Sunday, January 11, 2015

Harry Jaffa & Walter Berns, RIP

Check out The American Spectator's observations here. It begins:
People here in D.C. who remember Walter will recall a witty and learned scholar, but they also remember an indefatigable dancer who, well into his 80s, energetically twirled his lovely wife, Irene, around an AEI ballroom. I recall a talk he gave about Jefferson. “Nature’s God,” said Walter. “What kind of a God do you think that was?”
Walter Berns did tell us what he thought of "Nature's God." I believed it when around 10 years ago I wrote an article quoting him that got published in "Liberty" Magazine (not the libertarian journal, where I've also published, but the one run by the Seventh Day Adventists).

This is what I quoted from Berns' book "Making Patriots":
The God invoked there is 'nature's God,' not, or arguably not, the God of the Bible, not the God whom, today, 43 percent of Americans . . . claim regularly to worship on the Sabbath. Nature's God issues no commands. No one can fall from his grace, and, therefore, no one has reason to pray to him asking for his forgiveness. He makes no promises. On the contrary, he endowed us with 'certain inalienable rights,' then left us alone, and with the knowledge, or at least the confidence, that he will never interfere in our affairs. Moreover, he is not a jealous God; he allows us—in fact, he endows us with the right—to worship other gods or even no god at all.
I've since modified my understanding. I do not believe the "Nature's God" of the DOI is necessarily the "God of the Bible." I also don't necessarily believe we have to ascribe Jefferson's personal theology to this "Nature's God." Jefferson's god, by the way, did not have the following attributes (which Jefferson personally rejected):
The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection and visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity; original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy, &c.
Rather, I see "Nature's God" as more of a lowest common denominator between and among Jefferson, the other writers of the Declaration (two who were unitarians, leaving an arguably majority of the DOI's writers unitarian), and the Continental Congress who took responsibility for it.

"Nature" means understood by reason unassisted by special revelation. As it were, "Nature's God" is what we can understand about God from reason unassisted by special revelation.

My conclusion then is "Nature's God" defines as a Providential God whose attributes we can understand by reason alone. This is a God to whom among others, Jews, Christians, Unitarians, Universalists, Muslims, Mormons, unconverted Great Spirit worshipping Native Americans, and self understood Deists (yes, there were self understood "Deists" who believed in Providence) could imagine they believe.

This God is, as much as possible the one who could be "all things to all people," the uniter, not the divider.

The God of generic monotheism, understood by reason, unassisted by the Bible.

13 comments:

Tom Van Dyke said...

Jefferson's private reservations and mental calculations aren't really relevant. What's relevant is how the Second Continental Congress took the concept of "Nature's God."

We must look at the entire document, not just Jefferson's part.

Since they added their appeal to "Supreme Judge of the world," we're a little past the God of the philosophers that can be derived merely by reason.

The question is whether there's any other God who is seen as Supreme Judge of the world. If the answer is no--and I believe it is--Jehovah is the most likely suspect.

jimmiraybob said...

What was relevant at the time of the writing was how a "candid world" would receive the declaration of separation. And, "Nature's God" and "Supreme Judge of the World" leave enough wiggle room to satisfy Jehovahists, deists, Buddhists, Hindoos, infidels, and Spinozists of all stripes on this continent and the old.

And, as a declaration of separation (rebellion and war) against the standing government authority that had been accepted by most colonists right up to the eve of the declaration, it was not intended as a statement of government constitution binding a citizenry - that would come after a successful rebellion.

In effect, at the time, the Second Continental Congress was a revolutionary government, with ambiguous legal authority, appealing for legitimacy. What 1% or 100% of the members of the Second Continental Congress thought about "Nature's God" and "Supreme Judge of the World" is not all that relevant to posterity. But it's an interesting historical discussion.

The ambiguity in the phrasing still leaves enough room for modern interpreters and still acts to unite and not divide as well as to promote the ideals of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness in a religiously and politically pluralistic society.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Since so much time and ink has been put into what "Nature's God" is and isn't, it's quite proper to inquire as to the identity of the Supreme Judge of the world, since the Declaration makes them synonymous.

The Supreme Judge of the world does NOT appear in any but the Abrahamic religions, IOW, the God of the Bible. Jefferson's sophistry was corrected by the Congress that finalized and signed the document.

The discussion of "Nature's God" is incomplete in itself. Greco-Roman paganism, Hinduism, Buddhism, have no concept of a monotheistic God as Final Judge of the living and the dead.

jimmiraybob said...

"...since the Declaration makes them synonymous."

But the Declaration doesn't make them synonymous. It makes the two phrases coexistent in the same document - one at the beginning and one at the end - and it's up to the reader to connect them if they will.

What would have been helpful is if they would have written (unambiguously) something along the lines of "Laws of Nature as provided by Our Lord God Jehovah...Jesus Christ...Nature's God and the Supreme Judge of the world." (Now that would have been world class synonym construction.)

And then they could have reiterated this in the Constitution if they intended such a sentiment to be somehow binding on the citizenry of the new nation.

But, alas, nada.






Tom Van Dyke said...

Of course the Declaration makes Nature's God and the Supreme Judge of the world synonymous.

If you deny that plain bit of construing text, there's no point in continuing.

jimmiraybob said...

Jefferson wrote the original "Nature and Nature's God, Franklin suggested the addition of "Creator" language, and the Second continental Congress committee tacked on "Supreme Judge of the World" and reference to providence. There was no central coherent creator of the document and each contributor had their own idea of the various parts.

The document is not a statement of faith or, as John Fea puts it, the document "...was never meant to be a formal statement of American values, of universal human rights, or of the relationship between God and American independence. Yet by the nineteenth century it had certainly become all of these things."

You feel strongly that the Declaration of Separation references the true God of Christianity (Jesus Christ) and you're entitled to that. That I or others can see it another way is evidence of the vagueness with which it was written.

That, at least, three different minds contributed four different references to Deity argues strongly against a single synonymous meaning or understanding between them - unfortunately, all the contributors have gone on to find out more about the great beyond or we could get then together at the local pub and let them answer.


jimmiraybob said...

And here's the citation for the Fea quote:

http://www.philipvickersfithian.com/2009/12/god-and-declaration-of-independence.html

Tom Van Dyke said...

Jefferson's private reservations and mental calculations aren't really relevant. What's relevant is how the Second Continental Congress took the concept of "Nature's God."

We must look at the entire document, not just Jefferson's part.

Since they added their appeal to "Supreme Judge of the world," we're a little past the God of the philosophers that can be derived merely by reason.

And a) I don't take our friend Fea as an authority on political philosophy and
b) I didn't say anything about Jesus Christ.

I do have a lot more to say on this subject, such as why "the laws of nature and nature's God" isn't redundant, but it appears once again the chessboard has been overturned.

Basically you're arguing the Declaration is not coherent, with with multiple authors and the God in the beginning is different than the God referenced at the end.

There is no reply to such textual nihilism, and no coherent and principled discussion of the Declaration is possible.

But you are wrong. The Declaration is no more Jefferson's than the Constitution is Madison's [or Gouverneur Morris's, the "penman" of the Constitution].

jimmiraybob said...

"a) I don't take our friend Fea as an authority on political philosophy"

Yet, you are such an authority that you are qualified to make this judgement?

b) I didn't say anything about Jesus Christ.

I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing how the Second Continental Congress, or, presumably, the orthodox Protestant and Catholic members, would have considered references to God - and to the best of my knowledge that includes Jesus Christ and God as one and the same. Are you insinuating that they would have had in mind a Deist God or a Jewish God?

"Basically you're arguing the Declaration is not coherent, with with multiple authors and the God in the beginning is different than the God referenced at the end."

Could be. They were not explicit. Multiple authors certainly could have different things in mind. There are those that argue that adding "Supreme Judge of the world" was an act of "strategic piety" in order to appeal to the home grown Reformed/Calvinist constituency to get hem on board with the rebellion. Or even to elicit sympathy abroad.

"There is no reply to such textual nihilism..."

As usual, anything departing from your narrative is nihilism. I don't think that nihilism is the word you were looking for - maybe "different textural analysis" would work better. But then that's not as handy to shut down conversation.

Tom Van Dyke said...

I'm sorry, I thought we were discussing how the Second Continental Congress, or, presumably, the orthodox Protestant and Catholic members, would have considered references to God - and to the best of my knowledge that includes Jesus Christ and God as one and the same.

Please go away.

jimmiraybob said...

: )

JMS said...

I will make three points that will not resolve your dispute, but perhaps shed some more light.

1) Jefferson did not even write three of the four references to God. Even his reference to “the laws of nature and nature’s god” had no connection to the derivation of our inalienable rights. Jefferson’s thesis was that the American people (“a people”) had an “equal and independent” right to give and withhold consent, and that the American people had the same right to self-government as any other people (i.e., people in Britain). That is what Jefferson meant by “all men are created equal. John Fea is correct in stating that the Declaration of Independence has little or nothing to do with the relationship between God and American independence.

2) Jefferson implicitly rejected the old “divine right of kings” as the source of sovereignty. In the Declaration, “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” not God.

3) The best explanation of the Declaration I’ve encountered comes from Donald Lutz. His analysis agrees with Fea. Jefferson, the committee and the Congress were seeking the maximum amount of unity in what they all knew was a treasonable and highly risky endeavor (e.g., Franklin’s quip about hanging together or hanging separately). So, the four references to divinity in the final draft were intended to appeal to the “head”-”reason” (deists, Unitarians, Jews) and the “heart”-“revelation” (evangelical Christians, Catholics) and all of the other “established” and dissenting Protestant denomination. Lutz believes that, “One does not need to be religious to accept the reasoning in the first paragraph of the Declaration. The term "Nature's God" will activate the religious grounding, but the term "Laws of Nature" will activate an equivalent conclusion using a natural rights theory, such as Locke's. The Declaration is thus simultaneously appealing to both reason and revelation as the basis for the American right to separate from Britain, create themselves as a new and independent people, and be considered equal to any other nation on earth.” Lutz goes on the say that Jefferson’s “problem was not philosophical, the creation of a new line of reasoning, but rhetorical, finding the words in which to put the argument so that it would be accepted widely and enthusiastically.”

Lutz calls on Gordon Wood for some elaboration. Jefferson’s “task was considerably eased because, as Gordon Wood so nicely puts it: ‘Enlightened rationalism and evangelical Calvinism were not at odds in 1776; both when interpreted by Whigs placed revolutionary emphasis on the general will of the community and on the responsibility of the collective people to define it.’ Put another way, few American Whigs saw any conflict between what they read in Locke and what they read in the Bible when it came to the erection and operation of civil societies.”

But Lutz sees Algernon Sidney, rather than Locke as the key influence on Jefferson’s references to God in the Declaration. “Our intent here is not to replace Locke with Sidney, or to say that Locke was not important for the Declaration's phrasings, but rather to expand our sense of the Declaration's pedigree. Sidney is an especially interesting case because he combines reason and revelation in his analysis, and thus shows how easy it is for the Declaration to be an expression of earlier, biblically based, American constitutional thought.” Lutz concludes that, “However, the sentiments, ideas, and commitments found in Locke and Sidney could be found, as shown earlier, in American colonial writing long before these two English theorists published their great works” (e.g., Thomas Hooker and Roger Williams).

The Declaration of Independence as Part of an American National Compact. Author(s): Donald S. Lutz Source: Publius, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter, 1989), pp. 52-53 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3330564

Tom Van Dyke said...

2) Jefferson implicitly rejected the old “divine right of kings” as the source of sovereignty. In the Declaration, “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” not God.

That goes back to Cardinal Bellarmine.

http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=6607

And I meant no disrespect to friend Fea, I just prefer to keep discussions onsite and not contingent on links. [As in "my argument's over there behind that link!"]

As for the God in nature's laws, although Grotius and Suarez made the case for natural law without Him, Locke found a Lawgiver useful for providing some muscle.

As for Sidney, here he is some 100 years before Jefferson:

Tho the Schoolmen were corrupt, they were neither stupid nor unlearned: They could not but see that which all men saw, nor lay more approved foundations, than, that man is naturally free; that he cannot justly be deprived of that liberty without cause, and that he doth not resign it, or any part of it, unless it be in consideration of a greater good, which he proposes to himself.