Friday, April 10, 2009

Bad "Christian Nation" Article by David Limbaugh

At WorldNetDaily David (brother of Rush) Limbaugh writes an article making an extremely weak case for Christian Nationalism. He's responding to President Obama's largely accurate notion that America is not and was not founded to be a "Christian Nation."

Limbaugh doesn't cite David Barton here like he did in one of his books; perhaps he knows Barton's name is now "tainted." But the sources he cites aren't much better (in my opinion). William Federer's Book of Quotations is referenced and that book cites (I don't know if the current ed. still does) Barton's "unconfirmed" (that is phony) quotations.

However I have the distinct feeling that the Federer reference is something the Editors of WorldNetDaily slipped in (from talking to other WND writers I know they do this sometimes) because they sell the book.

Some key points Limbaugh makes. Limbaugh's comments are blockquoted for the rest of this post with my reaction following:

In the words of professor John Eidsmoe, "If by the term Christian nation one means a nation that was founded on biblical values that were brought to the nation by mostly professing Christians, then in that sense the United States may truly be called a Christian nation."


No doubt biblical values were important and almost all of the FFs probably thought of themselves as "Christians" in an identificatory sense (as, for instance, President Obama does). However, the Declaration of Independence, US Constitution and Federalist Papers are not "Christian documents," or the product of a strict "biblical worldview," (though in some looser sense may be compatible with that worldview). As Prof. Gregg Frazer, who has debated Eidsmoe, wrote:

The fact that some parts of the Declaration and/or Constitution are not in conflict with verses in the Bible does not mean that the Bible was the source. This is especially important when — as in the case of the Declaration and the Constitution — the authors claim other sources, but do not claim the Bible as a source!

In a May 8, 1825 letter to Henry Lee, Jefferson identifies his sources for the Declaration’s principles. He names as sources: Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, and (Algernon) Sidney — he does not mention the Bible. Then again, the terminology in the Declaration is not specifically Christian — or even biblical, with the exception of “Creator.” The term “providence” is never used of God in the Bible, nor are “nature’s God” or “Supreme Judge of the world” ever used in the Bible.

In the hundreds of pages comprising Madison’s notes on the constitutional convention (and those of the others who kept notes), there is no mention of biblical passages/verses in the debates/discussions on the various parts and principles of the Constitution. They mention Rome, Sparta, German confederacies, Montesquieu, and a number of other sources — but no Scripture verses.

In The Federalist Papers, there is no mention of biblical sources for any of the Constitution’s principles, either — one would think they could squeeze them in among the 85 essays if they were, indeed, the sources; especially since the audience was common men who were familiar with, and had respect for, the Bible. The word “God” is used twice — and one of those is a reference to the pagan gods of ancient Greece. “Almighty” is used twice and “providence” three times — but neither is ever used in connection with any constitutional principle or influence. The Bible is not mentioned.


Back to Limbaugh:

Why does this matter? Simply because our dominant secular culture delights in demonizing Christianity, distorting its character, conflating it with less tolerant faiths and associating it with all our societal woes.


I'm actually sympathetic to the idea that the larger secular culture gets the story wrong. But Limbaugh is trying to sell a just as bad if not worse bill of goods.

History revisionists have convinced many that we mainly owe our liberties to secular humanist ideals and those borrowed from the Greeks, Romans and the French Enlightenment.

To the contrary, our freedom tradition can be traced to our predominantly Judeo-Christian roots.


Let us unpack this: First he creates a false dichotomy, positioning secular humanism, the French Enlightenment and Greeks and Romans v. "Judeo-Christianity." The Founders did no such thing. No, they didn't appeal to the French Enlightenment. But yes, they did appeal to and were part of a larger "Enlightenment" that took place within Christendom. The Founders were utterly imbibed in pagan Greco-Romanism and to suggest that they didn't turn there for a source of inspiration is fraudulent.

Moreover, the Founders didn't use the term or think of themselves as "Judeo-Christians." That term is of modern construction. Now it still might have some validity. But that term is, like "theistic rationalism," invented after the fact attempting to describe an historical dynamic.

The Founders were subsumed in a nominal Protestant Christian identity. Jews and Roman Catholics were put outside the box with Muslims and "Hindoos." Yet, many of these "Protestant Christians" were deistic or unitarian minded and rejected most if not every tenet of orthodox Christianity (i.e., original sin, the trinity, incarnation, atonement, eternal damnation and infalliblity of the Bible). The actual breakdown of who of the 200 or so Founding Fathers was a "real Christian" (i.e., someone who believed in the Trinity, regeneration, infallibility of the Bible) v. who was a nominal, deistic or unitarian "Christian" is unknown. But we have a pretty good handle (with some disputes) on the religious inclinations of a dozen or two notable Founders. THAT'S the dynamic that neither the secular left nor the religious right fully understand.

While secularists endlessly cite a few high-profile members of our Founding Fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, as being deists (which itself is even debatable), the overwhelming majority of both the Declaration of Independence's and Constitution's signers were strong, practicing Christians, as the late Dr. M.E. Bradford meticulously documented.


Limbaugh is right that it's debatable whether Jefferson or Franklin were "deists" but wrong in that there is not a shred of evidence that shows "the overwhelming majority of both the Declaration of Independence's and Constitution's signers were strong, practicing Christians," in any sense different than Jefferson or Franklin were "Christians" (which they thought they were). I've seen M.E. Bradford's "meticulously documented" work and all it shows is that almost all FFs were, like Franklin and Jefferson, formally affiliated with a Church that adhered to an orthodox Trinitarian creed. In Franklin's case it was Presbyterianism and then Anglican-Episcopalianism. In Jefferson's case, he was a lifelong Anglican-Episcopalian.

Also, Limbaugh's ignorance of John Adams' position is telling. J. Adams and Jefferson were, without question, virtually agreed on the basics of their creed. In fact, there is MORE evidence of John Adams' explicit heterodoxy, than there is for Franklin. Franklin never bittery mocked the Trinity as did Adams. For instance:

“An incarnate God!!! An eternal, self-existent, omnipresent omniscient Author of this stupendous Universe, suffering on a Cross!!! My Soul starts with horror, at the Idea, and it has stupified the Christian World. It has been the Source of almost all of the Corruptions of Christianity.”

-- John Adams to John Quincy Adams, March 28, 1816.


Back to Limbaugh:

Some point to the so-called generic references to God in the declaration and Thomas Jefferson's authorship of its first draft as evidence that its influences were non-Christian. But as Dr. Gary Amos has noted, "The humanists and Enlightenment rationalists viewed the concept of inalienable rights with scorn."


This is nonsense. And again it draws a false dichotomy. Jefferson, J. Adams and Franklin, who as noted, possessed the same religious creed, were the majority drafters, with Jefferson the primary author of the DOI. The DOI is nothing else if not a quintessentially Jeffersonian, J. Adamsian and Franklinian document.

"Humanistists" and "enlightenment rationalists" as Amos/Limbaugh use those terms are as unhelpful, vague and elusive as "Christian" or "Judeo-Christian." What we do know is the concept of "unalienable rights" is not found within the Bible. God is (arguably) necessary to make such rights "unalienable," but Jefferson, J. Adams and Franklin posited the notion WITHOUT reliance on (among other things) original sin, trinity, incarnation, atonement, eternal damnation, or infallibility of the Bible's text, things in which they didn't personally believe.

With these things in mind I'll let the reader determine whether such key Founding concepts were the product of "Christianity," "Judeo-Christianity," the "Enlightenment," "humanism," "Greco-Romanism" or whatnot. My own position is that it was a synthesis of all elements [plus some others not named] which formed a different creature. A mule is neither a horse nor a donkey but something else.

Nor could the declaration's affirmation that "all Men are created equal … (and) are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights" have come from the polytheistic Greeks or Romans, because "Creator" is singular. And, as Amos observed, the Greeks didn't believe the universe or man was created, but that it "emanated … from an impersonal divine force that permeates the universe. … There was no room in Greek philosophy or religion for the notion of endowment because creatures and divinity were never separated." The Greeks "could not conceive of rights that were god given." They "believed that rights were a product of society and state."


This seems wrong. Aristotle and Cicero whom Jefferson invokes as two of the four chief sources of the DOI were not (as far as I know) polytheistic Zeus worshippers. And to the extent that they may not have posited a concept of "rights," neither did the Bible or "Christendom" until relatively shortly before the American Founding. That the Ancient Greeks and Romans profoundly influenced America's Founders is undeniable (hint, think of the surnames they adopted when they wrote their letters and look at the architecture in Founding era Washington DC).

The concept of unalienable rights inheres in the Judeo-Christian precept that an all-loving God created man in his image, thus entitling him to dignity, freedom and rights that cannot be divested by the state.


I would agree that a rights-granting active personal God is necessary (with the caveat that the Biblical God, though active and personal grants no "unalienable rights" in the text of the Bible) and stress that orthodox doctrines like Trinity, infalliblity of the bible, and eternal damnation have nothing to do with the concept of unalienable rights as posited by the men who wrote the DOI.

Much of our Bill of Rights is biblically based, as well, and the Ten Commandments and further laws set out in the book of Exodus form the basis of our Western law. Indeed, English legal giants Sir William Blackstone and Sir Edward Coke both believed the common law was based on Scripture. Though we often hear there were no references to the God of the Bible in the Constitution, the document closes by citing the date with "in the Year of our Lord."


Nonsense. The Bill of Rights have nothing to do with the Bible, Exodus or the Ten Commandments. Whatever Blackstone and Coke may have asserted, the common law was based on the experience of judges deciding cases and controversies, not Scripture, and "in the Year of our Lord," was a convention -- a customary way of stating the date.

Our ruling class today is dominated by those who no longer believe that our rights are God-given or that our liberties depend on effective limitations on the state. They are so divorced from true history and American statecraft that they fail to see the irony in their dissociation with and apologies for our Judeo-Christian heritage, which is responsible for making this the freest and most prosperous nation on earth for people of all races, ethnicities and religions.


I'm not going to defend the "ruling class," but Limbaugh's article demonstrates that he is more clueless about America's Founding history than they are.

31 comments:

Our Founding Truth said...

Nonsense. The Bill of Rights have nothing to do with the Bible, Exodus or the Ten Commandments. Whatever Blackstone and Coke may have asserted, the common law was based on the experience of judges deciding cases and controversies, not Scripture,>

No Sir! Common Law is based on scripture, starting with Ethelbert, and Alfred, who embraced Christianity.

Jonathan Rowe said...

You are not a lawyer. OFT. I teach common law contract, tort, property among other things. And this has little if anything to do with Christianity or the Bible.

Tom Van Dyke said...

They "believed that rights were a product of society and state."

This seems wrong.


Actually, it's a key point. In fact, James Wilson differs from Blackstone and Edmund Burke on just this.

Rights can be via social contract per the latter, or innate and inalienable per the American vision.

A lot of assertion in this essay, Jon, too much to "unpack." The counterargument is that innate "rights" was a developing concept via the Christian thinkers, not the "secular" social contact-ians. That Jefferson doesn't give credit to religious sources is unremarkable, TJ being who he was. However, he also stated that the D of I was unoriginal and simply a reflection of "the American Mind."

The history of the concept of innate rights can and must be traced independently of what Jefferson said.

It's you who sets up the "false dichotomy": they either have had to quote scripture or the "Christian" origins of the Founding are dismissed.

You set up sola scriptura as your straw man. But it's Christian thought, not Bible-quoting, that's behind the argument for Christian origins of the Founding.

You can call Limbaugh's article "bad" and "nonsense," but you didn't lay a glove on his arguments. There are a number of respected atheist scholars like Rorty and Habermas who quoite agree our notion of rights has a uniquely Christian source and foundation. Limbaugh's an easy target---throwing the word "nonsense" at Rorty and Habermas requires quite a lot more substance than this.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Tom,

I get what you are saying until here:

You can call Limbaugh's article "bad" and "nonsense," but you didn't lay a glove on his arguments.

No, I think I demolished his argument. I may not have laid a glove on Rorty or Hamermas or the kind of "Christian origins" argument that are the most (or that you find the most) convincing, but I squarely addressed where Limbaugh was coming from. If there is a strawman in this debate it's Limbaugh's and I wouldn't be able to take him down were he not a prominent voice.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Well, you seem to prefer to do your fishing in a barrel.

Is Rush Limbaugh's brother, or World Net Daily for that matter, prominent? That's news to me.

That The Federalist Papers and the constitution don't use biblical arguments is unremarkable---the structure of the government---the "how"---is completely separate from the "what," the rights the government is designed to protect.

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?" --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XVIII, 1782.

Even if you could prove that Jefferson's God is not the God of the Bible [you can't], the large majority of the Founders believed that the God who gives us rights is the same as the one in the Bible, your Trinitarianism canard notwithstanding. [The Trinity, and the other half-dozen things you use as unOrthodoxy, are a matter of interpreting the Bible, not accepting or rejecting the Bible.]

This is the fundament of the argument

In the words of professor John Eidsmoe, "If by the term Christian nation one means a nation that was founded on biblical values that were brought to the nation by mostly professing Christians, then in that sense the United States may truly be called a Christian nation."

Perhaps the argument could be phrased better to be invulnerable to your demolition of a "strict biblical worldview" as the Founding dynamic. That claim is unsupportable and untenable, but demolishing it proves nothing, and neither does Limbaugh or Eidsmoe "strictly" argue it.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Rights can be via social contract per the latter, or innate and inalienable per the American vision.

Tom,

Talk about a false dicotomy. It's BOTH -- social contract AND inalienable rights. This is Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau 101. Men by nature possess "inalienable rights"; the state of nature has "inconviences" that consequently lead them to form a "social contract" to lessen those inconveniences whereby they trade SOME [how much is debatable] of the inalienable natural liberty you held in the "state of nature" for positive rights. [I.e., govt. at the very least claims a right to your income and productivity to fund its police power, and perhaps more; in return you have a more powerful state that can prevent you from the bad neighors of yours that wish to do you harm without YOU having to worry about being your own policeman which devoles into "migh makes right"].

Now, all of this -- CENTRAL to the American Founding -- was, as Strauss put it, wholly "a-biblical," with the caveat that God is necessary to make "rights" "unalienable."

Vulgar readers, like OFT, don't understand this founding era political philosophy because it is too sophisticated for them.

Is this narrative "compatable" with traditional "Judeo-Christianity"? Perhaps. In the same sense that Darwin's evolution is "compatible" with "Judeo-Christianity."

But one thing is for sure, other than a God necessary to make rights "unalienable," the natural rights-social contract dynamic CENTRAL to the American Founding is about as authentically "Judeo-Christian" as Darwin's evolution.

Jonathan Rowe said...

"That claim is unsupportable and untenable, but demolishing it proves nothing...,"

No, it proves something; we aren't too widely read here. WND are much more popular than we are. As long as they keep pushing this tripe, we have a right to demolish it. You have the same right to do so with the secular leftists who argue for a "deist-secular" founding. And you have a similar dynamic, a "vulgar" more popular crowd arguing such platitudes like "all the FFs were deists," and a more "sophisticated," less widely read crowd (i.e., Mark Lilla) who argue Hobbes was the true Founder of Western liberalism and consequently the American Founding. You are free to go after either.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Well, I'm not into trolling the leftish equivalents of WND. As for Lilla, he's getting "demolished" by better minds than mine. Neither did you really lay a glove on the Limbaugh-Eidsmoe argument, except by narrowing it to a "strict" biblical worldview, as if 1700 years of Christian thought didn't exist. Oh, and the Trinity thing again.

I completely disagree with Strauss on rights. At first I accepted his John Locke as a "crypto-Hobbesian hedonist," as one fellow put it, but the more I read Locke, the less I'm convinced that his religious talk was just exoteric window-dressing.

You argue against your own argument by invoking Thomas Hobbes---he was very unpopular with the Founders, especially Hamilton, who savages him in The Farmer Refuted.

And BTW, OFT's getting quite the better of you on James Wilson, who goes as far to say explicitly that the natural law is synonymous with the will of God, a sentiment I'd bet was a lot more mainstream among the Founders than "reason trumps revelation."

Jonathan Rowe said...

Neither did you really lay a glove on the Limbaugh-Eidsmoe argument, except by narrowing it to a "strict" biblical worldview,

which is what they argue

as if 1700 years of Christian thought didn't exist.

What they DON'T argue; there is nothing in them that understands the nuance that these ideas central to the Founding began to emerge sometime one thousand and some odd years AD. They say it's all in the Bible. And they are no friends to the Thomist-Roman Catholic, medieval rights view (ala Tierny) either. To the extent that they recognize "rights" teachings didn't emerge until sometime before the Founding, they credit the "orthodox" Protestant Reformation.

Oh, and the Trinity thing again.

Yes, it's not going to go away. Many Christians tell me the Trinity is central to their theology.

You argue against your own argument by invoking Thomas Hobbes---he was very unpopular with the Founders, especially Hamilton, who savages him in The Farmer Refuted.

You aren't reading me carefully enough. I am not arguing Hobbes. Rather I am arguing the "state of nature" central to John Locke's teachings and what Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau had in common. They that THAT in common, not the Bible.

Tom Van Dyke said...

"There is so strong a similitude between your political principles and those maintained by Mr. Hobb[e]s, that, in judging from them, a person might very easily mistake you for a disciple of his. His opinion was, exactly, coincident with yours, relative to man in a state of nature. He held, as you do, that he was, then, perfectly free from all restraint of law and government. Moral obligation, according to him, is derived from the introduction of civil society; and there is no virtue, but what is purely artificial, the mere contrivance of politicians, for the maintenance of social intercourse. But the reason he run into this absurd and impious doctrine, was, that he disbelieved the existence of an intelligent superintending principle, who is the governor, and will be the final judge of the universe."

---Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted 1775

Jonathan Rowe said...

And BTW, OFT's getting quite the better of you on James Wilson, who goes as far to say explicitly that the natural law is synonymous with the will of God, a sentiment I'd bet was a lot more mainstream among the Founders than "reason trumps revelation."

I have a hard time believing you believe this; rather methinks you are slightly upset that I am not assenting to your "Thomistic" Wilson point of view. I'll give you that Wilson is more "Thomistic" than a Bible thumper. But I see his theology as more "modern" and "enlightened" than Thomistic.

Yes, I agree Wilson sees the natural law as the "will of God"...as discovered by reason. And I see Wilson's God as little to no different than Jefferson's, J. Adams', Franklin's and the other "key Founders" -- one who partially inspired the Bible and whose "will" is chiefly revealed by "reason" not the Bible (the latter of which is designed to support the findings of "reason" not the other way around).

I admit that we haven't found a smoking gun on the "Trinity" question with Wilson, but I'd bet my house that if/when that letter comes up, Wilson denies the Trinity. That was the elite-Whig (who, as Jefferson put it all thought alike) point of view.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Tom,

I am not a strict secularist of the Straussian view who argues for an atheistic Hobbesian founding; in fact I have argued against it.

My point, is simply that Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau were united under a "modern" (that is not "biblical" or age old "Judeo-Christian") "state of nature" political philosophy.

Tom Van Dyke said...

That's your assertion, yes.

Tom Van Dyke said...

But I see his theology as more "modern" and "enlightened" than Thomistic.

Yes, I agree Wilson sees the natural law as the "will of God"


I think those two statements are in complete conflict. I'm actually surprised that Wilson goes so far as to say the natural law is "the will of God" [and you should agree that he sees it that way, as he explicitly states it]. farther than Suarez and Grotius, for instance.

I wouldn't be surprised if you find some proof that Wilson was unitarian. However, it's irrelevant. The central point is the foundation of rights, and the D of I formulation is not consistent with Hobbes or Rousseau [or Blackstone or Burke, for that matter, according to Wilson].

Jonathan Rowe said...

I think those two statements are in complete conflict.

Well I don't see them in conflict in the sense that I see Wilson (like Jefferson, J. Adams, Franklin, etc.) arguing for a more "modern" view of God.

We must remember that there are very few atheists. Most folks who voted for Obama, McCain, the LP, and other 3rd parties were, like America's Founders, theists.

Tom Van Dyke said...

There is no cause to put James Wilson in with Jefferson, Jon, none atall. In fact, his statements on natural law are less "modern" than Francisco Suarez', a 16th century Jesuit.

IntelligentDecline said...

A few thoughts. It is always personally amusing to me, when I hear the assertion the Bible generally, and the 10 Commandments specifically, are the foundation of America's laws. For at least three of the ten Commandments, the assertion is facially absurd:

Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.


Murder. theft, and perjury were assuredly criminal acts in societies that predated Israel's escape from Egypt. One Commandment has been willfully ignored, since the nation's founding, and ever since:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth

Jean-Antone Houdon’s statue of Washington was commissioned 1785, and first raised in the rotunda of the Capitol n Richmond, VA., 1791. Weather vanes depicting animals were common well before the Revolution.

A direct admonition of Jesus has been ignored since before this Nation's founding, and contradicts Constitutional text:

But I say unto you, Swear not at all; nether by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: nether by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Nether shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. - Matthew 5:34-37

Given that many of WND's executives and regular writers are self-proclaimed Catholics, it is bit of a dodge to imply America's "Christian Foundations", was clearly applicable to them. Samuel Adams, in his "The Rights of the Colonists", November 20, 1772, even asserted that Catholics were not entitled to Religious Toleration, because they placed to Pope above The Civil Authority in public matters.

The claim of applicability is also dubious when made by the large majority of contemporary Protestants in America, because they are on the side of a major schism in Protestant dogma, which was widely persecuted in Early America: sects that believe real Christan baptism can only be performed after a person is old enough to freely choose and swear their Christian faith, making infant baptism invalid, and/or that Christian Baptism is only by total immersion. This prejudice carried over into Revolutionary era America, and later. Jefferson's "Wall of Separation Between Church and State", was written to Baptist ministers in Danbury Conn., to placate their fears of a government established religion.

The clam that America was founded as a Christian nation totally disregards one salient disproof: There is no concept of a Christian Gestalt able to encompass the variety and differences within Christian sects. The schisms are far too wide to ever be bridged, and often, what is essential Christian dogma in one sect, is Christian heresy to another.

Nowhere in this post is there any mention of The Scottish Enlightenment's impact on America's Foundation, notably David Hume, and Adam Smith.

When contemplating the impact of Greek Philosophy on the Nation's Founders, is would be proper to remember, that at least in the minds of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, Plato possessed a negative value. An exchange of letters between Jefferson and Adams in 1814, published in the Jefferson (ME), Vol 14, is a very good example:
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, July 5, 1814.
and
John Adams letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 16, 1814.

IntelligentDecline said...

Tom Van Dyke, Your use of a short quote from TJ's Notes of Virginia, Query XVIII, to justify the idea that America's ideals of Natural Rights have a Christian foundation is specious, and counterintuitive, when the full context is considered. In Query XVIII, Jefferson was stating his distaste for the "particular customs and manners" of slavery. Jefferson was asserting that slavery, which was deemed acceptable by America's Founders, was oppositional to God's will and dictates. If the Natural Rights that grounded America's foundation had truly been based upon Christian concepts, Jefferson believed there would have been no slavery.

-----

"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms the child looks on catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to the worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patrice of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labor for another; in which he must lock up the faculties of his nature, contribute as far as depends on his individual endeavors to the evanishment of the human race, or entail his own miserable condition on the endless generations proceeding from him. With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. For in a warm climate, no man will labor for himself who can make another labor for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest. But it is impossible to be temperate and to pursue this subject through the various considerati ons of policy, of morals, of history natural and civil. We must be contented to hope they will force their way into every one's mind. I think a change already perceptible , since the origin of the present revolution. The spirit of the master is abating, that of the slave rising from the dust, his condition mollifying, the way I hope preparing, under the auspices of heaven, for a total emancipation, and that this is disposed, in the order of events to be with the consent of the masters, rather than by their extirpation."

Thomas Jefferson, "Notes On Virginia" Query XVIII: The particular customs and manners that may happen to be received in that State?

Jonathan Rowe said...

I have to agree with ID's analysis except, I'm not sure if TVD couches his argument in the way that ID criticizes him.

Yes, if we are just talking orthodox Christianity and the Bible, arguably there is no problem with slavery because the text doesn't forbid slavery and neither did orthodox Christendom for most of its history.

Jefferson makes a theistic case against slavery that is not dependent on biblical or orthodox Christian teachings, but may be compatible with them.

But I guess it all depends on how one interprets the Bible. Evangelical notions of salvation make the slavery all the less problematic in a biblical sense.

Why does it matter if you are a slave as long as you have your salvation? In the end, you are in a much better position, relatively speaking, than your unsaved master (if your master is in fact unsaved).

IntelligentDecline said...

Under Jewish law, as stated in the Old Testament, Slave-holding did not confer absolute property ownership rights. Limitations were placed upon what a master could do to a slave, and still retain ownership rights.

Exodus 21

20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.

21 Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.

26 And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.

27 And if he smite out his manservant's tooth, or his maidservant's tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake.

Jonathan Rowe said...

ID,

That's a good point; but, I see an analogy to animals. I technically don't have absolute right to treat my dog like it were mere property. Nor should I. But I do NOT believe the animals that I OWN should have full human rights.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Mr. Decline, in the olden days, they seem to have made little use of paragraph breaks.

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God?"

begins a new thought; the arguments against slavery to that point were more practical. At this point Jefferson moves to slavery as a violation of natural law. What's interesting is that he invokes God, and the possibility of God's active intervention, again going farther than Suarez and Grotius.

I previously noted that slavery is sui generis---the slaveholders had convinced themselves of all sorts of things, like the slaves were better off under slavery than as freemen or back in Africa.

Which illustrates the limits and flaw of reason, and one that many Founders explicitly pointed out, that most men can convince themselves of anything.

Jonathan Rowe said...

The problem Tom (and I think you know this) is that there are certain texts in the Bible that are every bit as problematic and the FFs weren't afraid (at least not in private) to call it.

Whatever the limits and flaws of reason, they saw the same with the Bible.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Besides Jefferson and Adams you mean? [And a couple spots by Franklin.] Please show it.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Samuel West for one.

I'd also claim James Wilson. I don't think you proved he tought the Bible trumps reason. I don't think you can explain away the smoking gun (which you know what it is). I think the best you can argue with Wilson is the Bible reaches an "equal" place with reason and the moral sense.

And if I can't have Madison or Washington, neither can you.

Tom Van Dyke said...

No, I don't claim Madison or Washington and am on record as resisting any attempts to claim them for orthodox Christianity.

I'm inclined to believe that Washington, like Franklin, didn't give a hang for doctrine and dogma. I'd say that not taking the Eucharist either meant he didn't believe in it, or felt unworthy. Both are real possibilities, even if the former is more likely.

As for Madison, it seems the only evidence is weak, that a friend said he leaned toward unitarianism. Still, it's consistent with his life's work and I don't have an objection. I'd simply point out, as I did in a post recently, that there's a kneejerk inclination to read "unitarian" as some sort of secular humanism. However, there were many [many!] "Biblical" unitarians who rejected the Trinity on scriptural grounds via reason, not reason alone. I catch a deep piety in Madison, although that's admittedly a subjective assessment.

As for James Wilson, I think you have to take in his entire body of work, not a single quote that says scripture doesn't "supersede" reason.

Again, nuance is needed---he says reason [and Wilson's "moral sense"] go a long way in discerning the natural law. [No different than Aquinas, that.]

However, Wilson allows that scripture goes where reason cannot. The nuance comes in here---scripture incorporates the natural law, and therefore incorporates RIGHT reason.

If Wilson is addressing his remarks to the Holy Rollers, the sola scripturists, or most likely, the authoritarian clerics---and I believe he is---then he's warning them that their interpretations of the Bible, if they conflict with natural law and thereby right reason, are not the product of right reason themselves.

I believe this harmonizes the quote in question with Wilson's entire body of work.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Tom,

Not too far off with Wilson, but I am still not seeing eye to eye.

"not a single quote that says scripture doesn't "supersede" reason."

But he DOES say scripture does NOT supersede reason and the moral sense AFTER claiming scripture is "incomplete" in matters of morals and government.

Jonathan Rowe said...

I'm inclined to believe that Washington, like Franklin, didn't give a hang for doctrine and dogma. I'd say that not taking the Eucharist either meant he didn't believe in it, or felt unworthy. Both are real possibilities, even if the former is more likely.

As for Madison, it seems the only evidence is weak,...


Tom, fine but the evidence is also weak that EITHER of them thought "the Bible" should be used as a final "test case." I see far more talk of "naturalism" from their end.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Oh, I wouldn't claim that for Washington or Madison directly, relax. What I'm looking for is the general spirit of the times, crossreferencing Locke and Wilson, two of the best thinkers.

When Locke says he'd change an opinion if it were shown to be in conflict with scripture [i.e., an interpretation demonstrated to be true by reason], this crystallizes the dynamic I offer above, and satisfies your objection.

My last response incorporates your other objection as well. Neither the Bible nor natural law dictates a bicameral legislature. Or where to set speed limits.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Okay. But I have seen the Christian Nationalists argue the separation of powers comes from the Bible, when it really comes from good old Montyskew. I'm trying to get them to make more "reasonable" concessions.

Tom Van Dyke said...

OK. You'll also find it in Aristotle and Aquinas, altho in different form.