Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Deist Minimum

by Avery Cardinal Dulles

[Per recent discussions, it seems timely that we reprise this excerpt from the late Avery Cardinal Dulles, with special attention to the final paragraph.---TVD]

From First Things, January 2005:


In his public pronouncements as a statesman and legislator, Jefferson expressed what he considered to belong to the common and public core of religion. He kept his more personal opinions to himself, refraining from putting them in any writing that might find its way into print, but he occasionally penned confidential memoranda for himself and a few friends.

Jefferson’s public religion appears in the Declaration of Independence, which refers to “the laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” to “inalienable” rights conferred upon all human beings by their Creator, and to “the protection of divine Providence.” In his first inaugural address, in 1801, Jefferson spoke of how the American people were “enlightened by a benign religion, professed indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and love of man, acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence.” In his second inaugural, four years later, he emphasized the nation’s need for the favor and enlightenment of Providence and asked his hearers to unite with him in supplication to “that Being in whose hands we are.”

One of Jefferson’s firmest principles, as we know, was that of religious freedom. In 1777, as a legislator, he composed what later became the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom, which embodies his personal conviction that the government should exercise no coercion in religious matters. In his famous letter of 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association he referred to the “wall of separation between Church and State”—a term that had previously been used by the Baptist Roger Williams. But as we have seen, he did not hesitate to bring religion into his public pronouncements. As President he frequently attended religious services in Congress. While opposing a federal religious establishment, “he personally encouraged and symbolically supported religion by attending public church services in the Capitol,” as Daniel Driesbach has written.

Like his contemporaries Franklin, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and Madison, Jefferson was convinced that the republic could not stand without a high level of public morality, and that moral behavior could not survive in the absence of divine authority as its sanction. Obedience to the teachings of Jesus and reflection on the purity of Jesus’ life could enable people to overcome their selfishness and parochialism.

Jefferson’s friend Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) maintained that the authentic teachings of Jesus were vastly superior to those of Socrates or any other pagan but that they had been overlaid by a thick cover of legend and mythology, which must be stripped away for the truth to shine forth in its pristine brilliance. Priestley’s work made a deep impression on Jefferson and enabled him to regard himself as a Christian. Following in Priestley’s footsteps, Jefferson undertook to retrieve the true teachings of Jesus, especially in matters of morals. To this end he made two compilations of texts concerning Jesus from the New Testament. The first, entitled The Philosophy of Jesus, was completed in 1804 but has been lost. The second, which he called The Life and Morals of Jesus, is usually known as the Jefferson Bible. It was composed in his later years and published only after his death. Omitting all references to the miraculous and the supernatural, Jefferson selected what he took to be authentic sayings of Jesus as a moral teacher. The precepts of the Nazarene, he asserted, were “the most pure, benevolent, and sublime which have ever been preached to man.” The religion of Jesus, he believed, was so simple that it could be understood by a child, but the writers of the New Testament, especially Paul, overlaid it with mythology derived from Platonist sources. The sage of Monticello forthrightly dismissed dogmas such as the Trinity and the Incarnation, which he found unintelligible.

Jefferson’s religion, however, was not purely philosophical. For a living religion, he knew, scope must be given to the inclinations of the heart. He was enraptured by the beauty of the Psalms, which in his opinion surpassed all the hymnists of every language and of every time, including the hymn of Cleanthes to Jupiter so much admired by his friend John Adams. When he attended church services as an old man, the sounds of familiar hymns would bring tears to his eyes.

In his plan of studies for the University of Virginia Jefferson wanted natural religion to be taught to the exclusion of all doctrine attributed to revelation. But he knew that religion could not be purely academic and therefore recognized the importance of worship in the churches. He took pride in the fact that students at his university had opportunities to worship in Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist services in the sanctuary at Charlottesville. Interdenominational competition, he believed, was the best protection against fanaticism. In matters of religion the aphorism “united we stand, divided we fall” had to be reversed. Divided we stand, he said, but united we fall.

In summary, then, Jefferson was a deist because he believed in one God, in divine providence, in the divine moral law, and in rewards and punishments after death, but did not believe in supernatural revelation. He was a Christian deist because he saw Christianity as the highest expression of natural religion and Jesus as an incomparably great moral teacher. He was not an orthodox Christian because he rejected, among other things, the doctrines that Jesus was the promised Messiah and the incarnate Son of God.

Jefferson’s religion is fairly typical of the American form of deism in his day. [...]

In the closing decades of the eighteenth century, deism in the United States, as elsewhere, seemed to be sweeping everything before it. But early in the nineteenth century, the deist tide began to recede. The first half of the nineteenth century witnessed a significant revival of Christianity, both Protestant and Catholic. The preachers of the second Great Awakening were especially successful in rural America, where they aroused a highly emotional biblically based religion. While Unitarianism survived and even experienced some growth in New England, it lost its specifically deist features: the sharp dichotomy between faith and reason, the deductivist natural theology, the separation between God and the world, and the idea of Jesus as teacher of the natural law. Deism therefore may be said to have perished, not only in the United States but also in England, France, and Germany.

We can discern several reasons why deism, which once looked so promising, proved unable to sustain itself. Deism drew its vitality from the oppressive policies of the religious establishments against which it was reacting. In the minds of the Enlightenment thinkers, confessional religion, unless checked by law or by free competition, led inevitably to tyranny and persecution. But this assumption was based on a time-conditioned union or alliance between throne and altar, not on the gospel of Christ, which gave Caesar no authority over the things of God.

Jefferson himself came gradually to this realization. As a young adult he seems to have held that Christian faith was favorable to despotism and hostile to free society. But his friend Benjamin Rush convinced him that Christianity and republicanism were, so to speak, made for each other. As Eugene Sheridan has written, Rush regarded Christianity as “part of a divine plan to bring about the kingdom of God on earth by freeing mankind from the burden of royal and ecclesiastical oppression through the spread of the principles of human equality and Christian charity.” With Rush’s help Jefferson found a way of accepting Christianity without diminishing his commitment to the freedom of conscience. Deism, therefore, was not necessary to offset religious oppression.

By the middle of the twentieth century the major branches of Christianity accepted the principle of religious freedom not as a reluctant concession but as a requirement of the gospel itself. The Catholic Church in its “Declaration on Religious Freedom” (Dignitatis Humanae) teaches that the gospel itself demands that “in matters religious every manner of coercion on the part of men should be excluded.” A major factor in the rise of deism has therefore ceased to exist.

Although deism portrayed itself as a pure product of unaided reason, it was not what it claimed to be. Its basic tenets concerning God, the virtuous life, and rewards beyond the grave were in fact derived from Christianity, the faith in which the deists themselves had been reared. It is doubtful whether anyone who had not been brought up in a biblical religion could embrace the tenets of deism. The children of deists rarely persevered in the faith of their parents.


[HT: "Their Minimalism is Our Fanaticism" from The Brothers Judd blog. The opinions above are of the late Cardinal Dulles [bio here], but are cordial enough to my own for me to post them.---TVD]

19 comments:

Jonathan Rowe said...

I really enjoyed that article when it first came out and still do.

Gregg Frazer said...

There are at least two problems with this article's argument.

One, it doesn't even mention one of the two defining characteristics of deism: belief that God is absent and uninvolved with mankind.

Two, Jefferson believed that supernatural revelation was possible and even accepted some written revelation as being from God.

Tom Van Dyke said...

The article is excerpted; Dulles gives a fuller history of deism in the full article.

Gregg, if you have any evidence that Jefferson allowed for divine revelation, I'd love to see it. Not saying it doesn't exist, only that I'm unacquainted with it.

Daniel said...

I really enjoyed the article when I first read it. If I remember correctly, I addresses "deists" who accepted some degree of divine involvement in the world (e.g. Providence). This lead to a somewhat idiosyncratic definition of deism, but an interesting summary of its varieties.

Gregg Frazer said...

My pleasure, Tom.

In a Sep. 26, 1814 letter to Miles King (who claimed to have had a revelation from God), TJ expressed doubt, but did not deny the possibility that the revelation was real.

In a Dec. 5, 1801 letter to Isaac Story, TJ said that "revelation has, for reasons unknown to us, chosen to leave us in the dark" regarding transmigration of souls; and said "if revealed language has not been able to guard itself against misinterpretations, I could not expect it."

Referring to the books of the Old Testament, Jefferson argued that only "parts of them are genuine," but that means that parts of them ARE genuine. He sang the praises of the Psalms, for example. [Jan. 24, 1814 and Oct. 13, 1813 letters to John Adams]

In an example of back-handed praise, TJ said of "sublime ideas" in the Gospels that: "These could not be inventions of the grovelling authors who relate them. They are far beyond the powers of their feeble minds." [Aug. 4, 1820 letter to William Short]

Tom Van Dyke said...

Thx, Gregg. From the first quote I only get that [perhaps] Jefferson allows for the possibility of revelation, but then again he might just be being polite to a guy he figures is a fanatic and claims direct revelation from God. As you see in the letter, Jefferson recommends the use of reason first and foremost to judge revelation.

In any case, this doesn't refer to the Bible.

The second quote is the most interesting, in that he says "revelation" is silent on transmigration of souls. Still, he might be using the language of the Other Guy, in this case "revelation" to mean the Bible, a common type of rhetorical subterfuge in that era. Madison does it often, referring to scripture but never tipping his hand as to whether he himself believes in it.

Still, I would not discount the quote, but it seems awfully opaque not to mention lonely in Jefferson's canon.

As for the third and fourth, we know well that Jefferson considered the original Bible "corrupted" by later writers and editors.

The third quote---in my reading---affirms only that the original parts that are "genuine" mean only that they weren't corrupted by later writers and editors and trace back to the OT days they were written.

[The Psalms in particular seem to me to be more "natural religion" than anything, quite congenial to Jefferson as an unbeliever in the Bible. But I'm not an expert, and would be willing to give this a closer look.]

So too with the fourth, that some sayings trace back to the very wise man named Jesus of Nazareth, uncorrupted by the aforementioned later writers and editors ["grovelling authors," or even anyone under the influence of St. Paul, whom Jefferson despised as a corruptor of Jesus' original wisdom].

Certainly consistent with the view of Jefferson not accepting scripture as from God, "diamonds in the dunghill" meaning that Jesus was the wisest of men, but whose words were "perverted" into a mystical religion, by Paul, the Catholics, Calvin, etc., etc.

So, the second quote is the only one I see that can even be charitably taken as an affirmation that the Bible came from God, and even then, it seems out of character with the rest Jefferson's large body of work. I've always been uncomfortable building an assertion or thesis upon a single piece of evidence, especially when that single piece of evidence doesn't seem to jibe with the larger canon of a given thinker.

But thx very much for the reply, Gregg. I gave you my honest take. One might think I'd be biased toward reading it the other way, but I don't see it.

Gregg Frazer said...

But Tom -- you didn't ask me to show evidence that TJ believed the Bible to be divine revelation. You only asked for evidence that he "allowed for divine revelation."

In the Miles King letter, he certainly "allowed for divine revelation." Of course he stresses the use of reason to "judge revelation" -- NOW YOU'RE MAKING MY ARGUMENT ABOUT THE THEISTIC RATIONALISTS and the superiority of reason over revelation that you objected to earlier! Thanks.

As for your alternative explanations, they are possible and plausible speculations, but there's no evidence for them. But, if he allows for the possibility that Miles King could receive divine revelation, that should tilt the balance concerning what we should make of his view of what is generally considered to be revelation. He certainly must allow for the possibility.

His argument against the deity of Jesus included a study of John 1:1-3 in the original Greek. A deist would have dismissed John's account as irrelevant and certainly not worthy of close, serious study.

And a deist would not use "the language of the other guy" if it meant leaving the impression that he countenanced any written revelation!

Regardless, TJ certainly showed much more interest and belief in written revelation than deism would allow.

J said...

Jefferson not accepting scripture as from God.

It's quite obvious that Jefferson consistently rejected biblical infallibility/inerrancy, regardless of the fundamentalists' lame attempts at revisionism. He omitted the miracles--including the "Resurrection,"--Pauline epistles and Book of Revelation from his abridged New Testament. He referred to the Book of Revelation--sort of the fundies' favorite chant book now--as the "ravings of a maniac."

He's definitely not on the side of the baptist-calvinist nutcases.

Tom Van Dyke said...

But Tom -- you didn't ask me to show evidence that TJ believed the Bible to be divine revelation. You only asked for evidence that he "allowed for divine revelation."

True, that's how I phrased it. But my intent was "revelation" as "Bible."

Neither am I convinced Jefferson wasn't just using language---especially in the second quote---that would keep his religious critics off his back. That's my plain reading of "if revealed language has not been able to guard itself against misinterpretations, I could not expect it," that if the Bible were misinterpreted, which he felt it was, surely Thomas Jefferson hisself could expect no better fate.

Of course he stresses the use of reason to "judge revelation" -- NOW YOU'RE MAKING MY ARGUMENT ABOUT THE THEISTIC RATIONALISTS and the superiority of reason over revelation that you objected to earlier! Thanks.

I've always stipulated Jefferson for "theistic rationalism"; indeed, he's the poster boy. It's dragging other "key" Founders to Jefferson's POV and them representing them as typical of the full cast of 100 or so Founders that I continue to object to.

And a deist would not use "the language of the other guy" if it meant leaving the impression that he countenanced any written revelation!

He certainly would use that language to keep his critics off his back!

Regardless, TJ certainly showed much more interest and belief in written revelation than deism would allow.

Hmmm. That was Kristo Miettenen's argument, which I thought you effectively shot down in a previous discussion, that Jefferson's apparent obsession with the Bible indicated some belief in it as divine revelation.

I agreed with you the first time in your demurral; not this time in your apparent agreement, and neither do I find these isolated quotes enough to change my first evaluation.

I'd like to see more references to "revelation" in his full canon, and an exploration of the Psalms would be probative. As previously noted, they seem more "natural religion" than revelation, and I'd expect Jefferson to favor them.

Gregg Frazer said...

Tom,

If "dragging other 'key' Founders to Jefferson's POV and them representing them as typical of the full cast of 100 or so Founders" is what you object to, then we've made a breakthrough! You don't object to my thesis at all.

I don't "drag" anyone to Jefferson's POV -- I evaluate each with his own words and independent evidence.

I don't represent them as typical of the full cast of 100 or so Founders, either. I make it clear that there was a mixed bunch where religious belief was concerned -- some Christians, some deists, some theistic rationalists.

But the "key" Founders were most responsible for the founding documents and were most influential -- and they were theistic rationalists.

My argument with Kristo was NOT over whether TJ showed greater interest in written revelation than deism would allow. Our argument was over whether TJ recognized or affirmed the supernatural and miraculous -- and whether he purposely excised those elements from his version of the Gospels.

My contention was that TJ decided -- via his reason -- which parts of the Gospels were legitimate revelation from God and cut out (literally) the rest. And that all references to supernatural things and/or the miraculous and/or claims of deity on the part of Jesus were left on the cutting room floor.

That is quite a different thing than saying that TJ did not allow for the possibility of written revelation being legitimately from God.

Tom Van Dyke said...

That is quite a different thing than saying that TJ did not allow for the possibility of written revelation being legitimately from God.

I don't see it. But perhaps I don't have enough info. I'm definitely of the opinion, based on the greater canon of his works, that Jefferson discounts the Bible as divine revelation, or Jesus as anything more than a man.

These, BTW, are my two tenets for a socio-historical description of "Christian."


But the "key" Founders were most responsible for the founding documents and were most influential -- and they were theistic rationalists.

Then I object to the "key" Founders thesis in toto. There is Jefferson, who was a "theistic rationalist" [bingo!], and Franklin, altho he strikes me as more agnostic than committed to TRism like Jefferson

http://americancreation.blogspot.com/2008/11/ben-franklin-was-not-deist-ok.html

...and John Adams later in life.

Moreover, I dispute that the "Founding documents" can be fairly attributed to these 3 men. Congress added 2 references to the Almighty to the D of I, and Franklin added another. The constitution was the work of many men.

Of these other Founders, it's difficult to say with any confidence that any were theistic rationalists.

But further, religion was left to the states, and there were tons of orthodox in them. The First Amendment was pretty much an elision of the differences between the Virginias and the Massachusetts-es, and even Virginia's non-sectarianism was built not on secularism, but on the Baptists' fear of domination by the Episcopalians.

Gregg Frazer said...

Jefferson certainly discounted MUCH of the Bible (most of the OT and all but the Gospels in the NT) as divine revelation, but have you any evidence that he did not consider the parts of the Gospels of which he approved (which passed the test of reason) to be divine revelation?

I hope it's not based on your own personal theory about what he might have meant when he actually affirmed the existence and possibility of revelation.

My assumption in doing this research is that they meant what they said unless there is some firm reason to believe differently.

He certainly did reject the idea that Jesus was anything more than a man.

Re Adams: what evidence do you have that he held different beliefs early in life than he held later in life? I have evidence that he held the same beliefs -- e.g. referring to the deity of Christ and the atonement as "absurdity" in a Diary entry in 1756 (when he was 21 yrs. old and 20 years before the Declaration).

Claiming that there are two John Adamses is an old trick of those who focus on superficialities and club memberships -- because he belonged to a Congregationalist church. But, that church officially became unitarian in 1750 -- 26 years before the Declaration!

Of the other Founders, it is difficult for YOU to say that any were theistic rationalists -- because you haven't read my dissertation and seen the evidence.

I do not "attribute" the founding documents to these men -- I suggest that they were MOST responsible for their content -- not solely. There's a reason that contemporaries wrote to Jefferson to discover the intellectual sources for the Declaration and that Madison is known as the "Father of the Constitution" and that Morris was given credit for the language in the Constitution and so on.

And, yes, religion was left to the states -- but why? I contend that it was because the major figures had rejected specific doctrines and considered doctrines to be divisive and, therefore, essentially had no dog in the race. They could "afford" to grant religious freedom and leave religion to the states because all religions of which they were aware did what they saw as the purpose of religion: promote morality.

Jonathan Rowe said...

But, that church officially became unitarian in 1750 -- 26 years before the Declaration!

I would put it slightly differently. "Unofficially" became unitarian as of 1750; 1750 was the year JA's Congregational Church had, as of JA's testimony, a unitarian preacher. (I'm assuming we are examining the same evidence.)

Gregg Frazer said...

Actually, I was citing the church's website, which confirms Adams's testimony and says that the church "officially" became unitarian in 1750.

Jonathan Rowe said...

I was going on Adams' testimony, (his letter to Jedidiah Morse) which the church might have been as well.

The problem with "unitarians" and "official" is that they are and were loathe to endorse various creeds. In other words they are officially anti-official.

I wasn't sure (and still am not sure) if there were any official act of that church becoming "unitarian" in 1750 other than having a unitarian preacher(s).

Tom Van Dyke said...

Jefferson certainly discounted MUCH of the Bible (most of the OT and all but the Gospels in the NT) as divine revelation, but have you any evidence that he did not consider the parts of the Gospels of which he approved (which passed the test of reason) to be divine revelation?

Not trying to fight here, Gregg. I wouldn't know where to start even proposing which verses Jefferson considered to be of divine origin. If you have nominations, my mind is still open; my position is provisional.

As for Adams, I don't disagree about his lifelong rejection of the Trinity. However, in this 1810 letter to Benjamin Rush,

http://reformclub.blogspot.com/2009/01/john-adams-christianity.html

he acknowledges the Christianity as of divine origin. I cannot say the same for Jefferson, at least not so far.

Jonathan Rowe said...

I think Jefferson thought Jesus was on a divine mission to reform a then corrupt Judaism by perfecting the defects in Judaism's theistic moral teachings.

In at least one writing Jefferson refers to Jesus as a "savior." I think Jefferson thought Jesus, 100% man, not God at all, was a "savior" in this sense.

Those not familiar with the term "theistic rationalist," might term Jefferson a "Socinian unitarian" as was Joseph Priestley and I think, John Adams (it's hard to pin down whether Adams was Socinian or Arian).

Both Jefferson AND Adams regarded Priestley as authoritative, even though Adams and Priestley believed in the resurrection but Jefferson did not.

Gregg Frazer said...

The question, Tom, is not so much what Adams said in approval of Christianity as what HE MEANT by "Christianity."

In "Novanglus," he identified Christianity with the Revolutionary cause. In a letter to Jefferson, he said that deists, ATHEISTS, and Protestants WHO BELIEVE NOTHING were all "united" in the general "principles of Christianity." There are no principles of actual Christianity which are shared with atheists and those who believe nothing!

He went on to say that he "could fill sheets of quotations" in favor of those principles with statements from a number of well-known sources -- including two notorious atheists: Hume and Voltaire.

As he said on numerous occasions, his view was that it was all about "doing good."

Furthermore, Adams was influenced by Priestley (considered him his spiritual mentor) and he similarly spoke of the "corruptions of Christianity." As we know, those "corruptions" were several of the fundamental, core doctrines of Christianity -- as it was understood by 1st thru 18th-century Christians.

We also note that, while he did not list the "corruptions," as did Jefferson, Adams disbelieved in the deity and atonement of Christ -- which were the central "corruptions" according to Priestley.

So, yes, Adams said good things about "Christianity" -- but it was HIS version of Christianity, not Christianity itself.

Unlike some commonly assumed to be Christians, Jefferson CLAIMED to be a Christian -- but like his fellow theistic rationalists, he fashioned HIS own version of Christianity.

Gregg Frazer said...

Yes, Jon, that is precisely what Jefferson said about Jesus' mission.