Friday, September 30, 2011

One Reason Why Scholars Think Washington Was a Deist

I think what I write next needs to be stressed in the study of George Washington's personal religious beliefs.

After reading virtually everything George Washington said and wrote on religion, I conclude GW believed in an active personal Providence.

However, Washington was also imbibed in Greco-Romanism, particularly Stoicism. I'm still trying to get a handle on what the Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers -- the ones who didn't believe in mythology (Zeus, Hercules, etc.) -- believed religiously. As far as I can tell, they believed in some kind of impersonal deistic-Providence.

Again, Washington (of all the Founders, especially) drank deeply from that well. So we see quotations where GW refers to Providence in an impersonal sense, calling Providence "It" and "She" at times, sounding like a deist. (You'll have to trust me he did this; I'll provide the quotations elsewhere if requested.) I think he was being sincere when talking about Providence this way. He was just sounding like the neo-Stoic he was.

However, elsewhere (over and over again) he refers to Providence as an active personal God, and seemed to believe in a warm universal theism.

If one focused only on those letters where GW invoked the neo-Stoic impersonal Providence I understand why one would (inaptly in my opinion) conclude him a "deist." (You still have to put his impersonal Providence talk together with his warm theism talk.)

29 comments:

Angie Van De Merwe said...

Are you talking about the "Fate of Greek gods", and the Providence of "Christian faith"? Both are passive to the 'god(s)' but have a belief in "myth".

Weren't the Ceasars known as "gods' and Christians were known as atheist becase they would not worship Ceasar? But, some used power to convert other to Christian faith, as well!

It seems that this view of George Washington's faith would be an attempt to further evangelical claims about knowledge of "God", and his "order" of the universe!

Organization and governments are ordered by leaders. But, our government made it clear that there was to be no "order"/authority over the individual except the law. The law was to protect private property and person and grants rights protected by law.

What does it matter what George Washington's personal beliefs were, anyway?

Phil Johnson said...

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One has to recognize the importance of Free Masonry during the Founding Era.
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Aside from any rituals or "secrets" Symbolic Masonry can be an all consuming set of ideas making up a highly important philosophy of life. It is so close to being a religion that, in the minds of some members, it takes the form of a Deist religion all by itself. George Washington was a Worshipful Master during a time when Free Masonry was the major provider of personal conduct going in Colonial America.
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I can easily understand why anyone reading the G.W. papers would think that he was a Deist.
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Anonymous said...

As it is almost always the case with you, here you desperately parse syntax, and interleave your own rather eccentric semantics into the crystalline clear and plain language of earlier Americans in your absurd quest to "disprove" the equally crystalline clear truth that America has deeply Christian roots and that the founders where in the main Christian. It is one of the cheaper sorts of rhetorical dodges--it most clearly gives the game away.

This is case in point: Using "it" as a pronoun for "Providence" is a common usage now and was common usage then. Its demonstrates nothing but proper education and euphonious prose. Likewise, interest in Stoicism in no way implies any absence of faith in either God or Christianity. That you do not seem to understand either rather simple points bespeaks of a shallow intellect and a quite limited understanding your own civilization in general, and the intellectual history of Christianity in particular. You are grasping at straws--a commonplace with you.

It is all self-serving hogwash: You are literally putting words in people's mouths. The decent thing would be to stop this and take the founders' words on their own merits.
They were, after all, radically superior men to you.

This bizarre obsession of yours leads you away from even a basic commonsensical understanding of a world not at all far from us in time and comprehension. Your "project" is notionally so altogether comically ahistorical and intellectually shallow and obtuse, that one suspects that there is something else at work. You appear to be blinded by some toxic mix of neurosis, Leftist indoctrination and, perhaps, a desire to evade knowledge of your own sinfulness. You just seem to just not like the idea of God or of Faith, or perhaps you are just a Leftist shill. Perhaps you had an "uncomfortable experience" with a relative of Faith. Whatever the case this all gives off the desperate odor of neurosis and denial.

You should understand that your silly attempts at the revisionist history of your will not change the past, nor, one hopes, the future. This only keep you, yourself from the truth.

America will eventually throw off the Cultural Marxism of the last 50 years or so and return to its roots.

To do otherwise--to follow your path--will surely mean her destruction.

bpabbott said...

Re: "You still have to put his impersonal Providence talk together with his warm theism talk"

Jon, might you be confusing the present qualification of Deism with the earlier version?

Jonathan Rowe said...

Ben: There is no question that *a* viable definition of "deism" includes an active personal God and indeed something that viewed itself compatible with "Christianity." A scholar named Joseph Waligore, a friend of the site, has some interesting research (much of it coming out) that shows this. "Deism" in this sense would be "Christian-Deism" or what Gregg Frazer terms "theistic rationalism."

However, in modern academic discourse, the term "deist" to many ears, means the non-active personal God type. And that's working definition that needs to be answered.

I think this was one of the competing definitions of Deism used during the Founding. But, in some instances, it may have been a caricature foisted on freethinkers by the orthodox clergy.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Anon: I don't know what you are talking about.

"The decent thing would be to stop this and take the founders' words on their own merits. They were, after all, radically superior men to you."

Whatever they were, I'll continue doing what I do; since you pretend to know me and what I'm all about, I'll return the favor: I've forgotten more of their quotations than you'll ever know.

"Whatever the case this all gives off the desperate odor of neurosis and denial."

After reading your rant, this strikes me as the pot calling the kettle black.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Anon: One other thing (and I'm not sure if I should even waste my time with you; for all I know, this is a goof), it may disturb you to know that my views on GW, the FFs, and "Deism" are to the "right" of the expert academy. Indeed, I'm helping to convince THEM that the Founders were MORE religious, more believing in an active personal God, than a cold, distant Providence than they've been led to believe.

And as my title accurate intimates, a great deal of "expert" GW scholars (shall I name them?) DO believe he was a "deist" for the very reasons I outlined above.

Finally, my "project" here has garnered praise from more than a nominal number of notable conservative Christian scholars who, to again use the insult, forgot more about "the intellectual history of Christianity" than you'll ever know.

Phil Johnson said...

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Anonymo0us made my day.
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Every once in a while I need a good laugh. This one ended up with my cheeks aching I laughed so hard.
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bpabbott said...

Jon, I'm concerned about using a modern definition of Deism while favoring the Founders view of Christianity (those are the defaults you imply no?.

I think it just leads to more confusion.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Ben: The cold distant watchmaker definition of Deism was *a* viable definition during the Founding. It wasn't just *the* only one.

For instance, both Jefferson AND Locke, defined "Deist" as belief in ONE God.

As I've written elsewhere, broadly defined the key Founders were both "Christians" and "Deists" (hence "Christian-Deist"). Narrowly defined they were neither (hence some other term like "unitarian" or "theistic rationalist").

bpabbott said...

Jon,

Perhaps I've overlooked the founders use of Deism as being synonymous with a cold distant watchmaker. Or perhaps we have different views of what that implies.

For me, belief in rewards and punishments is a show stopper for that.

I'd be interested in seeing the definitions of Deism by Jefferson and Locke. Looking at Wikipedia, I see ...

"Locke's famous attack on innate ideas in the first book of the Essay effectively destroyed that foundation and replaced it with a theory of knowledge based on experience. Innatist deism was replaced by empiricist deism."

I'm not familiar with Locke's work in this context, but my first impression is that empiricist deism implies a God that isn't distant, but active in our lives.

Phil Johnson said...

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How does the meaning of watchmaker compare to the meaning of architect?
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There's too much of freemasonry in American history not to appreciate its contribution to the Founding.
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Freemasonry is a form of Deism.
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Jonathan Rowe said...

Ben,

That's a great point; just about all deists of that time believed, at minimum, in a future state of rewards and punishments.

And here's where we get a bit too philosophical: Under the auspices of "natural law" -- laws of nature and nature's God -- the deists believed in God's moral AND scientific laws. Best as I can tell, the supernon-intervening deist types, believed God wound up such a tight clock or machine that He didn't need to intervene; He just let go. A future state of rewards and punishments, it seems to me, IS part of the picture according to that understanding.

This is where deism, fatalism, and even predestination can meet or intertwine.

Angie Van De Merwe said...

Phil,
Since Freemasonry is interested in "character", or "enlightenment", then do Freemasons have an allegience to "the rule of law", or would there be appeals to "higher purposes", then individual liberties?

Angie Van De Merwe said...

It seems to me that appeals to "God" or the afterlife and its rewards or punishments is a way of escaping "this world". It is gnostic to the core. And it views the world as "evil" and nature as corrupted!

Such views are self-justifying ways or attempts at feeling "empowered" and "justified" in one's conscience concerning judgments about diversity, and choice of individuals in a free society!

Phil Johnson said...

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During an era when working people had little time for leisurely pursuits as we experience in our time, Masonry took the place of the fatherly duties of instilling cultural values into young men entering mature adulthood. As such, it had an enormous influence on society--especially the ruling classes. Its precepts are Deistic in essence.
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bpabbott said...

Jon,

Good comments.

Phil beat me to the next measure of Deism I was going to raise. Namely that of a providencial God (Freemasonry?).

My understanding is that the Founder's God of Deism is compatible with Providence (which I think is a minimal system of reward and punishment in the here and now) as well as future rewards and punishments. It is also my understanding that neither of these fit into the common modern (orthodox?) view of an "absent watch-maker".

Regarding what does *not* fit into the Founder's Deism, I think it save to assert that there is no room for the doctrines of organized religion. Particularly, special revelation and miracles.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Regarding what does *not* fit into the Founder's Deism, I think it save to assert that there is no room for the doctrines of organized religion. Particularly, special revelation and miracles.

This is where this gross generalization of "Key" Founders and Deism falls apart. John Adams writes that Christianity is a revelation, so does Locke. Virtually every unitarian Christian believed the Bible was Divine Writ.

Locke also wrote an entire treatise defending miracles. John Adams saw no problem with them. Jefferson mentions "supernatural interference" is possible against slavery.

Basically, you find the Founders believed at least most of what Jews do, hence "Judeo-Christian," not a totally arbitrary term.

The concepts of monotheism; a creator-God; Judge of the living and the Dead; Providence; miracles; "special revelation," i.e., scriptures are Judeo-Christian, or "Abrahamic" if you're feeling expansive, and resemble no other theological system in the world. [Zoroastrianism, if you're feeling picky.]

You just can't take Jehovah out of it, because that's who their God is, and none other.

bpabbott said...

Tom,

I think you are correct in that Jehovah stays.

But how much of the Bible belongs (to what degree may "reason" protect the faith from corruptions) , and what aspects of Protestant doctrine / theology belong is where I think the difficulties of debate and discussion lie.

At a minimum, I do think the Founders' God can be qualified as a Providential Jehovah.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Yah, Ben, I'm pretty confident with that assertion.

"May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, and planted them in the promised land, whose providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven, and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah."

---GWash, 1790

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/general/george-washington-letter-jews.htm

Jonathan Rowe said...

A philosophically inclusive "Jehovah" who also goes by "Allah" to the Muslims and "The Great Spirit" to the monotheistic Native Americans.

This is where inclusive, philosophical Jehovahism crosses over into universal theism.

Angie Van De Merwe said...

Laws define what is outside appropriate behavior, but they also define expectations, as to behavior. People in civilized societies can expect to be protected by the "rule of law", as longs a they abide by them. These are what parents teach their young about cheating, stealing or lying.

In free societies there is no limitation upon the individual's choices, within the bounds of law. But, those stipulating distinctives or definitions about how to "live by the law", can be oppressive, if these laws are religiously focused, meaning that one's allegiance to the law is a legalist position that defends "God", rather than the human. That is, protecting human life, liberty and pursuit of happiness (property).

Tom Van Dyke said...

Jon, the Jehovah who "delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, and planted them in the promised land" is more than a bland "universal theism." Glossing over this is simply unfactual if not sophistic.

Angie Van De Merwe said...

My husband read a book, "Is God a Mathematician" just recently and did a book review in in Interdisciplinary Journal.

The crux of the issue is; is the universe set up or made under laws? Yes, there are physical laws that describe nature, but are these uniform in their description, so as to be prescriptive? NO!

People that like to prove "God" or a "creation order" or "creation mandate" point to intelligent design through this kind of "apology".

Angie Van De Merwe said...

The Catholic Church used Aristotle's philosophy to defend the Church, but science undermined much of their theology and "convictons" about the universe!

bpabbott said...

Is more than a Providential God needed to "[deliver] the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors, and [plant] them in the promised land"?

Angie Van De Merwe said...

Just as the past view in Catholicism was "outdated" by science, the Deist view or "Providential view" of "God" is not the view of understanding the modern world, evil, or all that is....

Today, we still cannot and must not undermine our system or form of government, as it is the most humane and moral, as it allows for individuality, choice, equality of opportunity, liberty of conscience concerning religious views, and an ability to prosper oneself in pursuing one's interests!

Jonathan Rowe said...

Tom,

I didn't intend the "universal theism" to describe a "bland" deity. The way the Founders understood Him, He was infinitely benevolent and rational. He was the God of all "good people."

Tom Van Dyke said...

The Catholic Church used Aristotle's philosophy to defend the Church, but science undermined much of their theology and "convictons" about the universe!

Not exactly, Angie. Perhaps your husband would find a genuine philosopher of interest.


http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/11/final-causality-and-aristotles-unmoved.html