Sunday, November 29, 2009

Origins of "Christian Ideas" that Helped Bring Us into the Modern World?

In an attempt to begin answering one of the questions I brought up in my last post I copied and pasted this short excerpt from the notes of John Adams. The question I asked in my last post was this:


Which Christian ideas, if any, helped bring us into the modern world?


I think John Adams points us in the right direction with the following:

Defence of the Constitutions of Government
of the United States of America


(Source, Charles F. Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams [1851] Vol. 6, p. 3-4)

There have been three periods in the history of England, in which the principles of government have been anxiously studied, and very valuable productions published, which, at this day, if they are not wholly forgotten in their native country, are perhaps more frequently read abroad than at home.

The first of these periods was that of the Reformation, as early as the writings of Machiavel himself, who is called the great restorer of the true politics. The "Shorte Treatise of Politick Power, and of the True Obedience which Subjects owe to Kyngs and other Civile Governors, with an Exhortation to all True Natural Englishemen, compyled by John Poynet, D. D.," was printed in 1556, and contains all the essential principles of liberty, which were afterwards dilated on by Sidney and Locke. This writer is clearly for a mixed government, in three equiponderant branches, as appears by these words:
"In some countreyes they were content to be governed and have the laws executed by one king or judge; in some places by many of the best sorte; in some places by the people of the lowest sorte; and in some places also by the king, nobilitie, and the people, all together. And these diverse kyndes of states, or policies, had their distincte names; as where one ruled, a monarchie; where many of the best, aristocratie; and where the multitude, democratie ; and where all together, that is a king, the nobilitie, and commons, a mixte state; and which men by long continuance have judged to be the best sort of all. For where that mixte state was exercised, there did the commonwealths longest continue."
The second period was the Interregnum, and indeed the whole interval between 1640 and 1660. In the course of those twenty years, not only Ponnet and others were reprinted, but Harrington, Milton, the Vindiciae contra Tyrannos, and a multitude of others, came upon the stage.The third period was the Revolution in 1688, which produced Sidney, Locke, Hoadley, Trenchard, Gordon, Plato Redivivus, who is also clear for three equipollent branches in the mixture, and others without number. The discourses of Sidney were indeed written before, but the same causes produced his writings as did the Revolution.
Americans should make collections of all these speculations, to be preserved as the most precious relics of antiquity, both for curiosity and use.



This seems to be part of the thread of political theology that heavily influenced the founding. I also think it is interesting that one the three periods he references is the Revolution of 1688 that Brad Hart posted on the other day. I think the name of the book was, "The First Modern Revolution". Maybe Christian political theology did help usher us into the modern world. That is the thesis of Gary Amos in his book, "Defending the Declaration: How the Bible and Christianity influenced the writing of the Declaration of Independence".


He gives some compelling evidence that the founders laid out the same legal case for independence that many cited here by Adams had used before. Maybe our founding was not as "revolutionary" as some would give it credit for. Could it have been tied to a long tradition of ideas that could be traced back to pre-Aquinas Christianity? We shall see.


More to come...

25 comments:

King of Ireland said...

Some of the underlined links work and go to the primary sources themselves. Other do not work. The one for Sidney has a lot of his most famous quotes.

Tom Van Dyke said...

A link between Poynet and Aquinas, on tyranny and revolt against it.

Tom Van Dyke said...

I don't know how you're going to get it back to "pre-Aquinas Christianity," but good luck.

Aquinas' breakthrough contribution, writing in the 1200s, was bringing reason back into respectability in Christendom, via Aristotle via the Islamic and Jewish thinkers. His ideas were met with resistance, and our ideas of rights and liberty would take many more centuries to develop.

Neither are rights and liberty explicitly in the Bible; it took the application of reason to make them [Judeo-]Christian "principles," which BTW is all Barton claims in that last posted video, that America was founded on Christian "principles."

But without Aquinas making the way safe for reason, well, no Christian "principles" could have been developed, which is why Aquinas is the turning point.

King of Ireland said...

I am talking about Catholic Canon law and English Common Law. The Magna Carta was pre-Aquinas. Amos gives some credible evidence the laws of Nature and Natures God was part of the Christian intellectual tradition since way back.

Of course I need to do a thorough check of the primary sources. But I think he makes a great case a first glance.

With that said, Aquinas was the turning point no doubt. I saw your comment on my last post about putting too much emphasis on Locke. I think you were right. But I also think it is a good way to frame the argument because the links to Locke are undeniable. Once it is proven that he used the arguments that had a long history in the Christian Intellectual Tradition it is easy to link him back to Aquinas and maybe even before.

I think I am going to take some posts and lay out Amos' thesis and then hit the primary sources hard after that to fill in some big holes I think he leaves.

As far as making a rights case from the Bible I think it starts with the image of God in man and goes from there. Without that there is not case for inalienable rights in my opinion. This is what the Greeks were missing.

King of Ireland said...

Tom,

I read the link. There is no doubt a thread here. I thing the seeds of Aquinas sprouted with Locke and grew into a great Tree with America. That tree is detaching from its root and will fall soon if something does not happen. There is a whole chapter in Ezekiel about Egypt when it lost its roots. Visit a public school. We are in real trouble.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Once it is proven that [Locke] used the arguments that had a long history in the Christian Intellectual Tradition it is easy to link him back to Aquinas and maybe even before.

Agreed. I'm not sure about the "before" part is all. But I didn't make a blanket assertion that it wasn't so, and wished you luck.

The problem is that "the dignity of the human person" can lead to human rights, but how those rights would be expressed as political liberty, specifically liberal democracy, is not in evidence. Human rights can be protected under a righteous God-fearing monarchy, as John Ponet [also spelled Ponnet and Poynet] and Aquinas point out.

It takes a long train of reason applied to imago Dei to get to political liberty, and as Pinky [Phil Johnson] has been pointing out, all the way up to the Founding era, the idea was still gestating up to 1787. [They still hadn't decided against having a king when they began the debates on the Constitution.]

But we do have Aquinas broaching the question, by what right does one man rule another? I suggest that any pre-Aquinas arguments should have that question in mind. The traditional reading of Romans 13, that God put earthly authorities in place, did answer that question, although through faith, not reason.

The Greeks did ask that question, and so the restoration of [Greek] reason by Aquinas made it possible to re-open the question of Romans 13.

It's all intertwined.

Angie Van De Merwe said...

Maybe I should look up what the Founders said out of their own mouths, they say it so much better..

Adams told Rush:
I agree with you, there is a Germ of Religion in human Nature so strong, that whenever an order of Men can persuade the People by flattery or Terror, that they have Salvation at their disposal, there can be no end to fraud, Violence or Usurpation.

King of Ireland said...

I think it is much like Church government. God gives principles and then gives us reason to help decide the way we want to go about it. Rights may look different in different cultures at different times. But any right that is not grounded in the worth of the individual made in the image of God will not stand.

Inalienable rights is the glue that holds it all together. There are many roads to justice that lead from there.

King of Ireland said...

That last comment was to Tom.

Tom Van Dyke said...

It's no secret that the Founding generation didn't like clergymen much. And church establishments---they kept Church of England [Episcopalian] bishops out of America, and some states banned clergymen from holding office.

I hope this helps you get past your bad church experience, Angie, because Adams also wrote to Rush:

"[Thomas Paine's] billingsgate, stolen from Blount's Oracles of Reason, from Bolingbroke., Voltaire, Berenger, &c., will never discredit Christianity, which will hold its ground in some degree as long as human nature shall have any thing moral or intellectual left in it. The Christian religion, as I understand it, is the brightness of the glory and the express portrait of the character of the eternal, self-existent, independent, benevolent, all powerful and all merciful creator, preserver, and father of the universe, the first good, first perfect, and first fair. It will last as long as the world. Neither savage nor civilized man, without a revelation, could ever have discovered or invented it. Ask me not, then, whether I am a Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Arminian. As far as they are Christians, I wish to be a fellow-disciple with them all."

Tom Van Dyke said...

And, actually, to Dr. Frazer and Jon Rowe, this contains my socio-historical definition of Christianity:

"Neither savage nor civilized man, without a revelation, could ever have discovered or invented it."

That's good enough for me.

Angie Van De Merwe said...

Perhaps, they didn't like pietism, much....

Tom Van Dyke said...

Not pietism, popery. Let's keep things straight. They used to accuse each other of being crypro-papists all the time. It was the highest form of insult. They weren't hostile to religions, they were hostile to churches. That's the proper understanding of separating "church" and state.

King of Ireland said...

Tom,

That is about all that needs to be said. I have written extensively on this topic. I think I am going to post it all on my blog. It is all about the glory. It is that light that inalienable rights is based on.

King of Ireland said...

Tom Stated:

"Not pietism, popery. Let's keep things straight. They used to accuse each other of being crypro-papists all the time. It was the highest form of insult. They weren't hostile to religions, they were hostile to churches. That's the proper understanding of separating "church" and state."

I would have to agree with the Founders in their hostility toward churches. But it is not God's fault.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Well, clergymen are always stirring up trouble, calling their own church the true faith and all the others toejam. that's why we have 6 zillion Christian sects.

This led to Madison's winning argument in the The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom debates. [It wasn't "secularism."]

http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2008/09/scholarly-malpractice-and-founding.html

Basically Madison convinced the Baptists that if they made "Christianity" the state religion, the Baptists and Episcopalians could gang up on another sect and declare them legally "not Christian."

But what if the Episcopalians joined up with some other sect instead, to declare the Baptists "not Christian"?

Ha. The logic was unassailable.

Brad Hart said...

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

Good little discussion going here. I wish my schedule would permit me to get involved in more of them. When it comes to hostility towards the clergy I think historian Joseph Ellis aptly describes what the FF's religious temperament really was. These were men who were (predominantly) hostile to clergy but fond of religion, hostile to orthodoxy but fond of Jesus, hostile to theologians in the halls of government but fond of religion and morality being pillars of the republic's strength.

In other words, they hated many of the "messengers" of religion but not the "message."

Brad Hart said...

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes."
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

Good little discussion going here. I wish my schedule would permit me to get involved in more of them. When it comes to hostility towards the clergy I think historian Joseph Ellis aptly describes what the FF's religious temperament really was. These were men who were (predominantly) hostile to clergy but fond of religion, hostile to orthodoxy but fond of Jesus, hostile to theologians in the halls of government but fond of religion and morality being pillars of the republic's strength.

In other words, they hated many of the "messengers" of Christianity but not the "message."

Angie Van De Merwe said...

Brad, you said, "These were men who were (predominantly) hostile to clergy but fond of religion, hostile to orthodoxy but fond of Jesus, hostile to theologians in the halls of government but fond of religion and morality being pillars of the republic's strength."

I think really they were a little more like Marx than we like to believe...that religion was the "opiate of the people". They USED religion but dismissed it as far as the reality of real life governing....They didn't believe in an oligarchy, but understood that the "common man" was not educated to rule...

Brad Hart said...

Oh I have to strongly disagree with you there, Angie. I don't think the founders (with maybe a couple of exceptions) saw religion in the same light as Marx. Religion, in the founders' minds, was not the "opiate of the masses" but rather an indispensable component to republican government. Franklin's advocacy for a "public religion" and Jefferson's "Natural religion" may not be invocations to an orthodox Christian god but they do suggest that religion was seen as much more than a mere tool.

Or as G. Washington put it:

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity religion and morality are indispensable supports."

Angie Van De Merwe said...

If you guys think that religion was of "PRIMARY" importance, you are WRONG...it was SCIENCE and the understanding that it provided...

Major Themes in The Enlightenment

John Locke and Thomas Jefferson are just two of the many notable thinkers and writers who share Enlightenment values.

A basic list of these values would include the following:

a deep commitment to reason,(not religion)
a trust in the emerging modern sciences to solve problems and provide control over nature,
a commitment to the idea of progress in material wealth and in human civility,
a belief in the essential goodness of human nature,
an emphasis upon the individual as master of his fate and fortune, and
an engagement with the public sphere of discussion and action.
In short, the Enlightenment thinkers believed in the powers of humankind and saw themselves as part of a revolutionary development in history that would replace superstition and tired rituals and corrupt traditions with reason and productive energy.

Perhaps the best way to grasp the Enlightenment project clearly is to identify what these thinkers were rejecting. They saw their societies as emerging from the darkness of superstition, ignorance, and intolerance -- much of that associated with the Medieval Catholic Church and with Feudal monarchy.

NOW THAT DOES NOT SOUND LIKE THE FOUNDING FATHERS WERE IN FAVOR OF RESURRECTING AQUINAS FROM THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH'S POWER OVER MEN/WOMEN. Now does anyone want to "sell me the bill of goods" that the Church was of major importance OR that Christians were? No, they were USEFUL>>>>Just like today....

Tom Van Dyke said...

Where did you copy this simple-minded nonsense from?

Angie Van De Merwe said...

Sorry on two accounts.
The above mentioned Enlightenment definition was taken off "Google" from the Liberal Arts College of Temple University.

And I am sorry for my sardonic attitude. I am very defensive of "control". I don't believe that control of any kind is appropriate. It is dishonoring.

Control is athenma to American liberty of press, assemble, speech, etc. and I wholeheartedly believe in allowing free access to information in governmental concerns.

King of Ireland said...

Angie,

Locke's whole First Treatise was a theological argument from the Bible! Jefferson wrote his own Bible. One might be able to argue whether they were Christian or not. But there is not argument that God was part of their thoughts. A big one!

Tom Van Dyke said...


The above mentioned Enlightenment definition was taken off "Google" from the Liberal Arts College of Temple University.


Hehe. I'm not surprised. This is how the Enlightenment is presented in our schools, even at university level. Enlightenment [non-religious] = good, and the source of all good in the modern age. Religion = stupid and superstitious, bad, and what we happily got away from.

This confirms to me once again the need for this blog.