tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post4525204252905604956..comments2024-03-28T10:44:30.518-06:00Comments on American Creation: The Humanist on the Jefferson BibleBrad Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17669677047039491864noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-50458732385771588242012-02-27T15:06:39.520-07:002012-02-27T15:06:39.520-07:00.
I'm going to be reading a little Daniel Denn....<br />I'm going to be reading a little Daniel Dennett.<br />.Phil Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06756814849309388483noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1237087217187172116.post-80145149697177914492012-02-27T15:01:04.734-07:002012-02-27T15:01:04.734-07:00He called the writers of the New Testament “ignora...<i> He called the writers of the New Testament “ignorant, unlettered men” who produced “superstitions, fanaticisms, and fabrications.”</i><br /><br />Jefferson was of course THE outlier. A look at other outliers, possibly Locke and certainly John Adams:<br /><br />In his <i>Reasonableness of Christianity</i>, John Locke also pointed out that the apostles were ignorant;<br /><br />"And he that shall collect all the moral rules of the philosophers, and compare them with those contained in the new testament, will find them to come short of the morality delivered by Our Saviour, and taught by his apostles; a college made up, for the most part, of ignorant, but inspired fishermen."<br /><br />Locke's take becomes far more interesting after that, that although men [and philosophers!] had puzzled out morality in bits and pieces across human history [therefore vindicating in some real way the existence of a "natural law"], it had never became a cohesive moral code. Hence, God sent Jesus directly to man to reveal the natural law of morality as <i>revelation</i> as well. [See the end of thie below piece, where the natural law gains additional power and authority because God is the "lawgiver."<br /><br />[You'll also find John Adams saying something similar, that Christianity was a revelation and could not have been derived by man's reason alone, and elsewhere that Jesus' miracles prove his Divine mission.]<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Tis true, there is a law of nature: but who is there that ever did, or undertook to give it us all entire, as a law; no more nor no less, than what was contained in, and had the obligation of that law? Who, ever made out all the parts of it, put them together, and shewed the world their obligation? Where was there any such code, that mankind might have recourse to, as their unerring rule, before Our Saviour's time? If there was not, 'tis plain, there was need of one to give us such a morality; such a law, which might be the sure guide of those who had a desire to go right: and, if they had a mind, need not mistake their duty; but might be certain when they had performed, when failed in it. Such a law of morality, Jesus Christ hath given us in the New Testament; but by the latter of these ways, by revelation. We have from him a full and sufficient rule for our direction, and conformable to that of reason. But the truth and obligation of its precepts, have their force, and are put past doubt to us, by the evidence of his mission. He was sent by God: His miracles shew it; and the authority of God in his precepts cannot be questioned. Here morality has a sure standard, that revelation vouches, and reason cannot gainsay, nor question; but both together witness to come from God the great law-maker."Tom Van Dykehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07121072404143877596noreply@blogger.com