Who is the "Supreme Judge of the world" in the Declaration of Independence? Is he the “Creator” in the same document? Carl Sagan might have said that it’s Mr. Cosmos. But the intelligent design community couldn’t cope with Sagan’s brain-dead Cosmos. So, they gave Mr. Cosmos an irreducibly complex computer to make the universe and all it contains. Many[2] in the intelligent design community miss a very major point: Man was created in the image of God,[3] not in the image of an ape. The difference that makes is easily discovered among those asserting that animal rights are on par with, or superior to, the rights of man.[4]
When Jefferson, in his old age, was confronted with the newly developing science of geology, he rejected the evolutionary concept of the creation of the earth on the grounds that no all-wise and all-powerful Creator would have gone about the job in such a slow and inefficient way.[5]
If America was predominately Deist,[6] Jewish or Muslim, why was the Apostle Paul the most cited author in the political media between 1760 and 1805?[7] How do you account for all the Christian Religious Clauses in State Constitutions?[8] How do you explain Justice Joseph Story’s comments?[9]
"Probably at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and of the amendment to it now under consideration [First Amendment], the general if not the universal sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State so far as was not incompatible with the private rights of conscience and the freedom of religious worship. An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.
"The real object of the [First] [A]mendment was not to countenance, much less to advance, Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment which should give to a hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national government. It thus cut off the means of religious persecution (the vice and pest of former ages), and of the subversion of the rights of conscience in matters of religion, which had been trampled upon almost from the days of the Apostles to the present age. . . ." (Footnotes omitted.)
This very brief assessment would be remiss without mentioning a text that Christianity, Islam and Judaism have in common:[10] “Franklin and Jefferson read the Torah - what they called the Old Testament - according to its original intention: they read it as a political text.”[11] One particular text in that corpus was cited more than any other written work:[12]
Richard Niebuhr asked "to what extent did religious and specifically Christian convictions influence the development of American democracy" (126). By focusing on the American founding era, 1765-1805, Lutz (1988) offered a strong case for the influence of the First Testament. Most specifically, using citations to measure influence, he discovered the primacy of Deuteronomy. Even when compared to prominent secular works, "Deuteronomy [was] the most cited book" (1992: 136). The attraction of the Book of Deuteronomy for the founders is hardly a mystery. Scholars have long understood the importance of the biblical narrative.
“The Old Testament prophets quoted from Deuteronomy frequently.” [13] Is Deuteronomy really a worthwhile book for Christians under grace, not law?
No knowledgeable Christian would dispute the importance of the Book of Deuteronomy. Certainly we should take note of the fact that this book is cited more than 50 times in the New Testament. Counting allusions to Deuteronomy, the instances of New Testament use would increase to nearly 200 times.
Deuteronomy was our Lord’s favorite Old Testament book. Henrietta Mears has written: “Jesus often quoted from Deuteronomy. In fact, it is almost invariably from this book that He quotes.”[14]
If the the Virginia Declaration of Rights did not influence the writing of the Declaration of Independence, then someone should notify the National Archives to correct their mistake: “The Virginia Declaration of Rights strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson in writing the first part of the Declaration of Independence. It later provided the foundation for the Bill of Rights.”[15] Virginia's Declaration of Rights was adopted by the Virginia Constitutional Convention on June 12, 1776.[16] The last Section, 16, is indisputably Christian: “That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other.”
The “Creator” and “Supreme Judge of the world” is the same person. The Apostle Paul declared who that person was to the Athenians: “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17: 30, 31). The 1599 Geneva Study Bible has a note associated with v.31: “By declaring Christ to be the judge of the world through the resurrection from the dead.”
The most celebrated American historian, George Bancroft, called Calvin "the father of America," and added: "He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty." To John Calvin and the Genevan theologians, President John Adams credited a great deal of the impetus for religious liberty (Adams, WORKS, VI:313). This document includes a justification for rebellion to tyrants by subordinate government officials; this particular justification was at the root of the Dutch, English, and American Revolutions.[17]
But everyone knows that Christ was born two millennia ago. Obviously, Christ existed prior to human birth - Colossians 1: 15-20: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by [6] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.”[18] The 1599 Geneva Study Bible, Col. 1:15 has another note: “Begotten before anything was made: and therefore the everlasting Son of the everlasting Father.” Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706) is even more explicit about Christ as Creator.
What does any of this have to do with today? Nothing! That’s why America gets to choose McCain or Obama. Israel had a choice America no longer has: “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil” (Deuteronomy 30:15). America gets to chose between Evil & Evil.[19]
[1] http://www.carm.org/relativism/relativism_refute.htm Relativism is the philosophical position that all points of view are equally valid and that all truth is relative to the individual. But, if we look further, we see that this proposition is not logical. In fact, it is self refuting. http://www.probe.org/worldview--philosophy/truth-decay.html Postmodernism is built upon the belief that truth doesn’t exist except as the individual wants it to exist. Not only is this used in English classes on high school and college campuses, it is being applied to biblical interpretation. http://www.str.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5662 There is no truth," there must be at least 14 things that are true before you can even make the statement. They must, in fact, be necessarily true, given the statement itself. When I say necessarily true, I mean there's no way they can be false, given the statement, "There is no truth," uttered in English. If there's such a statement uttered in English, then all these other things must be true. It's impossible for them not to be true. http://www.leaderu.com/aip/docs/geuras.html [Postmodernism] affirms that whatever we accept as truth and even the way we envision truth are dependent on the community in which we participate . . . There is no absolute truth: rather truth is relative to the community in which we participate.
[2] http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_idisnotcreationism.htm I am not a creationist and have no reason to doubt common descent. In fact, my own views fit quite comfortably with the 40% of scientists that Scott acknowledges think "evolution occurred, but was guided by God."
[3] http://www.apologeticspress.org:80/articles/123 The “image of God” simply means that MAN REFLECTS HIS CREATOR IN THOSE CAPACITIES AND CAPABILITIES WHICH SEPARATE HIM FROM THE REST OF THE CREATION.
[4] http://www.icr.org/radio/view/63/ Animal Rights and Evolution http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_3_urbanities-animal.html Properly understood, the concept of a right—and the attendant ideas of duty, responsibility, law, and obedience—enshrines what is distinctive in the human condition. To spread the concept beyond our species is to jeopardize our dignity as moral beings, who live in judgment of one another and of themselves. Meanwhile, Princeton University's Center for the Study of Human Values has appointed the Australian philosopher Peter Singer, author of the seminal Animal Liberation (1975), to a prestigious chair, causing widespread disgust on account of Singer's vociferous support for euthanasia. (Defenders of animal rights not infrequently also advocate the killing of useless humans.) Singer's works, remarkably for a philosophy professor, contain little or no philosophical argument. http://www.icr.org/article/432/ For three decades, Holmes brought his distinctively Darwinian bias to the Court. He spoke candidly: "I see no reason for attributing to man a significance different in kind from that which belongs to a baboon or a grain of sand." http://74.255.56.30/blog/?p=72 So what would be Dershowitz’s substitute for the God-language of the Declaration and countless other official government documents that mention God and Jesus Christ? For Dershowitz, Nature is our god.
[5] http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=805 Thomas Jefferson, reputedly a deist, but nevertheless a believer in God and special creation. Some of his testimonies are actually inscribed on the walls of the Jefferson Memorial, in Washington, D.C. For example: Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens . . . are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion . . . .
[6]http://www.regent.edu/acad/schlaw/student_life/studentorgs/lawreview/docs/issues/vol20no3/Sandoz_Republicanism.pdf Indicative is the fact that Congress declared at least sixteen national days of prayer, humiliation, and thanksgiving between 1776 and 1783; and Presidents Washington and Adams continued the practice under the Constitution. The onset of the so-called Second Great Awakening conventionally is dated from around 1790, but in fact it seems to have begun earlier. New Side and New Light evangelism stirring personal spiritual experience continued throughout the period, and the political sermons often were extraordinary in power and substance. Religious services were routinely held in the newly completed Capitol itself in Washington, in the House and Senate chambers as these became available. President Thomas Jefferson and his cabinet attended, along with the members of Congress and their families, inaugurating a practice that continued until after the Civil War. http://www.regent.edu/acad/schlaw/student_life/studentorgs/lawreview/docs/issues/vol20no3/Berman_ReligionandLiberty.pdf Of the roughly 3200 religious congregations that existed in the thirteen English colonies of North America in 1776, roughly two-thirds were either Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Baptist, or Quaker; German and Dutch Protestant congregations constituted about fifteen percent, and Anglican congregations constituted another fifteen percent. Fifty-six of the roughly 3200 congregations were Roman Catholic and five were Jewish. Thus, in 1776 and later, Protestant Christianity predominated, but there was a wide pluralism within it, and Catholicism and Judaism were tolerated. In several of the seceding colonies a particular Protestant denomination was “established” with substantial political and financial prerogatives—for example, in Massachusetts the Congregational church—but even in those colonies other denominations were permitted to exist, and by the mid-1830s establishment of a particular denomination no longer existed in any state of the Union.
[7] http://personal.pitnet.net/primarysources/influences.html Source: Donald S. Lutz, "The Relative Importance of European Writers on Late Eighteenth Century American Political Thought," American Political Science Review 189 (1984), 189-97.
[8] http://www.constitution.org/primarysources/state.html & http://www.nd.edu/~dnordin/Pages/works/papers/Junior%20Year/American%20Founding.htm Mr. Lutz summarizes the political reality of the Puritan-Judaic parallel in these words:In almost every significant detail the church covenants written in early colonial America resemble Jewish covenants . . .the radical Protestant return to biblical sources for ordering their lives led to their becoming, to a far greater extent than they realized, precisely what they saw themselves as metaphorically--a modern version of the Jewish people.[33]
[9] http://www.belcherfoundation.org/wallace_v_jaffree_dissent.htm UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT JUSTICE REHNQUIST'S DISSENT IN WALLACE V. JAFFREE (1985)
[10] http://www.otago.ac.nz/chaplain/resour/DJCMCLG.pdf Moses was born in Egypt about 3,500 years ago, at a time when the Hebrew people were enslaved and oppressed. After the Exodus he ascended Mt. Sinai and God gave him the Torah to deliver to the Children of Israel. Jews, Christians and Muslims all revere him as a prophet. The Torah is the Law that was revealed by God at Mt. Sinai. The term usually refers to what Christians call the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). In Jewish literature and worship the word is sometimes used to denote certain other things but one cannot go wrong in applying it solely to these books. The Torah, written in Hebrew and on a single Scroll, is read in Jewish synagogues and is central to Jewish faith and practice. http://www.answering-islam.org/Intro/replacing.html The footnote in the King Fahd edition of the Qur’an reads as follows: There exists in the Taurat (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel), even after the original text has been distorted, clear prophecies indicating the coming of Prophet Muhammad, e.g. Deut 18:18; 21:21…. http://www.faithalone.org/journal/1999ii/J23-99b.htm In Paul’s interpretation of Deuteronomy, Christ is God’s present revealed truth given to all people in the gospel. Justification through faith in the heart and divine help for obedience to Christ (sanctification) are readily available to all, not just the Jew. Gentiles too can believe in the Lord Jesus and call on Him for help of all kinds. After all, Christ is rich to all that call on Him for deliverance. But first, one must believe in Him before he can call on Him.
[11] http://www.hagshama.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=904 The American Revolution is the best place to begin the exploration, because the American Revolution was the first modern, democratic revolution. If it can be demonstrated that the American revolutionaries turned to the Hebrew Bible - to the Torah - for inspiration and guidance, then this would indicate that the commonly held view about the conflict between Judaism and democracy might be mistaken. Why did Franklin and Jefferson see the American emancipation from England in light of the emancipation of the nation of Israel from Egypt? And where did Franklin get the strange notion that, “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God?” All laws must be justified before God's Law, and one can refuse to comply with man-made law upon the grounds that God's Law is superior.
[12]http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LAL/is_1_32/ai_94331932/print?tag=artBody;col1 Covenants and criticism: Deuteronomy and the American founding. Biblical Theology Bulletin, Spring, 2002. In short, the biblical text upon which the American founders relied for their constitutionalism would have been vastly different without the hand of the Deuteronomist. http://www.nccs.net/newsletter/oct03nl.html "It very quickly became apparent where the focus of interest was concentrated in the minds of the Founding Fathers. Of the thousands of citations quoted to support their ideas, 34% came from one source -- the Bible. Most of these were from the book of Deuteronomy which is the Book of God's Law. In 1639, the first written Constitution in America was prepared for Connecticut by Rev. Thomas Hooker and his friends. It was based on the first chapter of Deuteronomy. Later, the settlers of Rhode Island copied it for their own constitution. http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2068&Itemid=27 These volumes provide a selection of seventy-six essays, pamphlets, speeches, and letters to newspapers written between 1760 and 1805 by American political and religious leaders. Many are obscure pieces that were previously available only in larger research libraries. But all illuminate the founding of the American republic and are essential reading for students and teachers of American political thought.
. http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45486 The most quoted source was not Locke, not Montesquieu, not Voltaire, but the Bible – specifically the book of Deuteronomy. http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2068&chapter=156128&layout=html&Itemid=27 Anyone attempting to read comprehensively the newspapers published in America between 1760 and 1805 runs into several problems. An estimated four thousand political essays and letters were examined in the newspapers from the era. Because it was the practice in even the most sophisticated publications to reprint pieces from papers in other colonies, in some instances a political essay was encountered four or five times in various newspapers, from South Carolina to New Hampshire. In the list below, those newspapers that were consulted comprehensively for the period 1760-1805 are marked with an asterisk. The rest are listed to show which major papers were not so examined, and to help provide a reasonably complete list of newspapers for the period.
[13] http://www.thruthebible.org/atf/cf/%7BFEA5B386-48F1-4797-9023-5F77EED319B7%7D/Deuteronomy.pdf These notes, prepared by J. Vernon McGee, are for the purpose of giving assistance to the listeners of the THRU THE BIBLE RADIO program.
[14] http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1402 Israel’s Covenant Renewal
[15] http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration.html & http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_history.html The committee consisted of two New England men, John Adams of Massachusetts and Roger Sherman of Connecticut; two men from the Middle Colonies, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York; and one southerner, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. In 1823 Jefferson wrote that the other members of the committee "unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught [sic]. I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections. . . I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress." (If Jefferson did make a "fair copy," incorporating the changes made by Franklin and Adams, it has not been preserved. It may have been the copy that was amended by the Congress and used for printing, but in any case, it has not survived. Jefferson's rough draft, however, with changes made by Franklin and Adams, as well as Jefferson's own notes of changes by the Congress, is housed at the Library of Congress.) Jefferson's account reflects three stages in the life of the Declaration: the document originally written by Jefferson; the changes to that document made by Franklin and Adams, resulting in the version that was submitted by the Committee of Five to the Congress; and the version that was eventually adopted.
[16] http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/virginia_declaration_of_rights.html Virginia's Declaration of Rights was drawn upon by Thomas Jefferson for the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. It was widely copied by the other colonies and became the basis of the Bill of Rights. Written by George Mason, it was adopted by the Virginia Constitutional Convention on June 12, 1776. http://www.regent.edu/acad/schlaw/student_life/studentorgs/lawreview/docs/issues/vol20no3/Hassell_Evolution.pdf Virginia’s first constitution and Declaration of Rights served as models for the Federal Constitution and the Federal Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court of Virginia, which predates the United States Supreme Court, served as a model for that Court. During discussions about the judiciary, United States Chief Justice John Marshall noted: “[T]he greatest curse an angry heaven ever inflicted upon an ungrateful and a sinning people, was an ignorant, a corrupt, or a dependent judiciary. Will you call down this curse on Virginia?”42
[18] http://www.icr.org/article/218/ Foundation of Christology. http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=5438 The Preincarnate Son of God. http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/sonship/sonsh06.htm An examination of the Scriptural evidence showing that the Second Person of the Trinity existed as the Son prior to the incarnation, yes, even in eternity past! http://www.valleybible.net/Adults/ClassNotes/TheologySurvey/Christ/PreincarnateChrist.pdf Positively Stated: In His essential being Jesus Christ never began to be; He existed from eternity as the Second Person of the Triune Godhead. Negatively Stated: In His essential being, Jesus Christ did not begin to exist when He was conceived in the womb of His mother, Mary. Practically Stated: The Second Person of the Triune Godhead made a conscious and gracious decision to lay aside the glories and reputation of deity to take upon Himself the nature of man and the form of a servant (Philippians 2:5-11). http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume3/theoph.htm I think it is abundantly clear from scripture that the theophanies of the Old Testament are clearly the preincarnate Christ. It is, in my opinion, the only satisfactory conclusion we can make given the evidence. http://www.answering-islam.org/Who/theos.html This Fourth Gospel begins (1:1) as it ends (20:28), and the Prologue to this Gospel begins (1:1) as it ends (1:18), with an unambiguous assertion of the deity of Christ: "The Word was God" (1:1); "the only Son, who is God" (1:18); "my Lord and my God!" (20:28).[18] In his preincarnate state (1:1), in his incarnate state (1:18), and in his postresurrection state (20:28), Jesus is God. For John, recognition of Christ's deity is the hallmark of the Christian. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5867 Protestants bring all doctrinal statements, even Conciliar creeds, before the bar of Scripture. In this case one has to say honestly that nothing in Scripture warrants us in thinking that God the Son is begotten of the Father in His divine, rather than in merely His human, nature. The vast majority of contemporary New Testament scholars recognize that even if the word traditionally translated “only-begotten” (monogenes) carries a connotation of derivation when used in familial contexts--as opposed to meaning merely “unique” or “one of a kind” as many scholars maintain--nevertheless the biblical references to Christ as monogenes (John 1.1, 14, 18; cf. Revelation 9.13)do not contemplate some pre-creation or eternal procession of the divine Son from the Father, but have to do with the historical Jesus’ being God’s special Son (Matthew 1.21-23; Luke 1-35; John 1.14, 34; Galalatians 4.4; Hebrews 1.5-6). I John 5.18 does refer to Jesus as ho gennetheis ek tou theou (the one begotten of God), which is the crucial expression, but there is no suggestion that this begetting is eternal or has to do with his divine nature. Rather, Christ’s status of being the Only-Begotten has less to do with the Trinity than with the Incarnation. http://www.wscal.edu/clark/splendor.php A second strand of Trinitarian revelation in the Old Testament is the revelation of the Son in the history of redemption in the person of the Angel of the Lord (Malak Yahweh). When the Angel of the Lord appeared he was treated not as a mere heavenly representative of God, but as God himself; he did not reject worship, but accepted it as only God can. (Typically it is only after one has had an encounter with the Angel of the Lord that one realizes that, in fact, it was no mere angel but God himself; see Gen. 16:9-13; 22:11-18; 32:28-30; Ex. 3:2-6; Judges 6:11-14, 22; 13:22.) Both Augustine and Calvin interpreted these manifestations as wonderfully cryptic revelations of God the Son in a pre-incarnate state. http://www.ctsfw.edu/events/symposia/papers/sym2003gieschen.pdf Paul states that the Son is “the image of the invisible God” (Col.1:15). This understanding of the son as the image of God does not apply only to his incarnate state, but also his pre-incarnate state; he has been the image of God seen by sinful man since the Fall in Eden. Does this mean that since the Father is unseen, he is somehow unknown in the OT? Absolutely not. What Jesus said about his incarnate state also applies to the OT: “The one who has seen me, has seen the Father” (John 14:9) Our primary understanding of Christ in the OT is one of prophecy, not presence. Oh, we do show some boldness by stating that that the use of the plural in the creation narrative— “Let us make man in our own image”(Wnmel.c;B. ~d'a' hf,[]n: ; Gen 1: 26)—indicates the presence of the Son in creation and that the appearances of the Angel of the Lord are appearances of the pre-incarnate Christ.
[19] http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1994885/posts Can't see America going for either of those two useful idiots.
A Creator exist, or dosen't. If there is no Creator, Jefferson's appeal to the "Supreme Judge of the world" in the Declaration of Independence is pure nonsense and so are your RIGHTS! Without a Creator, your highest appeal is to the State, where might takes rights.
read later
Faith and reason are not incompatible. Faith comes before reason. Before reason, one needs faith that one's historical or scientific facts are really true. One has to have faith that one's beliefs about the truth or falsity of revelation are correct. One needs faith that one's initial assumptions , axiomatic concepts, and initial premises are true.