Sunday, July 22, 2018

Fideists Ought Not Try to Claim the Political Theology of the American Founding

From Thomas Jefferson to Richard Henry Lee, May 8, 1825:
All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, & . …
The Declaration of Independence's, that is.

You can read a philosophical muckety muck definition of fideism here. For the sake of this post, see below Francis Schaeffer as he slams Aristotle and Aquinas.

  

Years ago I think we noted Barry Hankins' book that featured the battle between Schaeffer on the one hand v. Mark Noll and George Marsden on the other. This article by Hankins summarizes the controversy.

As I see it, Noll and Marsden chewed Schaeffer up and spat him out. They ended up adding Nathan Hatch, currently the highest paid college President in America (Wake Forrest), to their cohort and together they wrote the book "The Search For Christian America" which demolished Schaeffer's "Christian America" claim on his own grounds. 

Schaeffer and the three authors apparently share the same theological premise, which is a kind of fideistic form of reformed orthodox Protestant Christianity. Schaeffer's fideism was the weakest part of his "Christian America" argument. The three academic authors nailed him on it.

From the above linked article:
Like Noll, Marsden again tried to educate Schaeffer as to what Christian scholars do. The first goal is to be accurate, not to fashion a story that is useful for an agenda, however just that agenda might be, Marsden chided Schaeffer. In a more critical vein, Marsden charged Schaeffer with his own inconsistency, in that throughout his career as a Christian author he had argued that Aquinas and theological liberals were similarly guilty of creating a nature/grace dualism, yet America's founding fathers seemed to get a free pass when they engaged in the same type of thinking. Elaborating on Noll's arguments, Marsden charged that at no time in the history of Christianity had the nature/grace dichotomy that Schaeffer had criticized for two decades been more prevalent than in Britain and her colonies in the eighteenth century. Portraying such thinking as broadly Christian, as long as it was not militantly anti-Christian like the French Revolution, was in Marsden's view precisely what had opened the door for the twentieth century secular revolution that he, Noll, and Schaeffer all lamented.
Gotcha! Right between the eyes.

However, one wonders whether the fideistic premise these interlocutors all apparently share is a necessary tenet, central to the orthodox reformed Protestantism on which grounds they argue. J. Daryl Charles argues below, to the contrary.

 

Still, even conceding the kind of Protestant theology for which Dr. Charles argues has a proper place in authentic orthodox Protestant Christianity, it's still debatable how well the kind of "nature" appealed to in America's Declaration of Independence mixes with traditional orthodox Christianity.

Thomist Robert Kraynak, for instance, argues said appeal to nature is too "modern" for such. But if one refuses to recognize those appeals to nature for what they are (appeals to reason, not scripture) one ought not be taken seriously.

I think that's a reason why Noll and Marsden spent a great deal of ink remonstrating with Schaeffer. Unlike David Barton, I think they respected Schaeffer in a sense, as a theologian who was very good at his particular craft with which they personally sympathized.

As a historian, not so much.

9 comments:

Tom Van Dyke said...

Schaeffer is easy pickins, and not a worthy foil for Marsden, et al. He was an intellectual/theological lightweight. This is historiography more than actual history or philosophy.

I'm not sure "fideism" really fits here. You are giving natural law short schrift: "Nature" was believed to be authored by God, as Hamilton relates in The Farmer Refuted, quoting the great [and authoritative] English jurist, William Blackstone.


"Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed, that the deity, from the relations, we stand in, to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is, indispensibly, obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever.

This is what is called the law of nature, "which, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid, derive all their authority, mediately, or immediately, from this original."--BLACKSTONE."

One may label that fideistic, but that is not helpful.

(BF mine.)

Our Founding Truth said...

It's safe to say that many Christians would say Marsden was no match for Schaeffer, including myself. In the summary, I didn't read any proof texts from Marsden either. Noll and Marsden are guilty of the same thing they accuse Schaeffer of. Schaeffer was a Christian philosopher, not an expert on the founding. Remarkably, Marsden makes the claim, regarding an Arkansas law, that there is no evidence of the founders enforcing creation science etc,. What about the Massachusetts Constitution, et al. establishing Christianity? How is that not creationism?

Their claim about Witherspoon is highly suspect and on shaky ground as well. Marsden an noll act as if all the evidence is on their side.

Schaeffer knew natural law is biblical, and so, his attack of Aquinas had to be about his faith.

Tom Van Dyke said...

lightweight


http://the-supplement.blogspot.com/2007/12/francis-schaeffer-and-aquinas.html


Francis Schaeffer rather famously (well, among at least some evangelicals anyway; okay, maybe that doesn't exactly qualify as "famously", but work with me here) claimed that the descent of philosophy into existentialism and irrationality began with St. Thomas. We can see Schaeffer's idea summarized here:

Aquinas separated nature from grace in theology. The spiritual world and the earthly world became separated. The earthly world became what was "real" and the spiritual world was the "hypothetical."


The largest problem with this is that it's just plain nonsense. St. Thomas said nothing of the sort, and I can't conceive of any way that what he did say could rationally be construed like this. In the first place, he was an orthodox Christian, and to separate nature from grace smacks of Pelagianism. Secondly, it's irrational: God created us freely and without compulsion; hence creation was an act of grace from start to finish.

Thirdly, it seems that Schaeffer never bothered to read as far as the sixth article of the first question of the Summa Theologica. Because if he had, he would have realized that his construal of Aquinas was wrong...

Our Founding Truth said...


"Aquinas separated nature from grace in theology. The spiritual world and the earthly world became separated. The earthly world became what was "real" and the spiritual world was the "hypothetical.""

Without checking it for myself, I doubt Schaeffer would have said that about Aquinas without support. It seems improbable Schaeffer didn't read the and give reasons for that quote; he was no lightweight. He was super heavyweight if anything. He may not have been the expert on the founding that he thought he was, which could be the reason Noll and Hatch called him out. What reasons did he give?

Jonathan Rowe said...

I stick by my assertion on Schaeffer. He was a smart guy who was good at his craft as a fidesitic orthodox Protestant Calvinist. He was thoughtful and learned about art and deserves props for his openness to dialog with a variety of folks at his Swiss hangout.

I don't care for his political activism. And he was defective when he argued the American Founding. His knowledge of the American Founding came largely from attorney John Whitehead, his main researcher on the matter.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Blogger Jonathan Rowe said...
I stick by my assertion on Schaeffer. He was a smart guy who was good at his craft as a fidesitic orthodox Protestant Calvinist. He was thoughtful and learned about art and deserves props for his openness to dialog with a variety of folks at his Swiss hangout.

I don't care for his political activism. And he was defective when he argued the American Founding. His knowledge of the American Founding came largely from attorney John Whitehead, his main researcher on the matter.



Francis Schaeffer, like David Barton, is not worth discussing on a blog devoted to Religion and the American Founding.

Schaeffer, unlike Barton, actually knows who Thomas Aquinas is, although he apparently knew nothing of Thomas's theo-philosophical successors, if anything of Thomas himself.

We are discussing straw men, historiography rather than history. I do hope you have come to appreciate the difference, Jon?

Daniel said...

In "A Christian Manifesto" Schaeffer does nuance his position. He acknowledges that the Christian belief of the framers of the Constitution may not have been consistently orthodox Christian, but that a form of Christianity was the undergirding of the country. It would be similar to a conservative Baptist pastor who supports President Trump because he is Christian-y and is anti-Muslim, but would be strongly opposed to Trumps theology and practice if he claimed to be a Christian exemplar.

To be clear, I am not saying Schaeffer was scholarly or even entirely honest in his argumentation. I am just pointing out that the core question of your piece does have a nuanced answer.

Our Founding Truth said...

What's a form of Christianity? There is no other form. They didn't get this opinion from the reformers, which begs the question, "Where did they get this idea from?

There were only a handful of unitarians anyway. Why didn't the majority shun them, like the reformers did? Maybe they thought keeping it secret was best and not divulge their heresy for fear of embarrassment?

Tom Van Dyke said...

You need to read up on the Unitarian Controversy. They took over many churches in New England.