Sunday, June 27, 2010

Thomas Jefferson, James Wilson, Laws of Nature and Revelation:

James Wilson wrote a great deal of what he thought about law, life, religion and philosophy in his public Works. Yet, perhaps because they were public lectures, he leaves some hard questions unanswered (he doesn't address orthodox religious doctrine at all, or whether he believes the Bible inerrant). He praises both "reason" and the "senses" on the one hand and revealed truth on the other as both necessary for determining the ultimate nature of reality. Accordingly, both, by in large, agree and should work together. But both streams have their limits.

In Volume I of Works, Wilson says such things as:

[H]ow shall we, in particular instances, learn the dictates of our duty, and make, with accuracy, the proper distinction between right and wrong; in other words, how shall we, in particular cases, discover the will of God? We discover it by our conscience, by our reason, and by the Holy Scriptures. The law of nature and the law of revelation are both divine: they flow, though in different channels, from the same adorable source. It is, indeed, preposterous to separate them from each other. The object of both is ― to discover the will of God ― and both are necessary for the accomplishment of that end.

[...]

Reason, say they, is the first rule of man, the first principle of morality, and the immediate cause of all primitive obligation. But man being necessarily dependent on his Creator, who has formed him with wisdom and design, and who, in creating him, has proposed some particular ends; the will of God is another rule of human actions, another principle of morality, obligation, and duty. On this distinction, the kinds of obligation, external and internal, are founded. These two principles must be united, in order to form a complete system of morality, really founded on the nature and state of man. As a rational being, he is subject to reason: as a creature of God, to his supreme will. Thus, reason and the divine will are perfectly reconciled, are naturally connected, and are strengthened by their junction.85

[...]

Reason and conscience can do much; but still they stand in need of support and assistance. They are useful and excellent monitors; but, at some times, their admonitions are not sufficiently clear; at other times, they are not sufficiently powerful; at all times, their influence is not sufficiently extensive. Great and sublime truths, indeed, would appear to a few; but the world, at large, would be dark and ignorant. The mass of mankind would resemble a chaos, in which a few sparks, that would diffuse a glimmering light, would serve only to show, in a more striking manner, the thick darkness with which they are surrounded. Their weakness is strengthened, their darkness is illuminated, their influence is enlarged by that heaven-descended science, which has brought life and immortality to light. In compassion to the imperfection of our internal powers, our all-gracious Creator, Preserver, and Ruler has been pleased to discover and enforce his laws, by a revelation given to us immediately and directly from himself. This revelation is contained in the holy scriptures. The moral precepts delivered in the sacred oracles form a part of the law of nature, are of the same origin, and of the same obligation, operating universally and perpetually.

[...]

But whoever expects to find, in [Scripture], particular directions for every moral doubt which arises, expects more than he will find. They generally presuppose a knowledge of the principles of morality; and are employed not so much in teaching new rules on this subject, as in enforcing the practice of those already known, by a greater certainty, and by new sanctions. They present the warmest recommendations and the strongest inducements in favour of virtue: they exhibit the most powerful dissuasives from vice. But the origin, the nature, and the extent of the several rights and duties they do not explain; nor do they specify in what instances one right or duty is entitled to preference over another. They are addressed to rational and moral agents, capable of previously knowing the rights of men, and the tendencies of actions; of approving what is good, and of disapproving what is evil.

[...]

These considerations show, that the scriptures support, confirm, and corroborate, but do not supercede the operations of reason and the moral sense. The information with regard to our duties and obligations, drawn from these different sources, ought not to run in unconnected and diminished channels: it should flow in one united stream, which, by its combined force and just direction, will impel us uniformly and effectually towards our greatest good.


From these passages in Works, I get the sense that Wilson believed in both reason and revelation. I don't get the sense that Wilson believed the Bible inerrant or infallible, but nonetheless believed large parts of the biblical canon are God speaking to man. In Gregg Frazer's PhD thesis, he views Wilson's quote -- "[t]his revelation is contained in the holy scriptures" -- as compatible with what he terms theistic rationalism, that "some" revelation is legitimate, but that the Bible is not inerrant or infallible.

Frazer reads "[t]his revelation is contained in the Holy Scriptures," as suggesting man's reason must examine the good book to see which parts of it "contain" genuine revelation. I think that's a fair reading of a somewhat broadly worded assertion.

And then we have the following from Wilson:

The law of nature is immutable; not by the effect of an arbitrary disposition, but because it has its foundation in the nature, constitution, and mutual relations of men and things. While these continue to be the same, it must continue to be the same also. This immutability of nature's laws has nothing in it repugnant to the supreme power of an all-perfect Being. Since he himself is the author of our constitution; he cannot but command or forbid such things as are necessarily agreeable or disagreeable to this very constitution. He is under the glorious necessity of not contradicting himself. This necessity, far from limiting or diminishing his perfections, adds to their external character, and points out their excellency.


Now that passage is compatible with the idea that the Bible is inspired in *some* sense. I don't see it as compatible with the idea of an inerrant, infallible Bible, talking snakes, 6-day creation, and so on.

In his letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787, Jefferson addresses the problems with an immutable law of nature on the one hand and the text of the Bible on the other:

Read the Bible, then as you would read Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordinary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy & Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor, in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature, does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature, must be examined with more care, and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded, and whether that evidence is so strong, as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change in the laws of nature, in the case he relates. For example, in the book of Joshua, we are told, the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus, we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said, that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine, therefore, candidly, what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand, you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should not, by that sudden stoppage, have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time gave resumed its revolution, & that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth's motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of a personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretensions: 1, of those who say he was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended & reversed the laws of nature at will, & ascended bodily into heaven; and 2, of those who say he was a man of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition, by being gibbeted, according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, & the second by exile, or death in fureĆ¢. See this law in the Digest Lib. 48. tit. 19. §. 28. 3. & Lipsius Lib 2. de cruce. cap. 2. These questions are examined in the books I have mentioned under the head of religion, & several others. They will assist you in your inquiries, but keep your reason firmly on the watch in reading them all.


Now, I understand many orthodox Trinitarian Christians have struggled to reconcile real science on the one hand and the biblical record on the other. They might not necessarily turn into Jeffersons, cutting out most of the Bible as false. But they do seem to embrace more metaphorical explanations, including, most notably, of the Adam and Eve story in Genesis. They don't believe that the Earth actually stood still for several hours or that Lot's wife actually turned into salt. They also accept Darwin's theory of evolution and attempt to reconcile it with the Bible. Those are the kinds of "rational Christians" who better reconcile what James Wilson wrote in Works with their faith. It seems to me those who take a more literal view of the Creation story -- young earth, 6 day creationists -- should be much less receptive to James Wilson's ditherings in Works.

20 comments:

Our Founding Truth said...

Your blog looks better; I like it. When I try to copy and paste, the entire blog lights up, not sure what it is.

Jon said..Now that passage is compatible with the idea that the Bible is inspired in *some* sense. I don't see it as compatible with the idea of an inerrant, infallible Bible, talking snakes, 6-day creation, and so on.

I'm glad I did some research on Wilson. Unless some new evidence arises, I understand Wilson to believe a literal 6 day creation, inerrancy, flood, Christian fundamentals, etc. He kept his faith to himself, as many others did.

"After the lapse of six thousand years since the creation of the world America now presents the first instance of a people assembled to weigh deliberately and calmly and to decide leisurely and peaceably upon the form of government by which they will bind themselves and their posterity."

-Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, 1790.

Jonathan Rowe said...

Thanks for the comment on the blog.

I don't see anything in Wilson's words that shows belief in inerrancy or any of the other "fundamentals" of orthodox Christianity.

He did believe in creation, as did Jefferson, Franklin and others. And they too believed (to the best of their knowledge) a young earth. And that's because science hadn't yet discovered the Earth's true ago.

Science -- that natural law to which Wilson pays so much homage -- has subsequently discovered the Earth to be billions of years old AND Darwin's evolution to be the best explanation. It's Wilson's method which demands belief in these.

Re the flood, cross cultural study demonstrates there was some pretty big flood that occurred thousands of years ago. However, no evidence shows it occurred as fundamentalists believe (that it was Noah and his family were the only survivors, every "kind" of animal that exists boarded the ship).

And no evidence shows Wilson believed in "the flood" as fundamentalists do.

Our Founding Truth said...

Science -- that natural law to which Wilson pays so much homage -- has subsequently discovered the Earth to be billions of years old AND Darwin's evolution to be the best explanation. It's Wilson's method which demands belief in these.>

To be consistent, Wilson citing the Bible in its literal meaning implies a literal interpretation. If Wilson believed reason and revelation are the same...? Actually, evolution was quite known to all those guys; they rejected it.

"Leibnitz (1646-1716) taught the theory of intermedial species; Buffon (1707-1788) taught that man was a quadruped ascended from the apes, about which Helvetius also wrote in 1758; Swedenborg (1688-1772) advocated and wrote on the nebular hypothesis (the early “big bang”) in 1734, as did Kant in 1755; etc. It is a simple fact that countless works for (and against) evolution had been written for over two millennia prior to the drafting of our governing documents and that much of today’s current phraseology surrounding the evolution debate was familiar rhetoric at the time our documents were framed."
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=7846

"When we view the inanimate and irrational creation around and above us, and contemplate the beautiful order observed in all its motions and appearances, is not the supposition unnatural and improbable that the rational and moral world should be abandoned to the frolics of chance or to the ravage of disorder? What would be the fate of man and of society was every one at full liberty to do as he listed without any fixed rule or principle of conduct – without a helm to steer him, a sport of the fierce gusts of passion and the fluctuating billows of caprice?"

-James Wilson, The Works of the Honorable James Wilson, Bird Wilson, editor (Philadelphia: Lorenzo Press, 1804), Vol. I, pp. 113-114.

Jonathan Rowe said...

I might ask Tom to chime in here or I might post a front page post that will attract readers. But almost all modern day Thomists believe in 1) an old (billions of years) Earth and 2) common descent between human beings and other animals (I use the term "common descent" as a contrast to the more loaded Darwin's evolution; there are numerous intelligent design advocates, for instance, who believe in common descent).

Remember the key to Thomism is to try and reconcile Reason and Revelation, not claim they are the same thing. So if science or reason discovers an "old Earth" then the inspired, infallible Bible, must, properly understood, teach or otherwise be compatible with an Old Earth.

This kind of reasoning is what James Wilson was all about.

Jonathan Rowe said...

OFT,

Why don't you listen to what this orthodox Priest has to say on the biblical record and tell me if this qualifies as belief in inerrancy/infallibility.

He sums up the Thomist position on reason/revelation in the modern, scientifically informed era and he believes in an old Earth, that certain parts of the Bible were not meant to be taken as "journalistic accounts." Jonah really was not in a whale for three days, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk0el9nH6Q4&feature=related

Our Founding Truth said...

18th century colonial catholics did not believe in an old earth, Thus, I don't see him adhering to Catholic doctrine.

Yes, he liked Hooker, but he doesn't quote Hooker on theology.

I'll watch it, but you can dismiss what that Priest says right off the bat; he doesn't believe in inerrancy, because Jesus quoted the Jonah story in Luke 17 or 18, and believed it.

Jonathan Rowe said...

OFT 18th Century Deists and radicals like Voltaire didn't believe in an old Earth because it wasn't discovered yet.

The point is, it's not just the skeptic types who doubt the story of the whale but orthodox Christian rationalists who, after Thomas, do their best to reconcile reason and revelation.

That's what Thomism is all about, giving "reasoned" interpretations of Scripture.

James Wilson simply did NOT have the same approach to the Bible as you do and in fact has one far closer to the Roman Catholic Priest in the video than to you.

Tom Van Dyke said...

You rang?

James, pls read this first.


http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/may/22.39.html



In [St.] Augustine, we see a willingness---although the evidence hadn't arrived yet---to discard literalism in the face of incontrovertible scientific fact.

Augustine even warns that by holding onto to literalism against clear fact, one might bring the Gospel into disrepute. [A word to the wise for creationists.]
_________________

For the record, per:

Remember the key to Thomism is to try and reconcile Reason and Revelation, not claim they are the same thing.

Theologically, this goes to John 1, "In the beginning was the Word..."

"In the beginning was the logos," the Greek word, which Jefferson said was mistranslated. Logos as in logic, reason. The logos is also Christ. In this way, reason and revelation are indeed synonymous. When Aquinas seeks to reconcile reason and revelation---James Wilson, following---it's to reconcile revelation with the "natural" reason of the ancient Greeks and the observance of the "natural law" by the Gentiles per Romans 2.
_________________

Gentlemen, pls check me on this, but biblically speaking, "inerrant" is not synonymous with "infallible." One may read passages of the Bible metaphorically and still insist on its infallibility as moral [and sacred] truth, without insisting on its literal "inerrancy."

Augustine would definitely hold the Bible as infallible. Again, there is no conflict.

Probably the most remarkable thing is that Aristotle proposed that the universe was eternal, always existed. It was the discovery of the Big Bang that proved the Bible right.

And as a rabbinical scholar friend of mine argues, the second creation story in Genesis has God creating man out clay, out of the stuff of the earth---not from whole cloth---and breathed life into him. That's a pretty elegant and infallible truth, written poetically but with great accuracy at least 3000 years ago.

Our Founding Truth said...

Tom,

Sometimes you have to forget about Philosophy, and go to the text and read it for what it is.

The author writes:

"Augustine argues that the first Genesis Creation account (1:1–2:3) cannot be interpreted in isolation, but must be set alongside the second Genesis Creation account (2:4–25), as well as every other statement about the Creation found in Scripture. For example, Augustine suggests that Psalm 33:6–9 speaks of an instantaneous creation of the world through God's creative Word, while John 5:17 points to a God who is still active within creation."

I haven't graduated from seminary yet, and from reading John 5; well, here it is:

John 5

16And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.

17But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.

18Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

To say that this dialogue has anything to do with creation is absurd.

"And the earth was without form, and void;"

Maybe there was a delay from the 1st through 6 days in creation, but I doubt it.

The Hebrew word for day is yom. Every time the word yom is used with a number, or with the phrase 'evening and morning', anywhere in the Old Testament, it always means an ordinary day. In Genesis chapter 1, for each of the six days of creation, the Hebrew word yom is used with a number and the phrase, 'evening and morning'. There is no doubt that the writer is being emphatic that these are ordinary days.

The idea of millions of years came from the belief that the fossil record was built up over a long time. As soon as people allow for millions of years, they allow for the fossil record to be millions of years old. This creates an insurmountable problem regarding the gospel. The fossil record consists of the death of billions of creatures. In fact, it is a record of death, disease, suffering, cruelty, and brutality. It is a very ugly record.

Our Founding Truth said...

cont.

The Bible is adamant though, that death, disease, and suffering came into the world as a result of sin. God instituted death and bloodshed because of sin so man could be redeemed. As soon as Christians allow for death, suffering, and disease before sin, then the whole foundations of the message of the Cross and the Atonement have been destroyed. The doctrine of original sin, then, is totally undermined.

If there were death, disease, and suffering before Adam rebelled—then what did sin do to the world? What does Paul mean in Romans 8 when he says the whole of creation groans in pain because of the Curse? How can all things be restored in the future to no more death and suffering, unless the beginning was also free of death and suffering? The whole message of the gospel falls apart if one allows millions of years for the creation of the world.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i1/sixdays.asp

One of the major problems we all have (in fact, it is the same problem Adam and Eve had)[TJ, Franklin, and the philosophers] is that we tend to start from outside God's Word and then go to what God has written in the Bible (or—in Adam's case—what God said directly to him) to try to interpret it on the basis of our own ideas. This is really the major reason why most people question the days of creation.

If we allow our children to accept the possibility that we can doubt the days of creation when the language speaks so plainly, then we are teaching them a particular approach to all of Scripture. Why shouldn't they then start to doubt that Christ's Virgin Birth really means a virgin birth? Why shouldn't they start to doubt that the Resurrection really means resurrection?

God tells us that He deliberately took six days and rested for one as a pattern for man—this is where the seven-day week comes from. The seven-day week has no basis for existing except from Scripture. If one believes that the days of creation are long periods of time, then the week becomes meaningless.

The Bible tells us that Adam was created on the sixth day. If he lived through day six and day seven, and then died when he was 930 years old, and if each of these days was a thousand or a million years, you have major problems! On the fourth day of creation (Genesis 1:14-19), we are given the comparison of day to night, and days to years. If the word 'day' doesn't mean an ordinary day, then the comparison of day to night and day to years becomes meaningless.

Our Founding Truth said...

All of this is to say I don't believe Wilson interpreted Scripture the way you see it.

I did some research on Wilson; his upbringing, etc. His belief of scripture does not appear to be that of a rationalist. From what we have, he believed in a literal 6day creation, in the flood, and the rest of the torah.
http://ourfoundingtruth.blogspot.com/2010/06/revolutionary-founding-father-james.html

You would need something from him denying the supernatural someway, which isn't there.

By the way, TJ was wrong, about the word logos and wasn't a very good guy. If the rest knew he wrote slander against the man he was working for, they would have thrown him out of government.

Freneau and Genet, both said Jefferson wrote some of those lies, as he's employed by him!

Jonathan Rowe said...

OFT:

I don't see any of that in the link you provided. You are reading your wishes into Wilson's words.

Jonathan Rowe said...

"You would need something from him denying the supernatural someway, which isn't there."

The law of nature is immutable; not by the effect of an arbitrary disposition, but because it has its foundation in the nature, constitution, and mutual relations of men and things. While these continue to be the same, it must continue to be the same also. This immutability of nature's laws has nothing in it repugnant to the supreme power of an all-perfect Being. Since he himself is the author of our constitution; he cannot but command or forbid such things as are necessarily agreeable or disagreeable to this very constitution. He is under the glorious necessity of not contradicting himself. This necessity, far from limiting or diminishing his perfections, adds to their external character, and points out their excellency.

These are not the words of someone who believed in talking snakes or Jonah living inside a whale for three days. He, like Jefferson and Franklin, didn't appear to be aware of the Earth's true age, but nowhere does he claim to believe in the literal 6 day creation story or that the flood happened exactly (as literally) told in the Bible (all humans being wiped out save Noah's family, two of every animal on a giant ark).

Our Founding Truth said...

Jon said..I don't see any of that in the link you provided. You are reading your wishes into Wilson's words.

"It is thus "absolutely impossible," because of the weakness of our minds to have a clear perception of moral truths." The most important moral truths are discovered not by reasoning, but by that act of the mind which I have called perception...reasoning is very fallacious, for every step leads us into danger, and by one false step we are irrecoverably lost."

The Visitant, Pennsylvania Chronicle, Apr. 25, 1768. Charles Page Smith, "James Wilson" (Univ. of N.C. Press, Chapel Hill)

Based on this quote, I don't see how James Wilson put faith in reason over the Bible.

Wilson has to claim a literal 6 day creation:

"After the lapse of six thousand years since the creation of the world America now presents the first instance of a people assembled to weigh deliberately and calmly and to decide leisurely and peaceably upon the form of government by which they will bind themselves and their posterity."

-Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention, 1790.

I'm working on a post about Timothy Dwight, the New Divinity, and their fight with the unitarians, and a post to support the Orthodox founding.

King of Ireland said...

OFT,

Jesus could quote a metaphor like Jonah without it being real. Lets not forget he was the king of using metaphors to explain things.

The real discussion here, and one you never here brought up, is the historiography of each period. Myth in the form of oral history to teach a moral was a big part of ancient history. It is my understanding that even in the more narrative version of the actual history that they would include myth in it as well.

Check me on this because I only read enough on historiography to teach a hs class on it but it was enough to open my eyes. Henry Neufeld whom I think Jon knows through Ed Brayton does a good job at dissecting this. I can get the link if you want.

I would also add a big one here:

If Genesis 1-3 and possibly up to 12is an oral history myth then teaching on original sin become suspect and opens up a huge can of worms. Locke wrote about this(original sin) though I am not sure he took Genesis metaphorically.

I am sure that these things were debated in the pre Reformation church. We are basically built on Protestantism so it is not part of the History we teach.

Jonathan Rowe said...

OFT:

You are missing a third component, the "moral sense," something that was distinct from both "reason" and "revelation." But JW typically talked about "reason and the senses" on the one hand and revelation on the other. Revelation was designed to support the findings of "reason" and the "senses" not the other way around.

On the other point Wilson believed the Earth was 6 thousand years old because no one then knew of the Earth's true age.

Your quote does not support Wilson endorsing the creation of the Earth in 6 literal days or his belief in the ineranncy or infallibility of the Old Testament.

King of Ireland said...

"But JW typically talked about "reason and the senses" on the one hand and revelation on the other. Revelation was designed to support the findings of "reason" and the "senses" not the other way around."

Where does he do this?


So let me get this straight even if your right that he does this what is the difference between the man that realizes that snakes cannot talk, we all have a historiography wrong, and thus believes Genesis is a myth but still revelation from God designed to teach us something by using reason and the one who says it was revelation? How would you even personally know the difference?

In other words, is their any difference between reason and revelation if it arrives at the truth? Hooker wrote about the extreme in Puritians that hated reason and touted faith alone and revelation but would sneeze and call it revelation. He also added that they were coming to these revelations by their own reason as well but in a non rigorous manner that made everything a revelation.

I am still very confused about this whole thing. I went and read an essay about Morris that Frazer wrote and was less than impressed.

Jonathan Rowe said...

King,

Here is James Wilson, what I produced in the body of the post, asserting the purpose of revelation is the support the findings of reason and the moral sense, not the other way around:

Reason and conscience can do much; but still they stand in need of support and assistance. They are useful and excellent monitors; but, at some times, their admonitions are not sufficiently clear; at other times, they are not sufficiently powerful; at all times, their influence is not sufficiently extensive. Great and sublime truths, indeed, would appear to a few; but the world, at large, would be dark and ignorant. The mass of mankind would resemble a chaos, in which a few sparks, that would diffuse a glimmering light, would serve only to show, in a more striking manner, the thick darkness with which they are surrounded. Their weakness is strengthened, their darkness is illuminated, their influence is enlarged by that heaven-descended science, which has brought life and immortality to light. In compassion to the imperfection of our internal powers, our all-gracious Creator, Preserver, and Ruler has been pleased to discover and enforce his laws, by a revelation given to us immediately and directly from himself. This revelation is contained in the holy scriptures. The moral precepts delivered in the sacred oracles form a part of the law of nature, are of the same origin, and of the same obligation, operating universally and perpetually.

[...]

These considerations show, that the scriptures support, confirm, and corroborate, but do not supercede the operations of reason and the moral sense.

Tom Van Dyke said...

Jon writes:

Here is James Wilson, what I produced in the body of the post, asserting the purpose of revelation is the support the findings of reason and the moral sense, not the other way around...

Jon and I fight like cat and dog over the stupidity of Frazer's thesis---it is stupid, because Frazer doesn't get this point, as neither King nor OFT seem to either, but Jon clearly does.

Why Jon gets this point and still argues Frazer's thesis I dunno. I think Jon's just having some fun with us all.

Reason leads us to the "first revelation" as John Adams and others call it, and to "general revelation" as Aquinas calls it, that a man using his God-given reason "right," sees God, whether in the order and beauty of nature, or philosophically, whether Plato or Aristotle or the "proofs of God" [probably Aquinas' 5 ways, with adjustments from men like Samuel Clarke, a unitarian, and whom Madison quoted.

http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ppecorino/phil_of_religion_text/CHAPTER_4_ARGUMENTS_REASON/Cosmological.htm

...that Jefferson wanted taught at his University of Virginia as part of---not religion class---but "ethics" class.

Dudes, you got to get up to speed. There are no shortcuts here. I don't know everything, like Clarke's differences from Aquinas, but I know they had differences, and I also know they were in the same zone.

Sometimes I want to shoot Jon over this Frazer BS, but the rest of the time I want to shoot the other two of you, even though you both agree with me more often than Jon does.

King of Ireland said...

"Sometimes I want to shoot Jon over this Frazer BS, but the rest of the time I want to shoot the other two of you, even though you both agree with me more often than Jon does."

I am not getting your point. This whole mess is far from clear. Mainly because we have no clear definitions of terms.

With that said, it is starting to get clearer as we hash through this. What Aquinas calls general revelation Locke says is reason. The difference seems to be that Aquinas thought it was inate and Locke supposedly did not.

Either way they both believed that one could access the will of God via natural law. It seems that most of the founders did as well.