfectly coincide with all of Scripture, or else man, as fallible, must have erred.
The key Founders believed in the truth of both man’s reason and biblical revelation. Yet, they thought only parts of the Bible were legitimately revealed by God. They elevated man’s reason over revelation as the final arbiter of what revelation was legitimately given by God. Only those legitimate parts of the Bible provided support for man’s reason which was supreme.
Without understanding this nuanced hybrid position, both sides — the secular left and religious right — can easily claim these Founders as their own, misunderstanding them while quoting them out of context. For instance, a strict Deist believes in no Scripture. Jefferson and Franklin, two Founders often accused of being “Deists,” often made Biblical allusions and otherwise suggested that they believed in parts of the Bible. Why would someone who believed Scripture was false seem to hold parts of it in high regard? Reacting to these quotations, some secularists assert Jefferson and Franklin manipulated the masses or the moment, pretending to believe in something that they didn’t.
The religious right, on the other hand, jump on such opportunities to assert these Founders as “men of the Bible,” just like they are. They should realize that just because a particular Founder seemed to accept parts of Scripture doesn’t mean he accepted the whole thing. Only if a Founder clearly and unequivocally stated that he accepted the Bible as inerrant and infallible should he be claimed as believing in such.
I assert, controversially, that Franklin and Jefferson actually thought some Scripture was legitimately revealed by God. This post by no means will exhaust quotations from them which could be offered to support this notion. Rather, I’ll submit just a few. First in his letter to John Calder Aug. 21, 1784, Franklin wrote:
To which I may now add, that the[re are] several Things in the old Testament impossible to be given by divine Inspiration, such as the Approbation ascrib’d to the Angel of the Lord, of that abominably wicked and detestable Action of Jael the Wife of Heber the Kenite. If the rest of the Book were like that, I should rather suppose it given by Inspiration from another Quarter, and renounce the whole.
Note how Franklin does not “renounce” the entire Old Testament or Bible, just “that the[re are] several Things in the old Testament impossible to be given by divine Inspiration.” This suggests that parts of the Bible possibly have been given by Divine Inspiration. Also, the context of the letter is that it is to a like minded Unitarian who likewise disagreed with the religious test in PA’s Constitution of 1776 which required “the Members of Assembly to declare their belief that the whole of [the Bible] was given by divine Inspiration.” In other words, Franklin didn’t need to “beat around the bush” or write in code because he was speaking to another “infidel.”
Peter Lillback constantly shows in his 1200 page tome on Washington’s religion how GW made Biblical allusions, tracing Washington’s words back to scriptural passages. While this may show that Washington held revelation in higher regard than the strict Deists did, Jefferson and Franklin likewise alluded to the Bible in their writings every bit as much. And both of them clearly rejected parts of the Bible as illegitimate.
This letter of GW’s to the Hebrew Congregation of Savannah is stressed by Lillback, the Novaks’ and any scholar who would like to believe Washington’s God was “Biblical”:
May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, planted them in a promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of heaven and make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.
Yet, Thomas Jefferson says something remarkably similar in his Second Inaugural Address: “I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life….”
Or consider Franklin’s call to prayer during the Constitutional Convention:
I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proof I see of this truth that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that “except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the Builders of Babel:
Though here Franklin alluded to and quoted from the Bible, elsewhere he claimed the Bible was errant, and he probably thought much of it (like the story of the Tower of Babel) was metaphorical. But he seemed open to the notion that some of it was legitimately revealed by God.
Franklin, I would argue, believed slightly closer to conventional Christianity than Jefferson, because he accepted certain supernatural things which Jefferson would have dismissed as “irrational.” For instance, he accepted the turning of water into wine at cana. Franklin wrote:
We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy. The miracle in question was only performed to hasten the operation, under circumstances of present necessity, which required it.
He also apparently believed in bodily resurrection:
The Body of B. Franklin, Printer; like the Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding, Lies here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be wholly lost; For it will, as he believ’d, appear once more, In a new & more perfect Edition, Corrected and amended By the Author.
Again, though, Franklin still wasn’t a “Christian” because, among other reasons, he denied the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, Eternal Damnation, and inerrancy of Scripture. He also held man’s reason as the ultimate determiner of truth and thought men were saved through their works not faith.
Jefferson too seemed to believe parts of the Bible were genuinely revealed. In his letter to John Adams Jan. 24, 1814 he criticizes much of Scripture as “defective and doubtful” in its history and asserts “we have a right from that cause to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine.” This suggests he thought that parts of them are genuine. (A point first made on p. 79 in Dr. Gregg Frazer’s Ph.D. dissertation; this entire post though tracks parts of his thesis). Jefferson then stated, “It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.” The “diamonds” referred to what parts of Scripture are legitimately revealed, the “dunghills,” the error in the Bible.
Similarly, when Jefferson took his razor to the Bible and cut out what he regarded as untruth, this suggests what remained he believed legitimate revelation. A strict Deist would just cut up the whole book.
Finally, when Jefferson argued against the Deity of Jesus, he seemingly claimed to believe John 1:1-3 was legitimate revelation, but his interpretation of that passage rejected a central tenet of Christianity: That Jesus was both man and God. This comes from his same letter to John Adams where he bitterly attacked Calvinism as “Daemonism” and stated “the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” While denying the Trinity, Jefferson wrote of John 1:1-3:
and his doctrine of the Cosmogony of the world is very clearly laid down in the 3 first verses of the 1st. chapter of John, in these words, `{en arche en o logos, kai o logos en pros ton Theon kai Theos en o logos. `otos en en arche pros ton Theon. Panta de ayto egeneto, kai choris ayto egeneto ode en, o gegonen}. Which truly translated means `in the beginning God existed, and reason (or mind) was with God, and that mind was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were created by it, and without it was made not one thing which was made’. Yet this text, so plainly declaring the doctrine of Jesus that the world was created by the supreme, intelligent being, has been perverted by modern Christians to build up a second person of their tritheism by a mistranslation of the word {logos}. One of it’s legitimate meanings indeed is `a word.’ But, in that sense, it makes an unmeaning jargon: while the other meaning `reason’, equally legitimate, explains rationally the eternal preexistence of God, and his creation of the world. Knowing how incomprehensible it was that `a word,’ the mere action or articulation of the voice and organs of speech could create a world, they undertake to make of this articulation a second preexisting being, and ascribe to him, and not to God, the creation of the universe.
Yet, by understanding “logos” as “reason” or God’s mind as opposed to a second person in the Trinity, Jefferson’s interpretation of the Bible is not Christian, but rationalist.
Finally, I will offer a bit on Washington. As Peter Lillback shows, Washington often suggested that he believed in some revelation. But nowhere did he clearly assert that the Bible is inerrant or infallible. Moreover, Washington also clearly trumpeted Enlightenment rationality and liberality. So Washington’s beliefs on revelation do indeed, as Lillback argues, show that he was not a strict Deist (they didn’t believe in any revelation). But everything that Washington said on revelation is consistent with Jefferson’s and Franklin’s hybrid religion, as described above. The following from Washington’s 1788 letter to MARQUIS DE CHASTELLUX is typical of a passage Dr. Lillback quotes to prove Washington wasn’t a Deist: “For certainly it is more consonant to all the principles of reason and religion (natural and revealed) to replenish the earth with inhabitants, rather than to depopulate it by killing those already in existence.”
Again statements like this are just as consonant with Jefferson’s and Franklin’s rational theism as with orthodox Christianity.
(And to end on a lighter note, check out Washington’s words to DE CHASTELLUX just before the quoted passage: They are semi-pornographic.)
Filed in The Belfry, The Bureau
Jonathan, that “o” word is getting the better of you. While it’s true that the Protestants in the 16th C. introduced the notion of the Bible being the “literal and inerrant Word of God,” (viz., Calvin), that is not the orthodox view.
Thomas Aquinas summarizes the historically “orthodox” view in the Summa Theologica, I, I, x. The scriptures have a four-fold hermeneutic sense, beginning with the primitive “literal” sense (since the literal is elementary), but their three “spiritual” senses (viz., moral, allegorical, and anagogical) are primarily important to the believer. Catherine of Siena echoes Aquinas in claiming the “literal” sense is for those who are foolishly without any sense, literally, only the spiritual senses matter in encountering the Book of Spiritual Perfection.
Which view is “orthodox?” I’m hardly an arbiter of orthodoxy, but I’d place my bet on the side of twenty centuries of thought, rather than Calvin in the 16th C. Besides, “literal and inerrant” isn’t even intelligible to any hermeneuticist. To make this “obvious:” Why can’t those who make the “literal and inerrant” claim come to the same consensus of meaning? (See, infra.)
(N.B. The Calvinist claim differs from the Lutheran “sola scriptura” claim, in that both adopt the Bible rather than the Holy Spirit through the Church as the sole Authority, but Luther did not accept Calvin’s “literal and inerrant” mantra, for the obvious reason that Luther and Calvin disagreed on their different interpretations of the Bible — as have 10,000 subsequent Protestant denominations. That “literal and inerrant” mantra has caused more dissension than agreement.)
Some of our Calvinist Founders clearly followed Calvin’s interpretation and doctrines, but I don’t believe Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, et alia followed that suit of strictures (Jefferson expunged all supernatural material from his own Bible). Free-thinking Enlightenment figures would hardly embrace such nonsense, but like all liberals they’d tolerate it. Because of Christians’ own inabilities to come to a consensus over interpretations, it fostered the Enlightened folk to bar one interpretation’s hegemony over another’s, and thus no nationally “established” Church prevailed because of Christian internicene disagreements, which the free-thinkers exploited to everyone’s benefit.
Jon,
Regarding diamonds from dunghills: wasn’t Jefferson here referring to picking out from the gospels what were the genuine teachings of Jesus from the embellishments that accumulated over the years? If so, he need not have accepted the “diamonds” as inspired, but simply as accurately recorded for posterity.
[...] America’s founding fathers on the Bible (ht: Joshua Claybourn) [...]
Species, instead of “literal” wouldn’t Aquinas agree that Scripture is infallible, inerrant, and the entire thing is given by Divine Inspiration?
AMW:
You could be right. I think we could interpret Jefferson as believing Jesus’ words (even though he thought Jesus was a man not God, or even a divine being created by but inferior to God the father) were divinely inspired.
So “because of Christian internicene disagreements” over what is Christian, especially so considering the time period in question, how does this inform your contention about Jefferson et al. not being “Christian”?
“I am a sect by myself as fas as I know” (T.J. to Ezra Styles, June 25, 1819)
In stead of reading books on alleged views of Jefferson and others, those who claim these founders to themselves should read the writings of these individuals. They don’t, because if they did, they couldn’t claim them anymore.
Even taking the full text of one letter is taking a man’s views out of context. There was a life-time of learning and writing. Jefferson did write “I am a Christian” (To Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803) and “sublime doctrines of philantropism and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth” (to John Adams, May 5, 1817), so anyone can claim him out of context.
a few letters of TJ on the subject
http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/jefferson/benrush.html
Since the canon of scripture was not determined until the Council of Trent (16th C.), and since the “Word of God” has never been limited to the Bible alone, but is one of many means of revelation, I’m not sure that “infallible” or “inerrant” has any sense in Catholicism or Orthodoxy (the two entities have slightly different canons, too). From these entities’ perspectives: The Church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth, guided by the Holy Spirit, which expresses itself in manifold ways, of which Holy Writ is but one of those ways. The apogee of revelation is the Incarnate Son, and the witness to sonship in others is via the blessed saints, whose lives reflect his life, as expressed in the Gospel. The other books of Holy Writ serve to make the Gospel more fully understood — not stand on their own (which is why the Gospel is read by all standing — to receive the Word Incarnate).
The Lectionary of mainstream Protestants (which heavily borrowed) from the Catholic Church the locus of revelation is the Gospel (Protestants do not agree with the Catholic/Orthodox understanding of the Gospel’s centrality). But the lections are designed to pull the other readings into focus of the Gospel, which is itself the prism. The homilies must reflect on the readings and can be “inspired” in the same sense as the readings (since the Spirit is the Agent operating in both). The only infallibility I can discern (other than Papal) is that the Church’s magisterium (teachings) is authentic, sound, and true. ‘Infallible” is too strong a claim for any one means of revelation. Even the Vincentian Canon endorsed “catholicity” (universality), not certitude or infallibility, as the mark of authenticity.
So the two perspectives diverge significantly, to say the least. Aquinas’s own thoughts on this subject are probably in his Summa Contra Gentiles, which I don’t have access to.
[...] In this past post on the key Founders and Scripture I noted evidence for this in the primary sources some of which I’ll reproduce here. As Ben Franklin wrote to John Calder Aug. 21, 1784, he believed the Bible is not infallible: To which I may now add, that the[re are] several Things in the old Testament impossible to be given by divine Inspiration, such as the Approbation ascrib’d to the Angel of the Lord, of that abominably wicked and detestable Action of Jael the Wife of Heber the Kenite. If the rest of the Book were like that, I should rather suppose it given by Inspiration from another Quarter, and renounce the whole. [...]
[...] Commenter Brian asks for evidence that Thomas Jefferson or James Madison believed in the legitimacy of any revelation. I explored the question with regard to Jefferson in this post. I really didn’t touch Madison, whose views on revelation are hard to pin down. The best evidence nonetheless indicates Madison’s views were exactly like those of the other key Founders — some revelation is legitimate; some is not; man’s reason determines which is what. [...]
So do I infer correctly that there is no substantive evidence presented?
All I can sift from the post is that there is no direct & clear evidence that these men found there is no “revelation” in the bible.
Of course, the same can be said of their opinion of revelation in Locke’s works as well ;-)
No offense is intended to Jon or another, but the burden on evidence is on the one making the claim … not that it is clear to me that any such claim was made.
I’ll also point out that such a topic appears antithetical with regards to a blog that supports individual liberty. What does it matter what a man’s opinion of religion is?
Regardless as to the truth, how is the details of Jefferson’s of Madison’s faith relevant to their opinions with regards to the sanctity of individual liberty?
Ben,
I think you make a good point that the details of Jefferson’s & Madison’s faith may not directly relate to their views on individual liberty. This is just an interest that I have developed on the side. However, one can make the point that their views strongly indirectly relate: Political liberty emerged out of religious disputes. Protestants, because they were dissidents, mistreated when church & state were one, began to demand religious and political liberty. And religious heretics, i.e., unitarians who believed in what both the Catholic and Protestant Churches regarded as heresies, because they were the most dissident of the dissidents, tended to be on the forefront of arguing for political and religious liberty. If you read Jefferson’s letters, you see his hatred of Calvinist orthodoxy and his reflection on such notorious incidents as Servetus being burned at the stake for denying the Trinity put fire in Jefferson’s belly to deliver political and religious liberty to America.
Jonathan,
I am unable to talk about Franklin’s feelings towards revelation, though I find it difficult to believe that he was serious about God using rain to water the vines so humans can make wine. First, I really don’t see this as revelation, but rather him clarifying the language in the Bible. This is no different than a teacher cleaning up sloppy writing from a student. I do not see the connection between using reason to examine the Bible and those that do conform to reason is admission that it is revealed by God (more on this in a bit). Secondly, Franklin’s scientific endeavor with lightning was meant to prove that lightning was not a sign of God’s anger. I have no proof of this, but it seems that his idea on providence was inspiring human moments in history, much like Washington and the revolution. Again, this is just mere speculation.
As for Jefferson, it is very difficult for me to think he held the Bible to be revealed. But to qualify this, what is meant as revealed must be clarified. For many of the framers, nature is where one may know God. For instance, Jefferson writes, “Indeed I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to Atheism by their general dogma that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a god…. On the contrary I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in it’s parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to percieve and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of it’s composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with it’s distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organised as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, their generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and other forms” (Jefferson to John Adams April 11, 1823).
By Jefferson claiming that the Bible confirms what he realized through his own thinking does not admit of revelation, but rather there is a correspondence between Jefferson and the author of that passage. We can get Jefferson’s feeling on examining revelation here, “Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy & Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example, in the book of Joshua, we are told, the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus, we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said, that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine, therefore, candidly, what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand, you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should not, by that sudden stoppage, have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time gave resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth’s motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities” (Jefferson to Carr August 10, 1787)?
Here, there may be some room for your interpretation since he allows one to not absolutely rule out that someone was inspired. However, this is difficult to accept since what evidence is there that one was inspired? If Jefferson uses his knowledge of science to exclude the possibility that God stopped the sun and that he knows that science progresses, one must be cautious in accepting the idea that Jefferson held that some things were revealed. I think it is much more possible that Jefferson did not want to dictate the path his nephew would take since he did ask Carr to consider if Jesus was truly divine and born of a virgin.
Jon wrote: “If you read Jefferson’s letters, you see his hatred of Calvinist orthodoxy and his reflection on such notorious incidents as Servetus being burned at the stake for denying the Trinity put fire in Jefferson’s belly to deliver political and religious liberty to America.”
Agreed.
However, I don’t see how Jefferson’s view of Calvinism reflects upon his view of liberty … I don’t mean to imply that you do … one way or the other.
That is for you to clarify.
My opinion is that Jefferson and Madison were in support of any and all liberty of thought, and were liberal of expression provided that which was expressed did not threaten the life and liberty of others (even then they were more forgiving that I think appropriate).
“However, I don’t see how Jefferson’s view of Calvinism reflects upon his view of liberty.”
I doubt it does. You can be a fanatically orthodox Christian and a doctrinaire libertarian.