President Barack Obama has, on at least four occasions, omitted God from his recitations of the Declaration of Independence while addressing various audiences. At first, the omission was blamed on simple forgetfulness. But repeated demonstrations of the occurrence may well have proved otherwise. Whatever the case, the president’s recitations of the political philosophy contained within the Declaration speak to a much larger on-going debate within the United States. The debate focuses around the role of God and of religion in American government and culture. Liberals, secularists, atheists, socialists, communists, anarchists and a host of other anti-conservative groups maintain that God has either a strict, narrow role in American society and law, or no role at all. Such a conviction is manifestly untrue, and stands to be dissected by the very individual figure that they rally behind as proof of America’s secular heritage: Thomas Jefferson.
Jefferson is a striking character, a pantheon in American history. One of America’s Founding Fathers, he is praised for both his erudition and the American political philosophy he helped to craft. Crucial to the debate on God in American law and life is how God factored in to Jefferson’s understanding of these—as well as the understanding of the Founders at large.
Anti-conservative figures refer to the Founders–especially to Jefferson–as a group of dispassionate believers, atheists, spiritualists, and at the most religious, deists. They would have present-day Americans believe that the Founders had no real place or use for God in America, except as to briefly mention Him in the Declaration of Independence. They throw around phrases like “separation between church and state” as evidence of the irreligious nature and intent of those who created the American idea and the U.S. Constitution. They reference the Founders’ use of words like “Divine Providence” and “Creator” as proof of their ambiguous and vague spiritual inclinations.
Historians have already disregarded the notion that any Founders were atheists. Belief in God was a common thread uniting them all. The use of appellations like “Creator” and “Divine Providence” were allusions to personal relations with God rather than distancing terms. George Washington, for example, credited Divine Providence with saving his life during the French and Indian War. One cannot credit divine intervention and protection as a matter of impersonal and ambiguous belief. Benjamin Franklin determined that the Continental Congress, convened in Philadelphia, should open their meetings with requests for assistance from God to help breach impasses. Impersonal and distant belief cannot compensate for such a direct and personal appeal to “Heaven.”
Anti-conservatives most commonly flock to Jefferson as proof of America’s irreligious nature. Jefferson’s questioning of the divinity of Jesus, his insistence of questioning the existence of God, and the paramount importance he placed upon the faculty of human reason are cited as evidence of his atheism, or at best, deism. Yet this is a simplistic interpretation.
Jefferson was not the only individual to ever question the divinity of Jesus. Members of the Early Church debated for years whether Jesus could be both fully human and divine. Jefferson was less concerned with the debate over the divinity of Jesus or the identification of miracles; he was far more concerned with the morals and ethical teachings of the Son of God. Jefferson’s “cut-and-paste Bible” was not the work of a nonbeliever, but rather the work of a believer seeking to eliminate the things others had written from the teachings and life of Jesus. Jefferson was not concerned with what the Gospel writers had written in addition to the things that Jesus said and did. Jefferson’s Bible is a biography of Jesus, as well as a compendium of his teachings. Indeed, Jefferson believed general, non-denomination specific Christian ethics to be the most moral and just system for living in the history of the world. And he took great delight in the nondenominational Christian services held in his home of Charlottesville, Virginia.
As far as questioning the existence of God, Jefferson believed that God’s greatest gift to man was man’s faculty to reason. God did not bestow upon man the gift of reason so that man could waste it. Man should question God’s existence, and through reason find that God would want man to question everything. Jefferson conceived of a God of reason and order, not a God who ruled by fear and chaos.
The reader may herein concede that yes, Jefferson believed in God. But one might ask: What effect does Jefferson’s belief in God have on his political philosophy, the Declaration or American government? After all, Jefferson championed the phrase in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. He wrote: “I contemplate with sovereign reverence the act of the whole American people which declared their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.” The Danbury Baptist Association was quite concerned that a single denomination of Christian religion would come to dominate the others through government rather than the general Christian ethics which informed it. Jefferson wrote back, assuring them that such an event could not occur. And his example of a “separation between church and state” was not drawn from the Constitution, but was applied in the letter to describe Article 1, Section III, which forbids establishment of religion.
Jefferson despised establishing religion through government, fearing and understanding that government would corrupt the purity of whichever Christian denomination had been declared official. General Christian ethics should inform government; government should not inform Christian ethics. Recall from earlier that Jefferson delighted in the myriad Christian services held in Charlottesville, and believed that Christian ethics were the best moral system the world had ever known.
How then do Christian ethics inform man and government? Jefferson ascribed to the Aristotelian view that man was by nature a social animal, and would voluntarily seek to associate himself with others in the pursuit of justice among other things. Such an association would ultimately constitute a government and culture. Jefferson believed that man had a natural, moral inclination which would always guide him, including in his social dealings. What was the source of this natural moral inclination? In writing about French political economist Destult de Tracy, Jefferson credits this tendency for morality to “a wise Creator” who saw such an inclination as “necessary in an animal destined to live in society.”
The best way to make sense of that morality was through freedom of religion–through Christian ethics–and exercise of human reason, unpolluted by government dictate and corruption. As Jefferson noted, Tracy subscribed to “the principle of Hobbes, that justice is founded in contract solely.” Jefferson credits the idea of justice to man’s moral inclinations, which are in turn implanted in man by God. Indeed, Jefferson’s inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are natural rights from God, just as morality and reason are gifts. God therefore informs government through man’s use of reason and Christian-influenced morality.
American political philosophy, the United States Constitution and the foundations of both in the Declaration of Independence are inalienably and inextricably linked to God, and the gifts and rights of man. One cannot found an entire system of philosophy and dedicate oneself to living it out if one does not believe in it.
Furthermore, as long as God is the source of man’s rights and gifts, no force on earth–no matter how powerful–can take those things away. Anti-conservatives generally agree that a new American societal structure is the only way to guarantee human equality in all things. In other words, justice and morality are constructs of the State, not of God. God is the enemy of such a State. As long as God is the protector of human liberties and freedoms, allegiance remains with God and not with man’s fellow man. Anyone who understands the American world understands that God is at the heart of natural rights, not man.
The president of the United States of America is such a man who must understand that human rights come from and are protected by God. They are not the creations of man. By extension, God therefore cannot be extracted, eliminated, or marginalized within the context of American political philosophy because God informs man of morality and gifts man with reason, and man in turn crafts philosophy and government. Nothing makes sense without God, especially the concept of natural rights upon which America is founded. Mr. Obama must never forget to include God when he speaks of human liberty.
