Posted on 08/29/2004 10:42:44 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
John Adams was the second president of the United States. He saw the need for religious values to provide the moral base line for society. He stated in a letter to the officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts:
We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.{1}
In fact, John Adams wasn't the only founding father to talk about the importance of religious values. Consider this statement from George Washington during his Farewell Address:
And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.{2}
Two hundred years after the establishment of the Plymouth colony in 1620, Americans gathered at that site to celebrate its bicentennial. Daniel Webster was the speaker at this 1820 celebration. He reminded those in attendance of this nation's origins:
Let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary.{3}
Religion, and especially the Christian religion, was an important foundation to this republic.
It is clear that the framers of this new government believed that the people should elect and support leaders with character and integrity. George Washington expressed this in his Farewell Address when he said, "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports."
Benjamin Rush talked about the religious foundation of the republic that demanded virtuous leadership. He said that, "the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid on the foundation of religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."{4}
He went on to explain that
A Christian cannot fail of being a republican . . . for every precept of the Gospel inculcates those degrees of humility, self- denial, and brotherly kindness which are directly opposed to the pride of monarchy. . . . A Christian cannot fail of being useful to the republic, for his religion teaches him that no man "liveth to himself." And lastly a Christian cannot fail of being wholly inoffensive, for his religion teaches him in all things to do to others what he would wish, in like circumstances, they should do to him.{5}
Daniel Webster understood the importance of religion, and especially the Christian religion, in this form of government. In his famous Plymouth Rock speech of 1820 he said,
Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits. . . .Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.{6}
John Jay was one of the authors of the Federalist Papers and became America's first Supreme Court Justice. He also served as the president of the American Bible Society. He understood the relationship between government and Christian values. He said, "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."{7}
William Penn writing the Frame of Government for his new colony said, "Government, like clocks, go from the motion men give them; and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad."{8}
The founders believed that good character was vital to the health of the nation.
Whether we look at the Puritans and their fellow colonists of the seventeenth century, or their descendants of the eighteenth century, or those who framed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we see that their political programs were the rather clear reflection of a consciously held political philosophy, and that the various political philosophies which emerged among the American people were intimately related to the theological developments which were taking place. . . . A Christian world and life view furnished the basis for this early political thought which guided the American people for nearly two centuries and whose crowning lay in the writing of the Constitution of 1787.{9}
Actually, the line of influence extends back even further. Historian Arnold Toynbee, for example, has written that the American Revolution was made possible by American Protestantism. Page Smith, writing in the Religious Origins of the American Revolution, cites the influence of the Protestant Reformation. He believes that
The Protestant Reformation produced a new kind of consciousness and a new kind of man. The English Colonies in America, in turn, produced a new unique strain of that consciousness. It thus follows that it is impossible to understand the intellectual and moral forces behind the American Revolution without understanding the role that Protestant Christianity played in shaping the ideals, principles and institutions of colonial America.{10}
Smith argues that the American Revolution "started, in a sense, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenburg." It received "its theological and philosophical underpinnings from John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and much of its social theory from the Puritan Revolution of 1640-1660.{11}
Most people before the Reformation belonged to classes and social groups which set the boundaries of their worlds and established their identities. The Reformation, according to Smith, changed these perceptions. Luther and Calvin, in a sense, created a re- formed individual in a re-formed world.
Key to this is the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer where each person is "responsible directly to God for his or her own spiritual state.... The individuals who formed the new congregations established their own churches, chose their own ministers, and managed their own affairs without reference to an ecclesiastical hierarchy."{12}
These re-formed individuals began to change their world including their view of government and authority.
Jefferson and other secular-minded Americans subscribed to certain propositions about law and authority that had their roots in the Protestant Reformation. It is a scholarly common-place to point out how much Jefferson (and his fellow delegates to the Continental Congress) were influenced by Locke. Without disputing this we would simply add that an older and deeper influence -- John Calvin -- was of more profound importance.{13}
Another important influence was William Blackstone. Jefferson drew heavily on the writings of this highly respected jurist. In fact, Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England were among Jefferson's most favorite books.
In his section on the "Nature of Laws in General," Blackstone wrote, "as man depends absolutely upon his Maker for everything, it is necessary that he should, in all points, conform to his Maker's will. This will of his Maker is called the law of nature."{14}
In addition to the law of nature, the other source of law is from divine revelation. "The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures." According to Blackstone, all human laws depended either upon the law of nature or upon the law of revelation found in the Bible: "Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws."{15}
Samuel Adams argues in "The Rights of the Colonists" that they had certain rights. "Among the natural Rights of the Colonists are these: First, a Right to Life; second, to Liberty; third, to Property; . . . and in the case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another. When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent."{16} This concept of natural rights also found its way into the Declaration of Independence and provided the justification for the American Revolution.
The Declaration was a bold document, but not a radical one. The colonists did not break with England for "light and transient causes." They were mindful that they should be "in subjection to governing authorities" which "are established by God" (Rom. 13:1). Yet when they suffered from a "long train of abuses and usurpations," they believed that "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish [the existing government] and to institute a new government."
The Christian influence on the Declaration is clear. What about the Constitution?
James Madison was the chief architect of the Constitution as well as one of the authors of the Federalist Papers. It is important to note that as a youth, he studied under a Scottish Presbyterian, Donald Robertson. Madison gave the credit to Robertson for "all that I have been in life."{17} Later he was trained in theology at Princeton under the Reverend John Witherspoon. Scholars believe that Witherspoon's Calvinism (which emphasized the fallen nature of man) was an important source for Madison's political ideas.{18}
The Constitution was a contract between the people and had its origins in American history a century earlier:
One of the obvious by-products [of the Reformation] was the notion of a contract entered into by two people or by the members of a community amongst themselves that needed no legal sanctions to make it binding. This concept of the Reformers made possible the formation of contractuals or, as the Puritans called them, "covenanted" groups formed by individuals who signed a covenant or agreement to found a community. The most famous of these covenants was the Mayflower Compact. In it the Pilgrims formed a "civil body politic," and promised to obey the laws their own government might pass. In short, the individual Pilgrim invented on the spot a new community, one that would be ruled by laws of its making.{19}
Historian Page Smith believes, "The Federal Constitution was in this sense a monument to the reformed consciousness. This new sense of time as potentiality was a vital element in the new consciousness that was to make a revolution and, what was a good deal more difficult, form a new nation."{20}
Preaching and teaching within the churches provided the justification for the revolution and the establishment of a new nation. Alice Baldwin, writing in The New England Clergy and the American Revolution, says,
The teachings of the New England ministers provide one line of unbroken descent. For two generations and more New Englanders had . . . been taught that these rights were sacred and came from God and that to preserve them they had a legal right of resistance and, if necessary a right to . . . alter and abolish governments and by common consent establish new ones.{21}
Christian ideas were important in the founding of this republic and the framing of our American governmental institutions. And I believe they are equally important in the maintenance of that republic.
Notes
Your own words prove that you do not believe in the principles this nation was founded upon.
"You can't enforce spirituality with the government."
Certainly not. But basic moral absolutes which are common to all monotheistic religions in the world can be enforced, to the betterment of society as a whole and all individuals within it, except those who want to destroy morals.
Basic moral absolutes are what keep human civilization human. We are witnessing the destruction that ensues what such moral absolutes are jettisoned. Islamic Jihadis are not the only enemy at the gates.
(Thanks, EdR, for pinging me!)
TJ, when you post an article, ping me, ok?
I'm a little late to this party but it's my kind of party.
Your own words prove that you do not believe in the principles this nation was founded upon.
BS. -- Post em if you got them.
Certainly not. But basic moral absolutes which are common to all monotheistic religions in the world can be enforced, to the betterment of society as a whole and all individuals within it, except those who want to destroy morals. Basic moral absolutes are what keep human civilization human. We are witnessing the destruction that ensues what such moral absolutes are jettisoned.
162 -jeremiah-
Could you list the "basic moral absolutes" that are not enforced by the current State, local, or federal laws in this country?
Which ones have been "jettisoned"?
I suspect that you and I furiously agree on a number of tertiary issues to this comment. But the real question your sweeping declaration raises requires us to think again on what sets the west apart from the eastern monotheists who would destroy our freedoms and our own laws, supplanting them with theirs. What makes our law different from theirs? The answer is right at hand. Freedom of conscience is the key, and the other differences are related. Without this distinction prisons overflow with the dissenters and criminals alike. Without this distinction, men in authority can justify their oppressive actions in terms of values that are beyond debate. To be precise, it is not on what we agree that allows us to be free from oppression in the name of "higher purpose" or "moral clarity," it is how we deal with our disagreements about those matters.
Freedom of conscience is an expensive freedom, isn't it? Aside from the cost in lives it has incurred, it is often excruciating to know what is right and be unable to require that behavior of others. This matter strikes deep into the issue of the rule of law. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, democracy would be the worst form of government, except that everything else fails. I'm sure he was thinking to some extent about the liabilities a society incurs from its commitment to freedom of conscience.
Laws are continually measured against this yardstick in a free society. So why is law a source of strength to democracies, and not a weakness? And why is law something that enables freedom in a democracy, yet puts a sword to the throats of citizens in other kinds of government structures? You know why. The law in democratic systems has three, and only three requirements:
American government in its founding documents, if not always in its subsequent addendums, embodies a pure dedication to freedom of conscience. Therefore, each Constitutional amendment from the Bill of Rights forward, places a restraint on government in its ability to reach into the lives of individual citizens. None of these laws proscribes anything that would not infringe on another's basic rights.
Laws in the eyes of our Founding Fathers were the superstructure of a protective wall against tyranny, both of the governmental form, and of the rule of the mob. If the bricks in that structure were made of faith in a higher purpose in human existence, the mortar itself is the sense of restraint we all must feel in our judgment of others. It is no accident that our religious texts support these values.
Moral absolutes are critical in the establishment and defense of a democratic form of government because they instill a fierce sense of duty and inspire powerful convictions and faith, all of which is needed to fight through the obstacles that are ever present within and without a national struggle to find and keep freedom. Perhaps as much as we value our individual moral clarity, we must respect and defend another's right to decide for himself what is moral and correct.
We can measure the justice in our judgment in how it propels us to limit our interference in private matters of conscience. To argue otherwise is to argue for Shar'ia. When my personal moral conviction, derived from my own private understanding of the moral law become more important than protecting my fellow citizen's right to his own personal convictions, that is when oppression begins. In the west, we believe that all such convictions, while ultimately governed by universal truth, are still subjective when viewed from our own personal perspective. We know that no matter how deeply held our beliefs are, we may be asked to explain them, and to persuade others to reaffirm their agreement with us. And we know that sometimes we may lose the argument.
As my fellow citizen is protected from my personal convictions by the rule of law, he also may not impose anything of the sort on me. What protects you from me, also protects me from you. And you can bet that the most insidious and oppressive laws ever written had the express intent of protecting groups of people instead of individual conscience. You can bet that some of the most vicious tyranny often lurks under the guise of men's professed attempts to protect freedom and "collective" rights, as opposed to the individual himself.
I think of gun control laws in particular, but efforts to redefine marriage by fiat instead of widespread consensus also come to mind. When the minority attempts to dictate morality to the majority, it can be just as oppressive as mob rule. In the matter of marriage, a couple asks its community for a blessing for its union, and for economic incentives of one sort or another as it joins together. In a democracy, the community freely offers this blessing. Under the guise of "equal rights," activists today are trying to sell the idea that we must impose a new meaning to the ceremony of marriage. But that meaning is most significant not to the couple, to whom these activists ascribe collective rights, but to the community itself that bestows the privilege of marriage on a couple that meets its standards. In other words, activists today are not seeking an individual protection. They seek to impose on everyone in our land an acceptance of these new marital definitions.
Every law, every change to every law, and every exercise in justice must be examined carefully. What is often conducted in the name of freedom or community protection is often done for some other purpose, such as authoritarianism or reforming society by force. This is why governments must above all be restrained from being used as tools against individuals. Some of us would sell the American birthright of freedom for a mere sense of false security, or personal feeling, fleeting as it were, of satisfaction that our own individual values were being served.
The law is not there to be used as a tool for personal satisfaction. Finally, it is there to protect us from government and from each other.
I couldn't read your comment tonight, too tired. Will tomorrow. But I did start reading it, and until I read the whole thing, let me add:
1. Due to the violent, repressive, fanatical and hateful nature of Islam since its inception, I pretty much leave it out of the equation when referring to moral absolutes of every monotheist religion.
2. Yet, even in Islam, fornication, homosexuality, adultery, murder, neglect and/or abuse of dependents and the helpless, theft, lying and the like are condemned as abhorrent and immoral. How they practice, we're not discussing (see #1).
3. Even non-theistic "religions" such as Buddhism and Taoism have similar moral guidelines. Every religion (including the two just mentioned) has its own version of the Golden Rule. How much more similar can you get?
4. I find that the real argument most people have against moral absolutes are that they like to either practice or promote or leave open the option of illicit sex.
I do not argue against the concept of moral absolutes. What I argue against is the notion that the state may be used as a tool for me to impose my presonal opinions of what a moral absolute is on you. I argue that the same-sex marriage movement is just such an initiative. After all, such activists liken themselves to abolitionists during the civil war. Anyone can claim to have moral superiority. The way to judge laws is how they protect us from mob rule or from the government. This isn't to say that legal contracts aren't binding or anything else like that. Those are related issues. The bottom line is that government isn't my moral tool of righteousness to lord over you. It's there to protect you from me.
More tomorrow, after I read your comment above. But note your inconsistency; on the one hand you say:
"I do not argue against the concept of moral absolutes."
But then you state:
"What I argue against is the notion that the state may be used as a tool for me to impose my presonal opinions of what a moral absolute is on you."
So on one hand you say you agree that moral absolutes exist (and I assume you consider them valuable or important) but on the other hand you infer that anyone's opinion about their "personal ideas" of moral absolutes are as valid as someone else's idea of moral absolutes.
Which negates the entire meaning of moral absolutes.
Which is why we are being lowered into the cesspool as we speak. Taking the position that moral absolutes exist and are necessary to human civilization is NOT equivalent to claiming moral superiority. There is no relationship between those two things. Like apples and rutabagas, except those are related because they are both round.
Once moral absolutes are rejected as the necessary basis and unchangeable foundation of human civilization, the only thing left is each individual's mental desires. Which can change every moment, and which can (and do, witness the homo-cannibals in Germany, and the push to promote child/adult sex or "inter-generational sex" among psychologists and NAMBLA supporters) lead to the most horrible and destructive acts being normalized by defining deviancy down.
If a tiny group of people says that consensual cannibalism is good, who are we to say it's wrong? There's no such thing as "wrong". But the problem is that moral relativists still have absolutes. They absolutely condemn traditional moral absolutes as being absolutely wrong, so their entire philosophy is built on a lie and an internal inconsistency that can never be overcome.
Not at all, and I didn't argue that the absolutes don't exist independently of our opinions. Since we are mortals and may make mistakes, it is our opinions which may be wrong.
In a democratic system of government, my job as a moralist is to persuade you to recognize the same moral absolute that I do, one that you appear to have missed. You're free to reject my arguments, however! I should respect your right to differ with me. I may not respect you, and I may even feel that you are making a grave mistake in your lack of concern for my moral position.
I have a way forward. Once I've realized that I cannot change your mind, it is my duty to move on to the next citizen and try to change his mind. I can use the same tactics with him that I used with you. I can quote bible texts. I can paint pictures of the consequences of this immorality. I can make all manner of appeals to his sympathies and his character.
But finally, I have to persuade my countrymen to agree with me instead of you. I can't just quote a single bible text and impose a law on you from that one reading. For one thing, I don't have the authority. This is the difference between Shar'ia and America, between Islam and the west. And ultimately it is what has made our system of government the most effective in the world. No immam can tell us what to believe. No bearded one can step out on a high balcony and wave a symbolic gesture at us and announce our laws without any dissent, or debate, simply on his personal interpretations of a sacred text.
History has proven that people's moral convictions shift with the winds. You are correct to denounce moral relativism. But one thing you haven't taken into consideration is our own human faillibility, even when we think we are right.
The American Constitution protects us against others who declare that their morals are supreme as well as those who have none at all. The latter often leads to abuse of property rights and physical violence independent of the government. The former often try to harness the government to do their dirty work. Sometimes their roles reverse. In any case, our legal system is a bulwark against both. It's not perfect, but then again, nothing on earth ever is.
well now
Litte jeremiah claims that:
"---- basic moral absolutes which are common to all monotheistic religions in the world can be enforced, to the betterment of society as a whole and all individuals within it, except those who want to destroy morals. Basic moral absolutes are what keep human civilization human. We are witnessing the destruction that ensues what such moral absolutes are jettisoned.
162 -jeremiah-
Yet he cannot list the "basic moral absolutes" that are not enforced by the current State, local, or federal laws in this country.
-- Still, - he insists that we obey his vision of them, as - "We are witnessing the destruction that ensues what such moral absolutes are jettisoned."
As you well said:
"--- In a democratic system of government, my job as a moralist is to persuade you to recognize the same moral absolute that I do, one that you appear to have missed. ---"
We agree. - Jeremiah has failed in his job.
bump for future...
This statement proves that you do not believe in the principles which the Founders established this nation upon.
We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven cannot be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained. - George Washington, First Inaugural AddressWe have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God. - James Madison, 1778, to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia
you have reservations.. --Unless 'WE' all agree that your "hand of God" give us our rights, you can not accept our Constitution as the supreme Law of the Land.
So now no one who believes that their rights come from God can be loyal to the nation? I'm sure you won a lot of FRiends with that stupid assertion. I'm sorry to hear that you have such a low opinion of the men who founded this Christian Nation.
Here's a newsflash Pain, it doesn't matter what you "accept." Nobody cares what you think about the origin of our rights. It won't change the fact that they are inalienable because they come from God, and not from the tyranny of men as you would have it. The Founders fought and died for this truth and those who follow them will do the same.
You are the one who has reservations. You cannot swear an oath to accept our Constitution as the supreme law of the land because it presupposes that our inalienable rights come from our Creator.
I swore that oath in Jan of '55, joe. I still honor it.
Our Constitution does not presuppose that our inalienable rights come from our Creator.
That wording is used in our Declaration, and I have no problem at all in its use as written.
You are using that wording as a reservation to avoid supporting the Constitutions principles as written, joe. Admit it.
Begone, louse.
This statement proves that you do not believe in the principles which the Founders established this nation upon.
No, our Constitution makes no 'presuppositions' on where our rights originated. It principally states that our rights to life, liberty, or property shall not be infringed upon, and sets up a form of of government to insure that end.
We ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven cannot be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained. - George Washington, First Inaugural Address
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God. - James Madison, 1778, to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia
Nice quotes. -- I have no problems with those opinions.
-- You have reservations.. -- Unless 'WE' all agree that your "hand of God" give us our rights, you can not accept our Constitution as the supreme Law of the Land.
So now no one who believes that their rights come from God can be loyal to the nation?
Not at all. But those who insist, like you, that you cannot unreservedly accept our supreme Law of the Lands principles, -- can certainly be viewed with distrust.
I'm sure you won a lot of FRiends with that stupid assertion.
I don't want friends like that, joe..
I'm sorry to hear that you have such a low opinion of the men who founded this Christian Nation.
I hold them in highest regard. Your attempt to say otherwise is pathetic.
Here's a newsflash Pain, it doesn't matter what you "accept." Nobody cares what you think about the origin of our rights. It won't change the fact that they are inalienable because they come from God, and not from the tyranny of men as you would have it. The Founders fought and died for this truth and those who follow them will do the same.
We all, saints & sinners alike, have inalienable rights joe. You think they came from your God? -- Fine.
-- History tells that since men became self aware we have developed a moral code based on the logic of the golden rule.. This rule has nothing to do with any form of religion. It is based on pure reasoned self interest.
Why you object to my opinion is beyond my pay grade..
You have maligned my loyalty to my nation with outright lies, but I have shown that it is you who are a liar and a fabricator with no evidence for your disinformation and someone who holds this nation's true foundations and traditions in contempt.
>> Can you swear an oath to support the Constitution as the supreme Law of the Land?
I have.
>> Is our Constitution the "supreme Law of the Land" to you, without reservations?
Of course. That means I do not support judicial tyrants that have stripped our nation of it's religious and moral heritage via usurpation of power.
Let's cut to the chase, tpaine. Is our Constitution the "supreme Law of the Land" to you, without reservations?
Joe, you imangine that you've 'shown' proofs. Dream on.
Yes.
I have presented evidence whereas you have presented none, because your assertions are unsupportable disinformation.
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