Despite what modern pundits might believe, the Founders understood that freedom and morality are inextricably linked.
Despite what modern pundits might believe, the Founders understood that freedom and morality are inextricably linked.
A s we approach the Semiquincentennial of our Declaration of Independence, merely discussing it as a source of American exceptionalism is considered controversial in some circles. Many pundits and politicians now espouse the misguided view that the influence of faith on our founding and its relationship to our public policy are incompatible. Too many of our fellow citizens have forgotten the foundational idea of our republic — which was informed by faith — that men must be good to be free. Those who were stuck in an airport this week and subjected to MS NOW saw Katy Tur missing this point by an impressive margin.
Our Founders understood that freedom and morality are inextricably linked. If you have freedom but no morality, and each man is free to do what is “right in his own eyes,” mankind will inevitably revert to our basest instincts. Without an objective standard of right and wrong, the only determinative dynamic left is power. Hence the apocalyptic hyperbole surrounding every election cycle in our nation.
The proper role of religion in a free, civil society is to restrain the fallen nature of man — to place, as Edmund Burke said, “moral chains upon our appetites.” The founding era syllogism is that virtue and morality are necessary for free, republican government. Religion is necessary for virtue and morality. Therefore, religion is necessary for republican government. The Declaration incorporated and appealed to the law of nations and English common law, but its exceptional feature is the appeal to a higher law. As the English author G. K. Chesterton observed, “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.”
The first sentence of the Declaration begins with, “When in the course of human events . . . ” This presupposes the existence of human events. Human beings with free will, balanced and aided by divine providence, can influence and even shape the world around them. This is a distinctly Judeo–Christian view of the co-laborer relationship between man and God and a departure from Greek, Roman, or Eastern religion. We are not mere pawns in a game played by the gods. We are not helplessly beholden to fate. The tenets of the Judeo–Christian worldview give Americans what the Greeks and Romans never had — hope. Anything is possible here because nothing is impossible for our God.
“To assume among the powers of the Earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them . . . ” declares God as the source of legitimacy for the institution of government. Centuries before Jefferson set quill to paper, Paul’s letter to the Romans clearly laid out the proper relationship between men and government. In chapter 12, he instructs us to “let love be genuine; abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good.” And “live in harmony with one another; repay no one evil for evil but give thought to what is honorable in the sight of all.” And in chapter 13, Paul instructs that “there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God. . . . Rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. . . . If you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The most important sentence in the history of the English language declares that truth exists and is knowable. As Christ Himself said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” “That all men are created equal” was found in Genesis 1 millennia before the Declaration, and it skewers the flawed theology of the divine right of kings. “Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” declares the existence of human rights as indisputable, and sources them in a perfect God as His gift, which therefore are not to be given, taken, or even voted away. The next sentence establishes the only legitimate purpose of government to be the securing of these rights.
The power to secure these rights must not be trusted to one man or government; it must be divided. Only the infallible, omnipotent, and omnipresent God of the Bible is described in the Declaration of Independence as the legislature (laws of nature and nature’s God), the executive (divine providence), and the judicial (supreme judge of the world). He alone is trustworthy to hold all these powers.
Jefferson’s personal theology is still debated and puzzled over to this day; yet, two and a half centuries after he penned it, the theology of the Declaration of Independence is sound. In a letter to Henry Lee, Jefferson referred to his work as an “expression of the American mind.” More importantly, it was the annunciation of the American heart and soul. It is worthy of commemoration and every effort to persevere toward the high calling set forth in it.