The God of America’s Founding…Christian…Biblical?
Jonathan Rowe on Nov 24th 2007
The answer to this question is it depends. I’m going to answer Kristo Miettinen’s response in a series of posts. One of Jim Babka’s friends also takes issue via email on the identity of the God of the American Founding:
As for Rowe’s claim that the proclamations were made to a “generic God.” What God pray tell could they have possibly been referring to other than the God of the Bible? Now there may have been a difference of opinion about the deity of Christ, but that difference did not lead America’s leaders to a God other than the one of the Holy Scriptures.
Miettinen puts it this way:
To your claim that “the God to whom the founders appealed – the individual rights granting nature’s God – arguably was not the biblical or Christian God” I have this query: how many, among the founders, ignored the bible in seeking God? After all, even the squishy theist Jefferson was obsessed with the biblical accounts of Christ (you may be able to find the references faster than I can, but TJ was reputed to study his highly heterodox biblical compilation every night). And if you acknowledge that a biblical God was the majority (if not consensus) view, then in what sense are we not talking about a Christian God, keeping in mind as we must that Christianity in America was, then especially but largely even today, bible-based rather than creedal, and also that the bible in question was not the Tanakh or Qu’ran but the good old KJV.
My answer: Conclusions about the key Founders’ view on the biblical nature of God depends on from which perspective one looks, because the glass is half full/half empty, as it were. Secularists want America’s Founders to be Deists who categorically rejected Biblical Revelation and the Christian America crowd wants them Christians who accepted the Bible as infallible. But they were neither; they believed the Bible was partially inspired; parts of Scripture were legitimately revealed, parts weren’t. God primarily revealed Himself through Nature, secondarily inspired the Bible, and, as Dr. Gregg Frazer put it “[r]eason was the ultimate standard for learning and evaluating truth and for determining legitimate revelation from God.” So in a sense yes, this was the Biblical God, minus everything man’s reason [or the key Founders' reason] deemed His irrational attributes recorded in Scripture. This is why some folks might argue, yes because they turned to the Bible [not the Koran or other holy books] for some of God’s nature, it was the Biblical God, while others might note, since they edited parts of His nature from the Bible, it wasn’t really the Biblical God.
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.
And earlier in his life, Franklin stated the Christian revelation was secondary to what God already revealed in Nature:
Now, that to promote the Practice of the great Laws of Morality and Virtue both with Respect to God and Man, is the main End and Design of the christian Revelation has been already prov’d from the Revelation itself. And indeed as just now hinted at, it is obvious to the Reason of every thinking Person, that, if God almighty gives a Revelation at all, it must be for this End; nor is the Truth of the christian Revelation, or of any other that ever was made, to be defended upon any other Footing. But quitting these things; if the above Observations be true, then where lies the Absurdity of Hemphill’s asserting,
Article I.
That Christianity, [as to it’s most essential and necessary Parts,] is plainly Nothing else, but a second Revelation of God’s Will founded upon the first Revelation, which God made to us by the Light of Nature.
John Adams likewise believed what man discovers about God from reason is primary all other sources of revelation, including the Bible, are secondary. From his letter to Jefferson Dec. 25, 1813:
Philosophy, which is the result of reason, is the first, the original revelation of the Creator to his creature, man. … no subsequent revelation, supported by prophecies or miracles, can supersede it.
Adams also made clear he believed the Bible was errant, and doubted the Bible contained the right version of the Ten Commandments:
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.
– John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, Nov. 14, 1813.
Adams further expressed his skepticism of the accuracy of the Bible’s text when he 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.
To Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin, Christianity had been “corrupted,” — “the corruptions of Christianity” was a phrase coined by their spiritual mentor Joseph Priestley which he defined as the Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, and plenary inspiration of the Bible. Miettinen mentions the King James Bible as central to American Christianity. But Adams named that version of the Bible as particularly corrupted:
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 Hutson, The Founders on Religion, p. 143.
And of course we have Jefferson notoriously taking his razor to the Bible using his reason to judge which parts were genuine, which parts were corrupted. I focus on Adams by the way, to show just how mainstream these views were among the elite Whigs from which America’s Founders were disproportionately drawn (but probably not mainstream among the general population). Jefferson has gained a reputation as some sort of outlier. And in many senses, he was: his politics were more radical; his intelligence was exceptional; he, along with Madison, would separate church and state more so than would most other Founders. Adams is rightly thought of as more politically conservative than Jefferson. However, on God’s attributes, Jefferson and Adams were virtually agreed.
So when an air of mystery surrounds other key Founders, a strong reticence to explicate their religious specifics at a time when the institutional Churches expected public figures to profess orthodoxy, but many of them secretly believed in heterodoxy, absent evidence to the contrary, they probably believed as Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin did. James Madison was one such Founder. And in his notes preparing for the Memorial and Remonstrance he mentioned there are different kinds of Christianities, including Trinitarian and Unitarian, and that which believes the entire Bible is inspired, and that which believes only certain “essential parts” are divinely inspired.
The question is whether this unitarianism that held God primarily revealed Himself through Nature and that only parts of the Bible were inspired can be legitimately termed “Christianity,” and whether its God is legitimately termed “the Christian God.” So when Mr. Miettinen asks “in what sense are we not talking about a Christian God,” I think I’ve outlined a very meaningful sense, and have strong grounds for claiming in my original essay that the key Founders posited a “rational, benevolent, unitarian deity who fit their republican ideals much better than the Biblical God could.”
Filed in The Belfry, The Bureau
Hi Jon!
I’m not going to point out my every disagreement, as there is danger of getting lost in the weeds. Instead I’ll point back to my distinction between what I called options (c) and (d). Option (c), the more secular position, requires no belief in the inspiration or inerrancy of scripture - it is enough to believe in the necessity of the moral content of bible-based religion for successful republican democracy.
That the marginally religious fathers thought so is amply documented. We need look no further than the big Kahuna among founding sort-of-Christians, Jefferson. When considering how to integrate the Indians of the Louisiana purchase into the growing United States, he offers them missionaries at government expense and a church-building subsidy (and makes his first biblical compilation specifically for their use - though he decides not to publish it).
So note that the argment for “the founders supported a Christian nation” does not turn on them believing anything particular about Christianity other than its utility. Some founders took option (d), others took (c), but in any case they agreed on what to do: build a democratic republic and foster religion, specifically Christianity.
This does not mean that in today’s religious marketplace they would still all seek to promote Christianity - their choice was based on the selection available to them at the time. But Christianity was the choice they made.
-Kristo.
Kristo,
Jefferson and the other early Presidents promoted Christianity to Indians only desiring to convert, or already converted. Jefferson, Madison, and Washington all three referred to God as “The Great Spirit” (the title the Indians use for God) when speaking to unconverted Indians which suggests they had no problem with their pagan faith and believed it a valid way to God. [Jefferson also may have intended to share his Bible with the Indians, but also made clear the parts which he cut were those parts in which he didn't believe.]
I also have quotations from Jefferson, Adams and Franklin which show that they thought virtually all religions were valid ways to God and could provide the necessary supports republican governments so needed. They chose Christianity not because they believed it the only valid way to God or the only one capable of sustaining republican governments, but because it was the people’s choice. Would you like to see the quotations?
None of what you say begins to contradict my point, that even if they didn’t personally believe, they tought it prudent that we as a nation should believe.
Quotations are interesting, but actions (even those ultimately twarted, e.g. legislation introduced but not passed) are better. And I’ll concede pre-emptively that the founders would welcome, e.g., Muslim proselytizers to the public square. But I would be very interested to learn that they ever tried to subsidize them.
-Kristo.
Well they really didn’t get the chance to, but I think they — or at least Ben Franklin whose religion was typical of the key Founders — would. Franklin — a unitarian — was involved in the building of Christian Churches, one of which would be used for his orthodox Trinitarian friend George Whitefield to preach in when he visited Philadelphia. Franklin’s quotation on the matter perfectly expresses the key Founders’ philosophy of unitarian indifference towards religious creeds combined with religious democratization (i.e., the religion of the people ought to be whatever religion the people so choose).
http://www.pioneernet.net/rbrannan/whitefield/bfongw.htm
The key Founders thought republican people ought to be religious citizens, not necessarily Christians. And given their heterodoxy arguably put them outside the bounds of “Christianity,” I would categorize these Founders as religious but not necessarily Christian.
I had that very quote in mind when I mentioned welcoming a Muslim proselytizer to the public square but not subsidizing him. Thanks for digging it up.
A few points: Ben was not mainstream, he (like Jefferson and many others) represented one wing of the founders’ dialogue. Options (c) and (d) were not consensus views, they were compatible partners.
In any case, the founding generation took concrete actions to promote Christianity, while merely welcoming other faiths in the abstract.
To your comment that the Indians were already Christian, this is hardly a rebuttal. Government money was being offered for Christianity. This is, by modern standards, an arresting fact.
That founders would speak in terms of generic deity when speaking to those outside of the Christian mainstream (and quite possibly uneducated in Christianity) is hardly significant - you have to speak in terms that your audience can grasp. Incidentally, what can you place next to Jefferson’s Christian compilation for the Indians to indicate similar enthusiasm for introducing the Indians to secular enlightenment philosophers?
-Kristo.
“In any case, the founding generation took concrete actions to promote Christianity, while merely welcoming other faiths in the abstract.”
Not exactly. Given that America was virtually all Protestant, they had no opportunity to promote other faiths besides Christianity. But I am well aware of the abstract positions they held and they are as follows:
It was better for a society to be religious as opposed to irreligious, therefore government policies should foster that outcome.
The view held by Washington and Adams, perhaps a majority, saw no problem with government aid going to religion. Jefferson and Madison, on the other hand, wanted something closer to strict separation for government funds in part because they believed government money was not good for religion.
All of the key Founders believed “religion” meant “religion” in general, not Christianity in particular. Sound religion taught there is an overriding Providence who will ultimately reward good and punish evil. This baseline was found in not just Trinitarian Christianity, but Deism, Unitarianism, Islam, Hinduism, Native American spirituality, pagan Greco-Romanism and other religions. As such, all of these religions could, like Christianity, provide support that republican governments need.
Men of all these religions also possessed unalienable rights of conscience. Those rights included not only free exercise, but some sort of freedom from establishments. Jefferson and Madison believed men of all religions had a right not to have their tax dollars support religions in which they didn’t believe, which would demand either strict separation or something like an equality of rights when it came to access to government aid (hence government aid could go to religion, as long as such aid is given on secular grounds and accessible to all).
Washington, Adams, et al., on the other hand, also believed all religions had equal rights and thought government programs which supported Christianity only were okay as long as non-Christians could have their tax dollars exempt or otherwise obtain “proper relief,” as Washington put it.
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison — the key Founders –did not believe republican governments could only flourish with Christianity and not other religions and therefore government should promote only Christianity.
Madison too was well aware of the argument over what is true Christianity — Trinitarian or Unitarian — and its implications. If “Christianity” is the only religion eligible for government aid, then government is going to have to decide what is Christianity? And just as evangelicals today are adamant that Mormonism is not real Christianity, back then (and I suppose today as well) the unitarianism that had captured the minds of the key Founders and some of the Congregational Churches in NE was also thought to be “infidelity” or “heresy” by the orthodox. And they wouldn’t want government to fund that. The ultimate outcome would be government aids heresy under the auspices of “Christianity” and that pisses off the orthodox. Or government refuses to fund heretical religions and dissenters have their unalienable right to equal privileges violated. Madison believed this a key reason why government just shouldn’t be in the business of aiding religion.
Ultimately “Christianity” cannot form a public foundation of the United States with these kinds of disputes regarding what is Christianity? That’s why when the key Founders, for instance, the first four Presidents, invoked God in their public supplications, they virtually never mentioned Jesus and systematically used generic philosophical terms for God.
Jon, a logic quibble first:
“Not exactly. Given that America was virtually all Protestant, they had no opportunity to promote other faiths besides Christianity.”
So what is the “not exactly” part? Aren’t you saying “yes exactly, but only because…”?
In any case, we were discussing integrating of Indians, which defies your claim that the founders had no opportunities to promote other faiths. Besides, they always had (but eschewed – this is an important point to concede openly if you are conceding it) the option of not promoting religion.
As for Jefferson wanting strict separation of government money and religion, who have we been talking about here regarding funding Christianity for the Indians? Just imagine if Patrick Henry had been president during the Louisiana purchase instead of Jefferson…
“All of the key Founders believed ‘religion’ meant ‘religion’ in general, not Christianity in particular.”
No, not for these purposes. To turn your earlier point against you, their experience was not with “religion in general”, it was with Christianity in its peculiarly American diverse form. Also, though, note their common use of the code term “true religion” (e.g. in the Congressional decree of a day of Thanksgiving, 1782) – a term also in Williams that I have quoted to you before. They all knew that false religion existed, and drew a line against it.
To repeat a point that I have made before, “trinitarian Christianity” is not a synonym for “Christianity”, it is a variety within Christianity, especially by the standards of early America. And to claim, however (in)correctly, that “This baseline was found in not just trinitarian Christianity, but Deism, Unitarianism, Islam, Hinduism, Native American spirituality, pagan Greco-Romanism and other religions” is perhaps relevant to us today, but we are not arguing about what we should do in the world as we know it, we are disputing what the founders did in the world as they knew it. Did they promote Hinduism in America with public funds? No.
BTW, this issue – trinitarianism – is one of the reasons for the founders to keep mention of Christ out of their speeches, especially those that were petitions to God or thanksgiving in nature. Whether you think it proper to thank Jesus for good things happening today, or petition him for good things to happen tomorrow, depends critically on your stance on trinitaranism. Thus, this was a denominational hot button to be avoided in the spirit of not promoting any one faction.
“Men of all these religions also possessed unalienable rights of conscience.”
Don’t you realize that you are making a theological, not a philosophical point here? Philosophers speak of freedom of the will, and of guilty conscience. But a “free conscience” (freedom being the principal “right” you speak of)? To philosophers, that is a contradiction in terms. You are secularizing American Christian theology, which has been sort of my point all along. You take what is Christian and deny where you got it from.
I’ll not get into the rest, this is enough for now.
-Kristo.
I don’t have the time to respond to all of this now. I’ll just note that I chose those religions for a reason. And that is each was an example of a faith that the key Founders used of “sound religions” — valid ways to God that could work to support republican democracy (I have quotations for all of them). They may not have had any kind of opportunity to promote the Hindu religion publicly (since there were no Hindus in America back then) but Jefferson specifically mentioned Hinduism by name as a creed which had equal rights with Christianity and Adams claimed Hindus worshipped the same God he did. They were establishing timeless principles that would later bear fruition. For instance, just recently, for the first time in America, a Hindu Chaplain gave the Senate prayer. As I argued in this post, this was John Adams’ ideas coming back to haunt us 200 years later.
http://www.positiveliberty.com/2007/07/john-adams-vindicated.html
And, no, that when it came down to it, they promoted Christianity and not Hinduism doesn’t refute my point. As I noted (perhaps I should have been clearer) they innovatively promoted the democratization of religion (which perhaps could be viewed as a secularized kind of Arminianism). The relevant question would be if there were Hindus living in America and the Founders refused aid them along with Christians because such was a false religion (which didn’t happen) or quotations stating if there were Hindus living in America we wouldn’t treaty such false religion equally. There are such quotations from minor Founders and 19th Century figures along these lines, but few if any quotations from the key Founders suggesting such. And I can offer many from the key Founders suggesting all of these exotic world religions were “sound” and in principle could support republican democracy and would be entitled to enforce their equal rights of conscience if so needed.
“Don’t you realize that you are making a theological, not a philosophical point here?”
When I stated the key Founders believed that men of all religions possessed equal rights of conscience, I was simply stating what they believed, not trying to make any kind of personal theological or philosophical claim with which you may then find problems.
Here is Jefferson’s Statute on Religious Liberty, a Statute which claims to be based on “natural right.” Read each of those rights carefully. Then read Jefferson in his autobiography where he explains who exactly possesses those religious rights. According to him they belonged, by right, to “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.” And he specially noted that though such unalienable rights come from God, the state of Virginia refused to identify that God as Jesus Christ, not to resolve a theological dispute within Christianity, but rather to try to ensure that no one gets the message that such rights, by nature, belong to Christians only, but to all.
[...] Kristo Miettinen says yes. Many orthodox Christians say no. I say, yes and no; it depends on how one defines “Christianity.” Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnessism are two classic examples: They call themselves Christians. But many orthodox Christians balk: “This isn’t Christianity, whatever you call yourselves.” [...]