BroJoeK: However, our unique Constitution's principles are in strong opposition to the example of all-"Christendom's" union of Church and centralized all-powerful monarchy….In that sense, our Founders were anti-Christian!
Dear friends BroJoeK and YHAOS: I’ve been following your “dialog” regarding certain aspects of the American founding. There appears to be, among other things, a certain perplexity about the character of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence. May I put in my two cents’ worth?
First of all, thank you YHAOS, dear brother in Christ, for your amazing scholarship in regard to the roots of American order. I particularly appreciate that you go directly to the original sources for the evidence you use in your arguments.
Secondly, dear BroJoeK: I really do think you have an unfortunate habit of conflating [transcendent] theology with the [immanent] Church — i.e., with “institutional religion.” But all churches are human institutions; and, as such, subject to corruption in time. Theology, however, is not so subject.
BroJoeK, you wondered who said, on this thread, “theology is the Queen of Science.” You might have been thinking of a comment I made early on, that theology has been called “the Queen of Metaphysics.” That is, of the highest development of Philosophy. But I digress….
Jefferson has been called “the American Sphynx.” Once I heard that, I wanted to understand him — quite a challenge. It seems his life did not always measure up to his words. As prime example, I give you the lack of correspondence between his sublime declaration that “all men are created equal,” and the fact that he was a slaveowner, of something like 200 souls. And unlike George Washington, who emancipated all his slaves by his Last Will and Testament, Jefferson freed only five souls at his death. And those five are suspected to be his own children, with Sally Hemmings, who he signally did not emancipate.
But Hemmings was by then late in life; and Jefferson might have worried that without the institutional “protections” to which she had become accustomed, she might not have survived.
I cannot know the interior thoughts of Thomas Jefferson. And I certainly am not, nor could be, his judge. But I have some tentative findings about some aspects of the question.
Was Jefferson a Freemason? Clearly, YES. Does this make him a “Gnostic” in the sense so well elaborated by spirited irish on this thread? I very strongly doubt it. Was Jefferson a Christian? By his own words, I strongly doubt that, too. Was he a Deist? NOPE.
Please allow me to defend my “trial conclusions”:
That Jefferson was a Freemason does not, ipso facto, make him a Gnostic.
What little I know about Freemasonry I learned through my Father, a high-degree Freemason. [You may have noticed that I prefer to go to “actual experience” rather than doctrinal formulations as my guide to Reality.]
My Father was a hard-core Newtonian and self-professed Deist. [See below.] There was not a “mystical” bone in his body. I daresay that what attracted him to Freemasonry was its descent in its present American form from, and its subsequent association with, the great Founders and Framers, e.g., Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, et al.. My Father loved those men. All his life he was a genuine American patriot, with a very strong “libertarian” streak that sometimes got him “in trouble” with the “powers that be.”
He also had a very strong sense of human brotherhood, I sense acquired during World War II as an Army Engineer in the throes of the Buna Campaign in the South Pacific. From this experience, I gather he formed two main impressions that stayed with him for the rest of his life: (1) A just God could not have let my dearly beloved brothers die in this senseless war. A just God would not have allowed this war even to happen. (2) The second point refers us back to the first one: My Father’s experience on Buna taught him the importance of mutual aid to one’s brothers. And American Freemasonry historically has expressed as a sort of mutual aid society: A Freemason must come to the aid of a brother in distress.
My Father was also of the opinion that Freemasonry’s true origin was not (as Voegelin suggested), in Gnostic presuppositions, but in the historical trials and tribulations of the Knights Templar, a militant order of monks answerable only to the Pope himself, who were originally charged to police the Holy Lands, so to protect Christian pilgrims against the depredations of the local Muslims who were dedicated to a policy of exclusion of all non-Muslim persons on their soil. Later on, the Knights Templar were in the vanguard of the contest between irredentist Islam and the Christian West; that is, the Holy Crusade — that CONTINUES TO THIS DAY.
Anyhoot, the Knights Templar were most unfortunate to have extended credit — the institution of modern banking is actually traceable to the Templars — to Philip IV of France, hilariously dubbed “Philip the Fair” by many historians.
Philip owed the Templars an enormous sum of money that he simply could not raise out of the total, then-existing revenues of all of France. His solution to the problem was to declare the Templar Knights “infidels,” arrest and torture them into false confessions, and finally burn a great many if not most of them at the stake, seizing their considerable properties “for the benefit of the Crown” wherever he could lay his hands on them.
So, what is the truth of Freemasonry? Given the information I have, I think American Freemasonry has nothing to do with the “immanentization of the Eschaton” in this world — the completed “paradise on Earth” constructed by human hands within space and time —which is the goal of the Gnostic thinker — and everything to do with promulgating a policy of extending a helping hand to brothers who need help in the organization of their prosaic, daily lives. No Mason can turn a deaf ear to the sufferings of a brother Mason, but must always help him as much as he possibly can to get a grip on his problems, and help him work them through.
It seems to me American Freemasonry is not a “religion.” It is more an ethical code — whose source can finally be located in the Christian doctrine of caritas.
Anyhoot, as earlier suggested, Thomas Jefferson was “a child of the Enlightenment.” In my estimation, the original, main driver of the Enlightenment was the world-changing science of Sir Isaac Newton. His conception of the universe in the abstract terms of matter in its motions according to the [relentlessly deterministic] laws Newton discovered has been the dominant idea of science up to the present day.
In the end, Newton’s description of the universe has been interpreted by close followers as utterly deterministic. Here’s the problem for Jefferson: If you are to establish Liberty as a fundamental human attribute/value, Newton’s conception of order would not be your friend — as much as you might admire the paradigm shift in science that he clearly accomplished. For human Liberty cannot occur in a deterministic world. The actual writings of Jefferson strongly suggest that human liberty must consist in the fact that not all things in the universe are thoroughly determined. He takes pot shots in his published writings on Presbyterians and Calvin himself for effectively saying otherwise. [As you clearly show, dear YHAOS, in the original cites you quote.]
So we ask, what were Newton’s religious views, if any?
Some people claim that he was a Deist. That is, a person who believes that God created the world, and then instantaniously absented Himself from the entire enterprise of his Creation, never to visit it again. God is “clockmaker” of a “clock” that can forever “run” without his intervention.
But even Newton didn’t believe that ! Instead, Newton suggested that, as a mechanism, the universe would inevitably accumulate “errors”; and that God Himself would have to step in, from time to time, to set things “aright” again. Newton’s conception of God, finally, was “the Lord of Life, with His creatures.”
Which tells me that Newton was not a Deist. I expect that what he was, was a Monotheist. He rejected the Trinity on Occam’s Razor grounds. I am inclined to believe that Thomas Jefferson might have done likewise.
In short, TJ – if he rejected the Holy Trinity — could not possibly be considered a Christian.
But does that necessarily make him some sort of “devil?” I think not.
Well, just some thoughts, don’t know where they will lead you, dear brothers in Christ.
Thank you both so much for your correspondence!
Can we please stipulate that words like "Deist" or "Theist" or even "Gnostic" are mostly just that: words, meaning very little to most people, indeed if even one in a hundred can distinguish between a "deist" and a "theist", I'd be amazed.
So we are here throwing those words around, as if they had deep and profound meanings which everybody understands and agrees to -- but they don't.
In fact, only spirited irish has made a great effort to fill in those words with her definitions, and it turns out that her definitions make those words into metaphorical dirt-bags holding most every wickedness known to mankind.
For that, I reject and rebuke Ms irish's thesis, especially as it may apply to Americans we all admire: our Founders.
Now, lo and behold, it turns out that not only our Founders, Ms boop, but also your own father belonged to a group that irish defines as wicked satanic Gnostic statists.
In that regard, I'll mention that one of my sons-in-law is a Freemason, and what I know for certain about him is that he's a great guy, good and patient with my daughter who is... well, I will not sit silent while ignorant stupid people like spirited irish throw insane stones at Freemasons.
So what do these words really mean, in the American context?
Ms boop, they mean pretty much exactly the way your own father instructed you -- a strong belief in God and in helping out their fellow mankind, but less than orthodox interest in religious creeds, doctrines, dogma & theologies.
Basically, just like Jefferson's Bible, it's Christianity simplified to its simple & most common denominators -- the core of Christianity which everyone of any denomination can agree to.
Beyond that, masons are tolerant of anybody's particular understandings.
And yet spirited irish insists and YHAOS supports her that Freemasons are lumped together with every other satanic wickedness she can imagine.
For that, she deserves to be just as strongly condemned as she condemns Freemasons.
As she sows, so must she reap.
Do you not agree?
betty boop: "Was Jefferson a Freemason?
Clearly, YES.
Does this make him a “Gnostic” in the sense so well elaborated by spirited irish on this thread?
I very strongly doubt it.
Was Jefferson a Christian?
By his own words, I strongly doubt that, too.
Was he a Deist? NOPE. "
There is no record confirming that Jefferson was a Freemason, but he was close friends and of like mind with many who certainly were.
Any alleged "Gnosticism" in Jefferson is a matter of definitions and intentions.
But since spirited irish intends the word as a dirt-bag she can use to vacuum in every wickedness known, we are obliged to categorically reject its application to Jefferson.
Jefferson's link to formal Christianity is also debatable, but it was of a kind with other Founders like John Adams, Madison & Franklin.
The word "Unitarian" meant something different in those days than it does today, but has often been applied to men like Jefferson and Adams.
So Jefferson's deism was akin to that of our other Founders -- call it Christian-deism or deistic-Christian, it was a blend of deistic ideas with a scaled-back Christian outlook, the proportion of each individualized to each Founder's likings.
And if I may say so: that is the core essence of what it means to be a conservative (of our Founders' ideals) American.
Agree or no?
Your post 1693 is well stated on several levels.
All I can offer for the discussion is this link to Primary Source documents which I've found helpful in trying to understand the founders' thinking.
Like you, what I know of Freemasonry comes from my forebears. In my case a Grandfather, who was a 32nd Degree Mason and founder more than a century ago of the Masonic Chapter in a small mid-state town in Nebraska, and a Worthy Past Patron of the Eastern Star and a Grandmother, who was a Worthy Past Matron of that same Eastern Star Chapter. They were both devout Presbyterians, remaining so all their lives. From what I observed, the most salient characteristic of Masons was their firm adherence to Protestantism and to the Founders’ principles as best expressed in the Declaration of Independence.
I appreciate your remarks on Jefferson, and yes, I do rely on original sources (and established definitions) to the fullest extent possible. Beware of anyone who does not.
I’m sure you are aware that we do not always agree on every jot and tittle in all matters Judeo-Christian, just as we do not agree about every detail of Jefferson’s ideas. In the same vein we are both aware that the same is true of most of our friends, and that they are, likewise, equally aware of their differences with us. None of this upsets us at all for we know that our thoughts and beliefs are held sincerely, that we will not be reduced to jumping out in front, pretending to lead the parade, to infantile mockery, to hapless mischaracterization, or to pathetic misconstruction.
Reduced to a popnjay, or babbaġā, in other words.
BroJoeK has made an observation which is that, while we believe our brand of classic liberalism to be deeply rooted in a Judeo-Christian world view, and our founders were for the most part deeply Christian men, it is notable that our republic didn’t sprout in Christian Europe, it sprouted here.
He credits freemasonry with at least fostering the kind of thinking that led to our founding.
For my part, I’ve been chewing on that issue a bit. A couple of things come to mind. One is that the brand of Christianity common here was different in kind. Its not just the protestant/catholic divide, because in Europe Protestantism didn’t lead to an end to the monarchical system. Certain strains of Protestantism seem to have been more inclined to wish for earthly liberty, probably mainly the ones that weren’t able to find official protection. But not all.
The filter is the Atlantic Ocean. The people who felt driven to make that crossing, even if they were of the same sect as the brothers they left behind, were themselves of a different kind. And that made a difference in matters of faith as well.
Its not that the theology itself was different as much as it was the men who believed it who were different and subsequently made more different by the environment they found themselves in once they were in America and far from central authority.
Its hard to imagine now, but at one time being of the wrong sect could get you beaten or killed and your property seized. We are familiar with the story of the Pilgrims, but in some of my digging I came across a migration of church members from what is now northern Ireland in the mid-1700s. They were protestants, but not of the king’s persuasion and were subject to official repression including being beaten publicly, fines levied, property seized. So away they went to the Carolinas.
Previously, the more independent sects would find themselves pushed into the more remote reaches of whatever kingdom they lived in but America provided the refuge that allowed them to stop running and flourish.
These are the kinds of men who a couple of decades later were signing on to fight against the Kings redcoats (as in fact they did).
Another thought comes to mind. There is a difference in freemasonry in countries where it was dangerous to “disbelieve”. In those countries freemasonry provided a ready-made conspiracy which could then be used for other purposes. Being a “freethinker” meant different things in different countries according to the political and religious climate.
I notice in Latin America that some of the technocrat “caudillos” were freemasons. For them “freethinker” had a different context than what was found in the English colonies.
Another thought. We’ve discussed in the past the difference between Locke, who inspired the founders, and Rousseau, who inspired the jacobins. An important distinction is that the jacobins believed freedom required freedom from the Church and freedom from God himself.
They made it a point to slaughter priests when they could get their hands on them.
Locke (and the founders) believed that freedom was a gift of God, and a requirement so that men could better serve God. Since so many people had come to English America for reasons of religious liberty, liberty was always understood in that context. (Granted, for some it was liberty for me, if not for thee, people being people.) Its been noted that revolution in America was preached from the pulpits and followed a religious revival in the years immediately before the fighting started.
BroJoeK has made the point that American freemasonry was different from its counterparts on the continent in part because so many of its members were Christians; the needs for a place for “freethinkers” were different here at least during that era. I do notice that many of the founders who we know to have been Christians were also freemasons. That would not have been true, for example, in catholic countries where freemasonry was a refuge for the anticlericalists and has its own nature and history.
I haven’t known many freemasons, the few I’ve known didn’t strike me as religious. I had the impression they were searching for the kind of brotherhood and opportunities for charity that you would theoretically find in a church, but without the hocus-pocus that they didn’t particularly believe in. I don’t want to go too far with that, though, because some of them subsequently became very religious in later life while remaining masons. So I suppose you can have an organization that on paper is one thing, but as its lived out by its members is another.
The same is true in matters of religion. You have the religion of the written doctrines, and the religion as it is lived out. So you’ll find people whose theology is sketchy but in whom God is alive, who know God and walk with him; and you’ll find people whose theology is right on the money but are deader than a hammer. And every variation in between.
Forgive me for my maunderings. Sometimes you just have to unplug my keyboard.