Jefferson’s Syncretism & Adams’ Belief in Biblical Errancy
Jonathan Rowe on Sep 1st 2007
What Dr. Gregg Frazer termed “theistic rationalism” — the religious creed of the key Founders — contains a number of elements that distinguish it from both Christianity and Deism. They include theological unitarianism (denial of the Trinity), universalism (universal salvation, the good rewarded immediately with bliss, the bad punished temporarily, eventually redeemed), syncretism (most or all religions are valid ways to God), and the notion that the Bible is partially inspired (thus errant) and that man’s reason is the ultimate device for discerning which parts of the Bible are true, which are not. The system also posits an active personal God and the efficacy of prayer; in fact, the theistic rationalists were more likely to call themselves “Christians” than “Deists.”
This was without question the creed of Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin, and very likely Madison, Washington, G. Morris, Wilson, Hamilton (before his end of life conversion to orthodox Christianity) and countless other lesser Founders whose religious beliefs have yet to have been subject the rigorous historical examination necessary to determine what they really believed. This has not yet been done. All that has been shown is the overwhelming majority of them were formally or nominally associated with Christian churches which, in their official creeds, professed orthodoxy. And yet, theistic rationalists like Jefferson, Adams and Franklin likewise were formally or nominally associated with such churches. In Adams’ case, his “Puritan” Congregation preached unitarianism from the pulpit as of 1750.
A reader skeptical of this theory asked whether Adams believed the Bible was errant or man’s reason was penultimate before the 1800s when he resumed his correspondence with Jefferson. The answer is yes. I’ve written about it here. In 1785, Adams wrote:
What suspicions of interpolation, and indeed fabrication, might not be confuted if we had the originals! In an age or in ages when fraud, forgery, and perjury were considered as lawful means of propagating truth by philosophers, legislators, and theologians, what may not be suspected?
– John Adams, marginal note in John Disney’s Memoirs (1785) of Arthur Sykes. Haraszti, Prophets of Progress, 296. Taken from James H. Hutson, The Founders on Religion, p. 26.
Adams was so suspicious of the accuracy of the Bible’s text that he doubted it contained the correct version of the Ten Commandments. Notice how he uses terms like “error” and “amendment” to describe what’s contained in the Bible:
When and where originated our Ten Commandments? The Tables and The Ark were lost. Authentic copies, in few, if any hands; the ten Precepts could not be observed, and were little remembered.
If the Book of Deuteronomy was compiled, during of after the Babilonian Captivity, from Traditions, the Error or Amendment might come in there.
Adams makes clear that the “corruptions of Christianity” had seeped into the Bible:
We have now, it seems a National Bible Society, to propagate King James’s Bible, through all Nations. Would it not be better, to apply these pious subscriptions, to purify Christendom from the corruptions of Christianity, than to propagate these corruptions in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America!
– John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, November 4, 1816. Taken from James H. Hutson, The Founders on Religion, p. 143.
And of course, in 1787-1788, Adams declared that the United States was founded on man’s reason and the senses, and a treaty from his administration declared the United States was in no sense founded on the Christian religion.
Likewise the reader accepted Jefferson’s unitarianism but was skeptical about Jefferson’s syncretism. Jefferson’s 1809 letter to James Fishback evinces his belief in the validity of most or all world religions:
Every religion consists of moral precepts, and of dogmas. In the first they all agree. All forbid us to murder, steal, plunder, bear false witness &ca. and these are the articles necessary for the preservation of order, justice, and happiness in society. In their particular dogmas all differ; no two professing the same. These respect vestments, ceremonies, physical opinions, and metaphysical speculations, totally unconnected with morality, and unimportant to the legitimate objects of society. Yet these are the questions on which have hung the bitter schisms of Nazarenes, Socinians, Arians, Athanasians in former times, and now of Trinitarians, Unitarians, Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Methodists, Baptists, Quakers &c. Among the Mahometans we are told that thousands fell victims to the dispute whether the first or second toe of Mahomet was longest; and what blood, how many human lives have the words ‘this do in remembrance of me’ cost the Christian world! We all agree in the obligation of the moral precepts of Jesus; but we schismatize and lose ourselves in subtleties about his nature, his conception maculate or immaculate, whether he was a god or not a god, whether his votaries are to be initiated by simple aspersion, by immersion, or without water; whether his priests must be robed in white, in black, or not robed at all; whether we are to use our own reason, or the reason of others, in the opinions we form, or as to the evidence we are to believe. It is on questions of this, and still less importance, that such oceans of human blood have been spilt, and whole regions of the earth have been desolated by wars and persecutions, in which human ingenuity has been exhausted in inventing new tortures for their brethren. It is time then to become sensible how insoluble these questions are by minds like ours, how unimportant, and how mischievous; and to consign them to the sleep of death, never to be awakened from it. … We see good men in all religions, and as many in one as another. It is then a matter of principle with me to avoid disturbing the tranquility of others by the expression of any opinion on the [unimportant points] innocent questions on which we schismatize, and think it enough to hold fast to those moral precepts which are of the essence of Christianity, and of all other religions. [My emphasis.]
Jefferson also made clear that good people of all religions get into Heaven because of their works. From his September 18, 1813 letter to William Canby:
I believe…that he who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned at the gates of heaven, as to the dogmas in which they all differ. That on entering there, all these are left behind us, and the Aristides and Catos, the Penns and Tillotsons, Presbyterians and Baptists, will find themselves united in all principles which are in concert with the reason of the supreme mind.
Aristides and Cato were pagans. The pagan Cato was George Washington’s hero. Indeed, when called upon to explain his belief in the afterlife, Washington invoked a pagan authority for such. From his letter to Annis Boudinot Stockton 31 August 1788:
But with Cicero in speaking respecting his belief of the immortality of the Soul, I will say, if I am in a grateful delusion, it is an innocent one, and I am willing to remain under its influence….I can never trace the concatenation of causes, which led to these events, without acknowledging the mystery and admiring the goodness of Providence. To that superintending Power alone is our retraction from the brink of ruin to be attributed.
Washington certainly doesn’t sound like an orthodox Christian in that passage. Indeed, he, like the other theistic rationalist American Founders were imbibed in pagan Greco-Romanism. You have to wonder why, if they were almost all committed orthodox Christians, the, for instance, authors of the Federalists Papers (Hamilton, Madison, and Jay) would choose a pagan Greco-Roman surname — “Publius” — as opposed to a Hebraic one. Jay was perhaps the only orthodox Christian out of those three. But he wrote a measly five essays compared to Hamilton’s fifty-one and Madison’s twenty-nine. And in any event, though the series has a few nominal references to a generic “Providence,” there is no mention of Jesus, the Bible or citations of verses and chapters of Scripture. If the US Constitution had any connection whatsoever to the Bible or “Christian principles,” that series would seem the perfect place to so tell us. But they don’t.
Filed in The Belfry, The Bureau
OK Jonathan, let’s dance this tune once more around the ballroom.
Dr. Fraser defines theistic rationalism as “a hybrid, mixing elements of natural religion, Christianity, and rationalism, with rationalism as the predominant element.”
I don’t know what Dr Fraser means by “natural religion.” As Hume understood it (in Dialogs Concerning Natural Religion), it was religion based upon reason or empirical evidence. Hume concluded that such a thing could not exist. Locke and Descartes both stated reason had no place in the realm of faith. No philosopher was advocating such a concept. Certainly no religious leader was advocating such a religion. As far as I can tell, no such concept existed in the 18th century. Certainly not in the colonies.
Next we have Christianity and rationalism. Certainly from the time of Thomas Aquinas Christianity and reason had gone hand in hand. It was Aquinas, following the lead of Aristotle, who said man was a rational being. One can even go so far as to say Faith and Reason are integral parts of Christian thought. However, Dr. Fraser states that rationalism was the predominant part, I assume over religion.
He expands on this idea: “Finally, while they believed that reason and revelation generally agree with each other, theistic rationalists believed that revelation was designed to complement reason (not vice versa). Reason was the ultimate standard for learning and evaluating truth and for determining legitimate revelation from God.”
“Revelation was designed to complement reason.” As it stands, this statement is flat out incorrect. No one believed this at that time. What they believed was expressed by Locke,
“In all things, therefore, where we have clear evidence from our ideas, and those principles of knowledge I have above mentioned, reason is the proper judge: and revelation, though it may, in consenting with it, confirm its dictates, yet cannot in such cases invalidate its decrees”
In other words, in the realm of natural philosophy (science) reason reigns supreme. Locke went on to further to state that faith is beyond the discover of reason.
“Thus, that part of the angels rebelled against God, and thereby lost their first happy state: and that the dead shall rise, and live again: these, and the like being beyond the discovery of reason, are purely matters of faith, with which reason has, directly, nothing to do.”
So far as I can tell, the concept of “theistic rationalism” simply didn’t exist in the 17th and 18th centuries. I surmise that Dr. Fraser interpreted the religious writings of many of founding fathers and came to the conclusions that their own conclusions were based on a rational reading of the Christian scriptures. To encapsulate what he perceived of their approach to religion, he came up with the term ‘theistic rationalism’. He did this in spite of the fact that such a concept didn’t exist in the 18th century. This is also in spite of the fact that this use of reason and scriptures was the basis on the Reformation. That it was being practiced in the 18th century is quite clear. That it owed it’s roots to the Reformation is also quite clear.
The problem is that using reason to understand religion goes back way before the 18th century. Reason and religion were a theme of Thomas Aquinas clear back in the 13th century. One might say the use of reason to understand religion is a Christian invention. It is certainly not an invention of the 18th century as Dr. Fraser suggests. However, he continues,
Dr. Fraser, “Accordingly, the founders believed in a benevolent, active, and unitary God who intervenes in human affairs. Consequently, they believed that prayers are heard and effectual. They believed that the key factor in serving God is living a good and moral life, that promotion of morality is central to the value of religion, and that the morality engendered by religion is indispensable to society.”
This could be said of 90% of the population in the colonies. It is main stream Christian thought.
Dr. Fraser “Because virtually all religions promote morality, they believed that most religious traditions are valid and lead to the same God.”
However, they did not see all religious moral codes equal. The moral code of Jesus was far superior to any other moral code. Jefferson: “Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus.”
Dr. Fraser, “Though theistic rationalists did not believe that Jesus was God, they considered him a great moral teacher and held a higher view of him than did deists.”
I think this is a bit of unintended sophistry. There was a strain of Christian thought in the colonies which taught that Jesus was subordinate to God. Thus he was not God. However, this did not affect he role as the savior of the world. And that, after all, is what Christianity is all about. So those who believed Jesus was not still believed Jesus to be the messiah.
Dr. Fraser, “They believed in a personal after-life in which the wicked will be temporarily punished and the good experience happiness forever. [standard Christian thought] Although they believed that God primarily revealed himself through nature, they believed that some written revelation was legitimate.”
Notice his assertion that his theistic rationalist believes God reveals himself through nature. This is standard Christian thought and goes back way before Thomas Aquinas in the middle ages.
Unfortunately Dr Fraser does not give an example of his next assertion that theistic rationalist believed that only some revelation [from the Bible?] is legitimate. However, I think your assertions, Jonathan, concerning Adams attempts to support this accusation. You write that Adams believed the Bible was errant. You provide this quote from Adams in support.
Adams: “What suspicions of interpolation, and indeed fabrication, might not be confuted if we had the originals! In an age or in ages when fraud, forgery, and perjury were considered as lawful means of propagating truth by philosophers, legislators, and theologians, what may not be suspected?
Notice that Adams only suspected that because of so many translations the Bible may be in error. This is not the same as saying the Bible did contain errors as you assert.
You follow that quote with this one and alerts us to notice how Adams use of “error” and “amendment.”
Adams: “When and where originated our Ten Commandments? The Tables and The Ark were lost. Authentic copies, in few, if any hands; the ten Precepts could not be observed, and were little remembered.
“If the Book of Deuteronomy was compiled, during of after the Babylonian Captivity, from Traditions, the Error or Amendment might come in there.”
OK, Adams is using the terms “errors” and “amendments” in reference to the possibility of them entering through various compilations. Again, this is Adams only asking if there might be errors in the bible. This is not the same as saying there were errors in the Bible.
Your next assertion is that Adams believed corruptions had seeped into the Bible.
Adams: “We have now, it seems a National Bible Society, to propagate King James’s Bible, through all Nations. Would it not be better, to apply these pious subscriptions, to purify Christendom from the corruptions of Christianity, than to propagate these corruptions in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America!”
I think your assertion stems from a very bad interpretation of what Adams is saying. Let’s break the paragraph down. The subject of the first sentence is the efforts of the Bible society to spread the availability of the bible to all nations. The subject is not the bible itself but rather it’s spread by the society. The subject of sentence two is the need to rid Christianity of it’s corruptions. There is a clause attached to this sentence which I think you are misinterpreting. The clause states “than to propagate these corruptions in Europe, Asia, Africa and America.” This clause is set off by a comma which means this clause relates to the subject of the sentence as a whole. The subject of the sentence is the corruptions of Christianity therefore this clause relates to the corruptions of Christianity not the Bible
Unfortunately, your examples do not support Dr. Fraser’s assertion that theistic rationalists believed in only some revelations were valid. If Dr. Fraser is using examples such as Adams to support this assertion then the assertion itself is unfounded.
So now let’s move to Washington and his secret admiration for all things pagan. You present Washington’s admiration for the pagan Cicero: “But with Cicero in speaking respecting his belief of the immortality of the Soul, I will say, if I am in a grateful delusion, it is an innocent one, and I am willing to remain under its influence.” The second part you quoted had nothing to do with Cicero or paganism in any form. If you are fixated on the term “Providence”, this was a term to denote God and was used by many of the educated colonists.
Let’s get back to Cicero and his pagan influence on Washington. You write, “Washington certainly doesn’t sound like an orthodox Christian in that passage. Indeed, he, like the other theistic rationalist American Founders were imbibed in pagan Greco-Romanism.” Come on Jonathan, you must have heard about the Renaissance. It was that great rebirth of classical scholarship of the 14th and 15th centuries. Good grief, even the Pope would have studied Cicero. It was the mark of a well-educated person to be able to quote the classics. Good Christians did it all the time. So yes Jonathan Washington does sound like a well-educated orthodox Christian.
Jonathan: “And in any event, though the series has a few nominal references to a generic “Providence,” there is no mention of Jesus, the Bible or citations of verses and chapters of Scripture.”
You’re making an awfully unfounded assumption that Christians would not discuss secular government without the use of scriptures. Secular government is well established in Christian experience and has been since the 13th century. You might say that secular government, as we know it, grew out of the Christian experience. This would make secular government a Christian invention. Christians had known for hundreds of years how to speak about secular government with out reference to the Bible. Your observation, I’m afraid, is meaningless.
Jonathan: “If the US Constitution had any connection whatsoever to the Bible or “Christian principles,” that series would seem the perfect place to so tell us. But they don’t.”
This, of course, begs the question as to why the US Constitution would have reference to Biblical passages anyway? There was a long tradition of Christian secular government. The secular terms Christians developed to describe secular government come out of the Christian experience. One might say: “Developed by Christians for Christains.” So an orthodox Christian would see no need for Biblical quotes in their secular documents. The exclusion of such quotes are quite consistent with Christian usage.
Nearly every idea you have brought up in support of theistic rationalism either didn’t exist at the time or was developed within a Christian context long before Jefferson or Adams was even born. Well, this is overly long and I apologize for that.
Rich
Rich: You’ve done a lot of research, but clearly, there is much you need to learn. I don’t have time to address everything you wrote tonight, but perhaps I’ll get to more of it later, unless Dr. Frazer decides to chime in and defend his work. But the following represents one of the huge glaring errors in your assertions:
“As far as I can tell, no such concept [natural religion] existed in the 18th century. Certainly not in the colonies.”
Natural religion simply refers to the fact that God revealed himself through nature. And what God reveals through nature, man discovers through reason.
As John Adams perfectly defined it here:
In terms of whether concept of natural religion was being pushed by preachers, I assure you, it was. It was a common topic for discussion in the Dudleian Lectures at Harvard.
For instance, Ebenezer Gay, “Natural Religion, as Distinguished from Revealed: A Sermon,” (Boston, 1759). Or Samuel Langdon, “The Co-incidence of Natural with Revealed Religion,” (Boston, 1776). And many others.
RK: “The problem is that using reason to understand religion goes back way before the 18th century. ”
I take this as the core of your argument. That the use of reason in religion at the time of the Founding was essentially the same as in earlier times.
For Aquinas, reason and revelation must be reconciled. Revelation tells us things that reason cannot. Reason can also help give shape to what has been revealed. Because the source of revelation is the source of reason, there can be no contradiction between them.
For Locke, reason can lead to a heterodox position. He agrees that revelation tells us things that reason cannot. But if what is believed to be revealed is irrational, then it must be re-shaped or supplanted by the reasonable.
Unitarianism was not based on a new revelation; it was based on reason. It rejected Trinitarianism because reason demanded that rejection. Reason trumps revelation. The same can be said for miracles. Revelation reigns supreme only in the places reason cannot reach (e.g. events before time and after it, events in another world or another life).
You are correct that Adams imply that there was some original, true, form of Scripture. Of course, this true Scripture has no practical authority because it cannot be found. For Jefferson, the true and authoritative parts of the Gospels could be discerned, by Jefferson’s sensibilities, cutting out those parts that are irrational. This cutting away at revelation is very different from Aquinas’ reconciliation of reason and revelation.
Well I just came back from spending the day sea kayaking. That has to be the best sport. At one time I paddled past two beautiful bald eagle sitting together in a tree by the water’s edge. Anyway,
.Jonathan; “But the following represents one of the huge glaring errors in your assertions:
My alleged assertion: “As far as I can tell, no such concept [natural religion] existed in the 18th century. Certainly not in the colonies.”
Jonathan: “Natural religion simply refers to the fact that God revealed himself through nature. And what God reveals through nature, man discovers through reason.”
I’m afraid you’re taking my comment out of context. I had said that I didn’t know what Dr. Fraser meant by the term. Therefore I presented what Hume meant by the term. Given Hume’s definition, such a religion didn’t exist. I had thought of the definition you presented but dismissed it since it has been part of Christian teaching for hundreds and hundreds of year. It goes back to the early middle ages. It is one of the mainstays of Christian thought. If Dr. Fraser meant what you wrote, that is that God reveals himself through religion, then this idea was not the creation of the 18th century
Daniel: I take this as the core of your argument. That the use of reason in religion at the time of the Founding was essentially the same as in earlier times.
Nice try Daniel but no. Thomas Aquinas, for example used reason to show one could come to the same conclusion about God that scriptures and the patristic writings did. On the other hand, reformers of the Reformation used reason to investigate the Bible in order to come to a purer religion. Now that does sound familiar.
Daniel: “For Locke, reason can lead to a heterodox position. He agrees that revelation tells us things that reason cannot. But if what is believed to be revealed is irrational, then it must be re-shaped or supplanted by the reasonable.”
Not quite.
Locke: “In all things, therefore, where we have clear evidence from our ideas, and those principles of knowledge I have above mentioned, reason is the proper judge: and revelation, though it may, in consenting with it, confirm its dictates, yet cannot in such cases invalidate its decrees: not can we be obliged, where we have a clear and evident sentence of reason, to quit it for the contrary opinion, under a pretence that it is matter of faith; which can have no authority against the plain and clear dictates of reason.”
He’s saying in all things pertaining to natural philosophy (“those principles of knowledge I have above mentioned), that is to say science, reason reigns supreme. And, that revelation, in those things, must conform to the dictates of reason. However, as the quote I gave previously shows, the power of reason has no place in arena of faith.
Daniel: “Unitarianism was not based on a new revelation; it was based on reason.”
Unitarianism was the term used in the 18th century as it developed in England. Before that is was known as Socinianism after Laelius Socinus who died in 1562. It originated in Poland and Transylvania and was know prior to Socinus as the Polish Brethern. They rejected Trinitarianism on the basis that such teachings did not conform to how they understood the Bible. Of course this is the rational that all Protestant reformers used.
However, it is highly unlikely that Adams or other Founding fathers came to their anti-Trinitarian stance through Unitarianism/Socinianism. It is much more likely that they came to this position through Arminianism named after the Dutch Protestant reformer Jacobus Arminius. The question was was Jesus God by virtue of the Father or was he God by virtue of himself (autotheos). Arminius argued the latter. This would result in Jesus not being equal to the Father but subordinate to the Father. Subsequent Arminian preachers took the next step and denied the Trinitarian nature of God.
The first groups of pilgrims were Congregationalists. Prior to coming to America, they had spent ten years in Holland, the land of Arminius. Undoubtedly, Arminianism was picked up by a number of these pilgrims because we find Arminian preachers teaching from the pulpits in the colonies. The first Unitarian church wasn’t established until 1785. Therefore, it is much more likely that anti-Trinitarian beliefs came from Arminianian preachers rather than Unitarian.
Daniel: “For Jefferson, the true and authoritative parts of the Gospels could be discerned, by Jefferson’s sensibilities, cutting out those parts that are irrational.”
I doubt that you have taken the time to read ‘Jefferson’s Bible’. Had you read it you would have realized that what you just asserted is totally wrong. Jefferson’s bible only contains those parts which had to do with the life and teachings of Jesus. It includes the early years and ministry, teachings and parables, end of times, the betrayal, arrest and condemnation, crucifixion, death and burial. In one fell swoop Jefferson eliminated the Old Testament. Not because it was irrational but because it contained nothing about Jesus. He also eliminated the Pauline letters. He did this not because they were irrational but because Jefferson believed Paul corrupted the purity of Jesus’ teaching. Jefferson wasn’t trying to create a more “rational” Bible but rather one that contained the purity of Jesus’ message.
While Jefferson’s attempt was a bit on the extreme, his purpose can clearly be seen within the thrust of mainstream Protestant thought. It was this same desire to gain a purer Bible, purged of Catholic corruption, that inspired English Protestant biblical scholars to develop the King James version of the Bible.
As to my research, American colonial history was one of my four study areas for my doctorate. Another was Renaissance and Reformation.
Rich
Frazer is going to try to chime in by Tuesday. One problem he noted, Rich, was that you don’t have access to his dissertation. The Claremont article, as a word limited article didn’t have the room for the evidence for which you are looking but his 440 page dissertation does.
One big difference between the natural theology of Aquinas and that of the theistic rationalists is whereas Aquinas (and many orthodox Christians of the Protestant persuasion who likewise believed in natural law/natural theology) believed the Bible was infallible and reason must therefore support or confirm revelation, the theistic rationalists believed that God primarily revealed Himself through nature and only partially inspired the Bible. Therefore reason trumps revelation in determining matters of religious truth. This is unquestionably what Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin and many preachers of that era believed.
In terms of Jefferson and the “corruptions” of Christianity, he didn’t just believe the Catholic Church was corrupted but also orthodox Trinitarian Christianity of the Protestant persuasion as well, especially Calvinism which Jefferson hated.
Joseph Priestly — Jefferson’s, Adams’ and Franklin’s spiritual mentor — coined the phrase “corruptions of Christianity,” and defined them as the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, and plenary inspiration of scripture. Jefferson further explicated exactly what it was about Christian doctrine in which he disbelieved. In his letter to William Short, he listed them:
“The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity; original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy, &c.”
RK: “In one fell swoop Jefferson eliminated the Old Testament. ”
Actually, I have read it, although it has been some time. I think the conventional meaning of “the Gospels” (which I referred to as his sources) is the first four books of the New Testament. That makes it a bit of a red herring to point out that he eliminated Old Testament or Paul.
RK: “Jefferson wasn’t trying to create a more “rational” Bible but rather one that contained the purity of Jesus’ message.”
The Jefferson Bible is not a “teachings gospel,” limited to Jesus’ message. Jefferson didn’t leave out the activities of Jesus. He left out the activities that he found unbelievable. At least one miracle story is included but with the miracle excised. If I remember correctly, the crucifixion is there, but not the resurrection.
I don’t know that Jefferson described his criteria in any meaningful way. But the reductions he made are certainly consistent with the claim that he preferred reason over revelation. Yes, the Protestant project was a purified Christianity, but that purified Christianity looked to a revelation that included a healing, miracle-working, resurrected Jesus.
On Locke: I confess that my study of Locke is limited to secondary sources and none of those recently. I look forward to future discussion of you who are more learned than I.
[...] Gregg Frazer emailed me a response to Richard Knapton’s criticisms of his Claremont article on theistic rationalism based on Frazer’s Ph.D. thesis. The response is reproduced below. Let me take this moment to note that though I am the main presence on the Internet that endorses Frazer’s thesis — and clearly I’m a small player in the scholarly world — two giants in scholarship have endorsed Frazer’s work by name: One is historian Peter Henriques of George Mason University, a secular scholar, author of Realistic Visionary — a biography of George Washington — and one Washington’s most well-respected scholars, and the other is Gary Scott Smith, chair of the History Department of Grove City College and arguably the most distinguished evangelical historians in the nation. [...]
[...] Adams is quite clear that the unalienable right to liberty of conscience means the right to blaspheme or in particular to doubt the truth of the divine inspiration of the Bible, which Adams himself personally did. When Adams stated the Christian religion “has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which, I think, will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated,” an evangelical Protestant might hope he were referring only to Roman Catholicism. But this is wrong. Adams, himself a lifelong, committed theological unitarian believed the entire institution of orthodox Trinitarian Christianity was corrupted. And those “corruptions of Christianity” were defined by Adams’ and Jefferson’s spiritual mentor, Joseph Priestley, as the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, and plenary inspiration of scripture. The Bible itself was “corrupted” and Adams believed man had an unalienable right to use his reason to edit what he saw as “error” from the Bible exactly as Jefferson did. As Adams praised Jefferson for cutting up the Bible in this regard: “I admire your Employment, in selecting the Philosophy and Divinity of Jesus and seperating it from all intermixtures. If I had Eyes and Nerves, I would go through both Testaments and mark all that I understand.” [...]