The Enlightenment theology that drove the American Founding had a
number of distinctive attributes: 1. religious liberty, a God who granted an
unalienable right of religious conscience; 2. hatred of tyranny, a God
who gave people a right to if not revolt or rebel, implacably resist
tyrannical rulers; 3. naturalistic rationalism, a God who endowed men
with reason to understand "the nature of things" such that these discoveries were "truth" on par with direct revelation; 4. a hatred of
creeds, and strong distrust of ecclesiastical authority, leading to
embrace of Arianism, Socinianism, unorthodox understandings of the
Trinity, and otherwise downplaying the importance of that doctrine;
and 5. a focus on God's benevolent nature as a lens through which to
understand Him.
One criticism I get when noting these
points is that each of the 5 is nothing "new" in that they all predated
the Enlightenment in Christendom. I concede such. I think what was novel
was the convergence of these 5 during the period historians describe as
"the Enlightenment," i.e., when America was founded in the late 18th
Century. I don't think you get a religious figure or movement who had
all 5 before that.
For instance, for attribute #1. you
get Roger Williams and the Quakers, though they didn't speak in the
language of "unalienable rights"; for that, turn to John Locke; for # 2.
you get the Calvinist resisters (though not John Calvin himself); ditto with
the prior point on Locke; #3. you get the Thomists, though America didn't
cite Thomas Aquinas, rather they would cite Locke who in turn cited
Richard Hooker; but America did cite Aristotle whom Aquinas
incorporated into Christendom; #4. you get Arius of Alexandria (256-336
A.D.), the guy against whom the Nicene Creed was written; and #5. it's
argued that "benevolence" hardly accurately describes Calvin's God; but
many traditional orthodox Christians note not only is their God
benevolent, but also point to pre-Enlightenment figures and movements to
prove such (I'll leave such examples open to the floor).
But
who had all 5 before the Enlightenment? Take, for instance, #2. It's
argued the notion of a right to revolt against tyrants (what the
Declaration of Independence posits) is from "the Enlightenment." The
counter argument is to look to the Calvinist resisters,
i.e., Rutherford et al., as the originators. They may have been good on
#2, but, as they supported Calvin executing Michael Servetus, they were woefully deficient on #1.
With
that, let me focus on #4. Arianism was the form of unitarianism that
predominated in both England and New England during the Enlightenment
era when America was founded. Jonathan Mayhew and Samuel Clarke were
some kind of Arians. Richard Price and James Burgh were distinctly
Arians. I can't tell whether John Adams or Ben Franklin were Arians or
Socinians. Thomas Jefferson was not an Arian; he rejected that Jesus had
any kind of divine nature, though, with Joseph Priestley Jefferson
believed in Jesus' divine mission making them both "Socinian."
Socinianism
was considered a more radical form of theological unitarianism. The
Arians believed in Jesus' divine nature. He was, to them, someone,
though not God (but rather created by and subordinate to Him), who
preexisted all other creation. Arian Jesus as the Son of God, but not
God the Son, first born of all creation and higher in power, nature and
authority than the highest of angels, was second only to God.
The
Socinians, on the other hand, held Jesus was not at all divine in his
nature. His nature was 100% human, 0% divine. But rather a uniquely
special Messiah on a divine mission.
Jefferson
has been described as a "deist," even though he didn't call himself one.
Jefferson's personal definition of "deism" was simply belief in "One
God." Jews, Muslims, Unitarians, Trinitarians, among others, were all
"deists" according to this broadest understanding of the term. (Though
Jefferson, sometimes frustrated while arguing against the doctrine of
the Trinity, accused Trinitarians like Calvin of worshipping three
gods.)
Jefferson, like the Socininan Unitarian Joseph Priestley and the Deist, Henry St. John, First Viscount Bolingbroke
seemed more radical than what prevailed among the unitarians of the
Enlightenment era. Bolingbroke, as a "Deist" was not, from what I can
tell, a "strict deist" who believed in an absentee landlord God to whom
prayers were ineffective and Jesus was a nobody.
Bolingbroke
rather seemed some kind of "Christian-Deist." Admittedly, I have much
to learn on him. From what I've seen, his and Jefferson's theology
reminds me of that from one of the earliest and most important early
Church Fathers: Marcion. (85-160 A.D.).
Marcion
was important largely because of his efforts in compiling the
New Testament canon. But he was one of the first and most notable
heretics. He fit Jefferson's broad understanding of "a deist" because he
believed in the "One True God." But he also rejected that the
attributes the prophets of the Old Testament ascribed to their deity
accurately reflected the benevolent nature of Jesus' heavenly Father.
Marcion thought the jealous tribal god of the Jews was a different being
than Jesus' Father, the One True God. Though the Jews' lower, imperfect
deity, somehow found himself in a position of authority to create and
have power over at least parts of the material world. (That is what's
known as the concept of the Demiurge.)
Jefferson,
Bolingbroke and perhaps Ben Franklin held analogous religious views.
Though I can't tell whether Bolingbroke, Jefferson and Franklin would
endorse Marcion's precise notion of the Demiurge.
(Franklin at one point in his life endorsed the concept of the Demiurge,
but believed the subordinate created deity who governed our solar system was
worthy of worship because he was more personal and therefore accessible
than the Infinite.)
Jefferson
viewed the Jews as "deists" because they believed in "One God." He thought Jesus' role was to reform and correct the errors in their deism. Jefferson held the Jews "had presented for the object of
their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive,
capricious and unjust."
Likewise with Franklin, it's hard to pin him down on the OT. He once said "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."
Jefferson,
Franklin and Bolingbroke (if I understand Bolingbroke
right) all believed Jesus, regardless of His exact nature was "from God" in some kind
of inspired sense. Likewise, I don't know where Marcion stood on the
Trinity (I think he predated the formulation of that doctrine). Or, on
the question of Jesus' full divinity.
I am not aware
of Jefferson or Franklin citing
Marcion. Likewise with the English Deists, I'm not aware they cited
him; but there is much I don't know there, that for instance Dr. Joseph Waligore could help me with.
But,
as I read what he stood for,
Marcion could aptly be described as the first "Christian-Deist." The
Christian-Deism of the American Founding that was even more radical than
the Arian Unitarianism of that era is traceable to an even older source. To a figure who lived in the first and second centuries
and played an instrumental role in formulating the canon of the New
Testament.
Marcion and Arius thus were indispensable
figures as heretics of the early church. They were the first and most
notable of them and laid the path for much to come. The Enlightenment
understanding of the dissident theological thought that inspired among
others America's key Founders can be traced to them. (Even if Marcion's influence was more "accidental" than named.)
Very old sources indeed.
28 comments:
Marcion was important largely because of his efforts in compiling the New Testament canon.
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, he didn't compile the New Testament, he mutilated it.
His cardinal doctrine was the opposition of the Old Testament to the New, and this doctrine he had amply illustrated in his great (lost) work, Antithesis, or "Contrasts". In order, however, to make the contrast perfect he had to omit much of the New Testament writings and to manipulate the rest. He took one Gospel out of the four, and accepted only ten Epistles of St. Paul. Marcion's Gospel was based on our canonical St. Luke with omission of the first two chapters.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09645c.htm
Even Jefferson and Joseph Smith didn't mangle the texts.
Well Catholics are fond of arguing that Jesus didn't leave a Bible, He left a Church. Later it was the Church who compiled the canon.
Look at the dates from when he lived. There was no "canon" for Marcion to mutilate. The books existed. But they had yet to be put into a canon. Marcion was one of the first (if not the first) to start putting them together.
This point about Marcion is something key in my canon studies re the Protestants v. Roman Catholics.
Many Protestants take it as an article of faith that once the ink was dry on 27th book of the NT, all true believers knew what the Bible was, because, I guess the Holy Spirit willed it so.
The problem is, there's no historical evidence for this. Those who believe it true, try to make arguments by deduction or induction, I'm not sure what the correct term is.
They say, look at how the Early Church reacted to Marcion. They must have known he was messing with an already settled canon or else they wouldn't have done such.
Well they knew he was messing with something. He was almost like to the canon of early church what Arius was to the Trinity. They got the church off their ass to start formulating doctrine contrary to what they viewed as heresy.
Jon, you are right that there are some important similarities between Marcion and the Christian deists. I agree with you that his emphasis on God’s goodness and denigrating of the Old Testament is very similar to many deists. I have not seen him mentioned much if at all by the English deists. They are very concerned with the ecclesiastical councils of the fourth century, but not with him. I also very much agree with you that the Christian deists were much more radical than the Unitarians. This morning I was writing on how different Joseph Priestley’s attitude to Noah’s Flood was to the Christian deist attitude.
I agree with you in looking for ancient sources of Christian deism, but my studies have led me to looking at Greek and Roman philosophers, especially Cicero, the Stoics, and the Neoplatonists. These people were not Christians, but they believed in an active deity who providentially helped people. (So Seneca supposedly even wrote letters to St. Paul.) Every educated sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth century thinker was very familiar with these classical thinkers. I am concentrating on how Herbert of Cherbury developed his deism based on anti-Calvinism and influence from classical sources. Also importantly, the Latitudinarians of 1600s are best known nowadays for John Tillotson and Samuel Clarke. But if one looks at their teachers, Henry More and Ralph Cudworth especially, the earliest Latitudinarians saw Plato and Pythagoras as having learnt from a secret tradition coming down from Moses. That meant that the ideas of Plato and his neoplatonist followers could be synthesized with Christianity. More and Cudworth, because they hated what they saw as Calvinism’s capricious deity, then developed a form of christianity which emphasized god’s goodness, our reason, and natural religion. From these thinkers and their disciples there is then a clear and direct line of influence from the Latitudinarians to the eighteenth century Christian deists.
Joseph: Many thanks for answering this question.
This is primarily a question to Joseph and is not meant to be combative (so Tom, hold the attack for a bit). What is the crossover point between being a deist and being a Christian deist? A related question would be, what is the Christian minimum? As I said, I'm not being combative but am interested in a criteria for categorization. I know that Samuel Clarke had four categories of deism but I'm not sure if I'm clear on what his criteria were to being a Christian deist. And, once a person accepted Christianity why hold onto the deist title?
Of course, this is not just a question for Joseph.
OK, apparently I had more than one question. But at least they're easy ones. :)
Jimmiraybob,
We might have two different concerns. My major concern is establishing that there was a school of Christian deists in England in the eighteenth century. In order to give some coherence to this school I limit it to thinkers who focus their theological works on expounding their interpretation of original christianity and who see Jesus as teaching only pure deism or natural religion. I think of major American thinkers only Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin fit in that category. (It does not matter to me that they do not claim to be deists and sometimes deny it as that word had very negative connotations and social implications in the eighteenth century.) Jonathan Rowe includes George Washington as a Christian deist, but he is not part of the school of Christian deism in my view, although he has traits of both Christians and deists.
As for you concern of telling the minimum of being a Christian, as a retired philosophy professor, I know settling boundary issues like that is all a matter of definition. I am shying away from the theological question of whether someone should be considered Christian as the dividing line is a very complicated problem which can bring out the worst in people. I particularly am distressed by Calvinist and evangelical Christians who assume their version of Christianity is the only right one, and thus (like Gregg Frazer) decide that Thomas Jefferson could not possibly be a Christian. Because my published work is often reviewed before publication by Christian scholars, I have found it best to avoid the whole issue.
One of the major problems with understanding deism is that scholars refer way too much to the deists’ enemies when they try to understand deism. That is like trying to understand Obama’s politics by listening to Rush Limbaugh, or vice versa. Samuel Clarke was a major opponent of deism and thought any modern deist (one that lived after Christ) was stupidly rejecting Christianity and was actually an atheist. Some scholars take his view as impartial, rather than seeing it was very polemical. Instead, one needs to concentrate on what the deists themselves said.
As far as why hold onto the deist title when they accepted Christianity, you seem to have the chronological progression wrong. The Christian deists started as Christian, grew up believing it, many were Christian ministers. But they came to see major problems with the traditional interpretation of Christianity and so these thinkers no longer saw themselves as traditional Christians. They saw themselves as the only real Christians so they wanted to call themselves Christian, but they were not traditional ones and shared the values of the deists.
Jon – great post, and thanks to Joseph Waligore for weighing into this discussion.
I don’t mean to nit-pick, but it is a common inaccuracy to default to John Locke and overlook William Penn by stating, “Quakers … didn't speak in the language of ‘unalienable rights’.” Yes, Roger Williams did not, but Penn did.
In his 1675 "England's Present Interest Considered,” Penn wrote that, “I ever understood an impartial liberty of conscience to be the natural right of all men.” In his 1682 First Frame of Government for the colony of Pennsylvania, Penn expressed ideals that previewed the Declaration of Independence: "Men being born with a title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature ... no one can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political view of another, without his consent."
Please note that the dates of these documents precede Locke’s famous Essay concerning Toleration, which was not written until 1685. I agree with Kenneth R. Morris’ conclusion that “it was Penn who influenced Locke's political philosophy” (read his article at http://www.jstor.org/stable/23920815). Although Jefferson cited Locke as one of his triumvirate of intellectual heroes, he also acknowledged that Penn was “the greatest lawgiver the world has produced; the first, either in ancient or modern times, who has laid the foundation of government in the pure and unadulterated principles of peace, of reason and right.”
Anonymous joseph waligore said...
As for you concern of telling the minimum of being a Christian, as a retired philosophy professor, I know settling boundary issues like that is all a matter of definition. I am shying away from the theological question of whether someone should be considered Christian as the dividing line is a very complicated problem which can bring out the worst in people. I particularly am distressed by Calvinist and evangelical Christians who assume their version of Christianity is the only right one, and thus (like Gregg Frazer) decide that Thomas Jefferson could not possibly be a Christian. Because my published work is often reviewed before publication by Christian scholars, I have found it best to avoid the whole issue.
Thank you. With the advent of the Reformation, and the wild proliferation of doctrines and sects, "Christian" can at best be only descriptive, and for anyone to set himself as the theological judge of the definition of "Christian" is above his pay grade as a historian.
That said, I would submit that the question of revelation is the key question re deism--the god of the philsophers did not speak directly to man, be it via Burning Bush, personal Incarnation, or a Bible.
As far as why hold onto the deist title when they accepted Christianity, you seem to have the chronological progression wrong. The Christian deists started as Christian, grew up believing it, many were Christian ministers. But they came to see major problems with the traditional interpretation of Christianity and so these thinkers no longer saw themselves as traditional Christians. They saw themselves as the only real Christians so they wanted to call themselves Christian, but they were not traditional ones and shared the values of the deists.
Exactly the argument for "Jehovah." The God remained the same, only the theological bells and whistles surrounding him were questioned/rejected. The closing of Locke's Letter Concerning Tolerance is interesting--he argues a minimalist sola scriptura [perhaps hinting that his study of scripture does not mandate belief in the Trinity, for as we know, it is not explicit in the Bible].
In his 1675 "England's Present Interest Considered,” Penn wrote that, “I ever understood an impartial liberty of conscience to be the natural right of all men.” In his 1682 First Frame of Government for the colony of Pennsylvania, Penn expressed ideals that previewed the Declaration of Independence: "Men being born with a title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature ... no one can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political view of another, without his consent."
Please note that the dates of these documents precede Locke’s famous Essay concerning Toleration, which was not written until 1685.
FTR, Locke's "Essay concerning Toleration" [w. 1667] is not the same thing as his famous "Letter Concerning Toleration" [w. 1685, p. 1689].
http://tinyurl.com/h8be8f4
Also, Penn consulted with Locke on his 1782 "Frame of Government!"
http://www.ushistory.org/penn/timeline.htm
In the spring of 1682 he writes his Frame of Government for Pennsylvania. He consults with Algernon Sidney and John Locke in drawing up his Frame. Sidney complains that Penn keeps too much power for himself and Locke that he gives too much to the people.
That said, who was the chicken and who was the egg is really historical trivia. JMS well observes that for all the talk about Roger Williams, it's Billy Penn who is shorted in the scheme of things.
Ibid:
Penn's Frame survives to become the model for most state governments in the United States, the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In the preface Penn writes,
"Government seems to me a part of religion itself, a thing sacred in its institution and end...And government is free to the people under it, whatever be the frame, where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws; and more than this is tyranny, oligarchy, or confusion...As governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad. If it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be ever so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn."
The Frame includes religious liberty (it is intolerance that is unlawful), an assembly elected by the people to make the laws, trial by jury, and a penal system designed to reform, not merely to punish. There were only two capital crimes — murder and treason.
Tom you say: "I would submit that the question of revelation is the key question re deism--the god of the philsophers did not speak directly to man, be it via Burning Bush, personal Incarnation, or a Bible." The deist god for the English deists was not the god of the philosophers. I have so far identified about 50 english deists and about 17 did think god or angels did talk to people directly, plant thoughts in their mind, or give people signs to know how to do the right thing. Almost all the rest saw their reason or their conscience or creation as a direct revelation from God. and the degree they meant that is not appreciated enough. I leave it to you to judge how that is similar or not to burning bush. The deists thought it was far superior.
Joseph, I was including the larger conversation we've been having around here.
about 17 did think god or angels did talk to people directly
I'll stick with revelation being necessary to a "Christian" dimension of deism, otherwise it's just deism. Nothing wrong with natural theology--Paul references God's revelation of himself in nature in Romans 1; Aquinas calls it 'general revelation." That such 'revelation' exists is part of the larger chain of Christian thought that subsumed "classical theism."
Unless you have some argument as to what is peculiar to "Christian deism" that is neither deist nor Christian. So far I'm not getting it, tho the fault would be mine.
Almost all the rest saw their reason or their conscience or creation as a direct revelation from God.
JMS: Thanks for the correction on William Penn. I will investigate the matter further.
Joseph, thanks for the feedback. And the rest of the discussion has been helpful.
One just one point, I'm not convinced that in every case the progression is from committed Christian to deist or Christian deist. It is evident that people like Jefferson and Franklin spent a lifetime tweaking their religious and philosophical positions and it's hard to pin either, and especially Franklin, as committed Christians and the steering toward a deist position. If one looks at Augustine as an early example he transitioned from more of a pagan philosophical ideology to a Gnostic Manichean period and finally a strong Christian profession and life-long commitment - sort of a transition from deism, or proto-deism, tho Christianity.
But, as I continue to read through the various deists and works about them I'll keep both pathways open.
Both Jefferson and Franklin held to the Christian conception of the afterlife, Franklin citing and Jefferson leaving in his "Bible"
From Matthew 25:31–46: "But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 Before him all the nations will be gathered, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
As Jefferson points out in one of his letters, Jewish "deism" did not particularly speak of the afterlife [something few Christians are aware of].
4. He taught, emphatically, the doctrines of a future state, which was either doubted, or disbelieved by the Jews; and wielded it with efficacy, as an important incentive, supplementary to the other motives to moral conduct.
Dr. Waligore is quite correct in that Christianity pervaded the deists' theologizing. As Locke said somewhere, we ourselves are not aware of how much our ideas are the result of what we have learned elsewhere. These deists were more gardeners than farmers, trimming down existing ideas rather than planting and growing them from scratch.
Jimmiraybob, When I claimed all the Christian deists started out as Christians I was thinking only of all the English Christian deists. But the same applies to Franklin and Jefferson when you consider they started as a Christian when they were kids. You are obviously right about Augustine but he was raised in a culture when it was still possible to be raised as a pagan. There were some deists in eighteenth century England who were raised as Christians, became deists, and then converted back to Christianity. Charles Gildon is one example.
"... they [English Christian deists] started as a Christian when they were kids."
Then is it by virtue of the fact that they were raised in a Christian environment but later evolved intellectually to deism with no outward professions of distinctly Christian faith, that distinguishes what would be termed the Christian deist as distinct from a non-Christian deist?
"Dr. Waligore is quite correct..."
By your own oft-repeated testimony, Dr. Waligore's entire testimony is useless since his academic specialization (BA & PhD) is outside of history or theology. You should move to strike.
Oh wait, that's right, you find his testimony useful in confirming your own narrative. [Thus plays out another scene in the culture war's hit "I don't Needs no Consistencies."]
My question as well. But we do have at least two areas where the Christianity stuck--divine providence and a belief in an afterlife. Three if you count Judgment Day, or as they put it back then, "a future state of rewards and punishments," which both Jefferson and Franklin signalled belief in.
Mere philosophy can't get you to that.
"... they [English Christian deists] started as a Christian when they were kids."
I've been thinking about this since you posted it and have not found anything satisfying as a justification for the concept "Christian deist." I'm guessing that this is something of a comments box shortcut and will read your online work more closely.
Anonymous jimmiraybob said...
"Dr. Waligore is quite correct..."
By your own oft-repeated testimony, Dr. Waligore's entire testimony is useless since his academic specialization (BA & PhD) is outside of history or theology. You should move to strike.
Oh wait, that's right, you find his testimony useful in confirming your own narrative. [Thus plays out another scene in the culture war's hit "I don't Needs no Consistencies."]
Not really. Barton's critics go after his lack of credentials. But the real issue is his crappy work. Same is true of your boy Matthew Stewart--the crappiness of his work.
http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2014/07/frazer-problems-with-matthew-stewarts.html
"Not really."
Yes, really. It's one of your favorite go to lines to poison the discussion and you've certainly used it on Stewart.
And, speaking of Stewart, since you keep bringing him into the conversation, Did you ever read his Nature's God that you rant against. Probably not. Have you read any of the literature that supports much of his thesis? Of course not. I guess that since some people are swayed by loud uninformed certitude then why bother when you already know the facts of your narrative.
And I have no doubt that you will just spout from a couple of negative commentaries that you find appealing in order to try to shut down the conversation but you have no foundation to know if anything in hose commentaries are true or false. They just confirm your bias. It's a selection process flaw.
That's what culture warriors do. So, carry on.
No, it was you who attacked Barton and pumped Stewart on credentials. I don't deny the the legit criticisms of the former, you blithely ignore those about the latter.
So stop playing your ad hom gotcha game and boring our readers. You're the only warrior here.
"...you blithely ignore those about the latter."
Hardly my little right wing buddy. Of course you don't bother to read what I write either before attacking. Just as you refuse to read Stewart's work before pronouncing it crap.
I engaged with Gregg Frazer in comments on many of the points that he made in his "flagging" of Stewart's book and even printed a copy of his concerns to cnslt during a reread. I both read the book that Jon highlighted in a post here at Ac and took Frazer's concern seriously. I wrote some preliminary comments to Kidd's review and have actually read other negative reviews that you've somehow missed as well as positive reviews. Some of the negative even comes from left wing sources - oh shit!
I have also said in comments here in the past that even though some of his conclusions may be hyperbolic that the majority of his work was on more solid ground as consistent with other scholarly work and that this content is wirh review.
Barton's production is prolific and I have read some and have read his critics and even fact-checked such critics as Rodda and Throckmorton before relying on their work.
The fact is you just don't know how to honestly and constructively engage with valid criticism. Everything is checked against conservative-good and liberal-bad, with anything that challenges you being branded liberal or left or far left without any distinction and usually without having taken any effort to actually know what the other person's saying. Oh well.
Your ad homs are boring. You [and Stewart] still haven't shown the direct link between Spinozan atheism and the American Founding. The rest is crap.
http://religionandliberty.blogspot.com/2015/04/critical-reviews-of-matthew-stewarts.html
... I'll leave it to the philosophers to evaluate whether Stewart has exaggerated the underlying atheism of this cast of characters. (His portrayal of Locke, at least, is sure to arouse controversy.) As a historian, I am more concerned by his utter failure to establish the influence of atheistic belief on America's founding. Historians believe that our most important task is to explain what we see, basing our statements of cause and effect on evidence. Stewart takes a different approach. He concludes that radical philosophy was widespread among common Americans after discovering it in the writings of two individuals, Vermont's backwoods leader Ethan Allen and a Boston physician named Thomas Young. In like manner, he finds that atheistic presuppositions determined the political philosophy of the most prominent Founders by ruthlessly disregarding all competing influences. This is pronouncement, not demonstration.
No ad homs, just pointing out the obvious.
You are an impenetrable bunker that no evidence that is contrary to your narrative can penetrate. For years I have cited scholarly and semi-scholarly works that you could have consulted but you obviously are no willing to do any work. What you demand in a comments box can't be done if it's always met with mindless attacks.
Gentlemen: Let us please elevate the discourse.
pathetic
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