Robert Reilly’s New Book

Robert R. Reilly has written a book -- "America on Trial" -- that seeks to defend the American founding from the perspective of traditional Catholicism. Long story short, some notable traditional Catholics (Patrick Deneen et al.) have argued to the contrary.

I hope to have much more to say on this book in the future; I haven't gotten it yet but am well familiar with what it argues, having read many of Reilly's articles and other commentary about his book, for instance the symposium on Reilly's book at Catholic World Report. It's a great symposium that features analysis that is pro, con and in between.

Daniel J. Mahoney's article is my favorite and it's in the "in between" box. What I see as key from his article:

Still, the Founders bought into what the great southern Catholic novelist Walker Percy called a “mishmash anthropology.” No moral relativists, they nonetheless adopted the idiom of the “state of nature” which was intended by its great proponents to be a substitute account of human origins from the old one, so strikingly provided in the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis. Such an account is remarkably “conventionalist,” in that it takes its bearings from solitary or semi-solitary individuals in the state of nature who are in no way political animals by nature. And Locke, a most canny writer, presented arguments in his Second Treatise of Government for human beings being both the product of Divine workmanship and beings who own themselves. Human beings have duties in the state of nature (contra Hobbes) but only when these are not at odds with the overwhelming imperative of self-preservation. For Locke, God and nature are not particularly provident, 9/10, nay 999/1000, Locke says, of what human beings have is the product of human industriousness. In numerous and subtle ways, Locke undermines the multiple reasons why human beings ought to be grateful to a loving and Provident God and a beneficent natural order.

I don't like the term "mishmash" because it suggests incoherence. Rather, I prefer "synthesis." In good faith, America's founders, good Whigs they, attempted to "harmonize" (see Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825).

We can discuss whether Locke's teachings were properly "Christianized"* with tips of the hat to the Anglican Thomist, Richard Hooker. Yes, Locke's ideas were presented, often from pulpits, in a manner that suggested compatibility with traditional Christianity and the natural law (Aristotle-Thomism-Hooker); but also often included the "state of nature/social contracts and rights" speak that is, as Leo Strauss put it, "wholly alien" to not only the Bible but also the traditional natural law.

Allan Bloom, one of Strauss' disciples, has an instructive quotation:

When Bishops, a generation after Hobbes’s death, almost naturally spoke the language of the state of nature, contract and rights, it was clear that he had defeated the ecclesiastical authorities, who were no longer able to understand themselves as they once had. ("The Closing of the American Mind," 41-2). 

Note that it was not Hobbes who was cited from the pulpits, but either Locke explicitly, or Locke's ideas on the state of nature/social contract and rights, without attribution. Bloom, like Strauss before him and Deenen and others, operate under the assumption that Locke was "Hobbesian." We need not operate under this assumption, but rather simply note Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau all shared the common ground of the construct of the "state of nature/social contract and rights," and each had his own particular spin on that construct. It was, for lack of a better term, the "common parlance" among them. This construct was, however, first initiated by Hobbes.

*Meaning the traditional or orthodox practice of the faith.

Hall: "Calvinism and American Independence"

Mark David Hall has a new installment at this month's Cato Unbound. Check it out. A taste:

Professor Allen writes: “Dr. Hall points out that 50-75% of Americans during the founding era were Calvinists … [b]ut once again, ‘the founders’ and ‘the American people’ are not at all the same thing.” It is certainly true that not all founders were Calvinists, but many of them were, and they drew from a tradition of political reflection that encouraged them to actively resist tyrants. 

Let’s begin by considering just one Reformed founder, Connecticut’s Roger Sherman. Sherman was the only statesman to help draft and sign the Declaration and Resolves (1774), the Articles of Association (1774), the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Articles of Confederation (1777, 1778), and the Constitution (1787). He served longer in the Continental and Confederation Congresses than all but four men, and he was regularly appointed to key committees, including those charged with drafting the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. At the Constitutional Convention, Sherman often outmaneuvered Madison and, according to David Brian Robertson, the “political synergy between Madison and Sherman … may have been necessary for the Constitution’s adoption.”[i] He was also a representative and senator in the new republic where he played a major role in drafting the Bill of Rights. And unlike many of the more “Enlightened” founders favored by Professor Allen, Sherman never owned a slave, and he co-authored a law that put slavery in Connecticut on the path to extinction.[ii]

American patriots drew from a rich and deep tradition of Calvinist thought concerning when tyrants may be justly resisted. ...

Green: More Than an Academic Debate

In the conversation at this month's Cato Unbound, the following is Steven Green's follow up entitled "More Than an Academic Debate" after his initial response to the interlocutors involved in the discussion. A taste from Professor Green's latest:

I want to step back from this discussion to ask the more fundamental question of why this debate is so important to a segment of the U.S. population. A common response is that professional historians, many of whom have secularist leanings, have given Christianity, and its impact on our nation’s history, a short shrift, either marginalizing it or portraying it in negative terms. As a result, there is a desire to “set the record straight”—as if there is an identifiably “correct” interpretation of history that should then be embedded in perpetuity. That said, Professor Hall and his cohort of like-minded scholars have contributed to the discipline by expanding our understanding of our past and by challenging oversimplified assumptions about the nation’s founders. I chiefly disagree with the conclusions he draws.

Brooke Allen: "The Founders Read the Bible. But They Also Read David Hume"

In the conversation at this month's Cato Unbound, the following is Brooke Allen's response after Mark David Hall's initial response to the interlocutors involved in the discussion. A taste from Professor Allen:

Steven Green writes with great common sense and a refreshing absence of ideology. He makes a very important point: that the founders, like the rest of the American public, were “religiously literate,” steeped in biblical lore and language. The Bible and the stories in it were the common possession of pretty much the entire American public to a degree that is hardly comprehensible today. Biblical analogy was the most obvious method for eighteenth-century politicians to communicate with the people, and as Dr. Green points out, they all did it, even those who had private doubts: thus, George Washington’s fondness for Micah’s image of the vine and the fig tree tells us nothing about Washington’s personal beliefs but a great deal about his ability to communicate in a manner that would move his audience. In today’s culture such a rhetorical reliance on scripture would be impossible, not only because secularists would take exception but because large swathes of the public, including (especially?) highly educated people, have little to no knowledge of the Bible. A modern politician is far more likely to draw analogies from football or baseball, or from some very familiar cultural product like Star Wars or Harry Potter, than from scripture. Insofar as we have a common culture anymore, sports and entertainment are the things that constitute it. 

Dr. Green is also right, I think, when he states that the fact that “religion influenced the founders’ thinking, or that they used common religious terms in their writings, indicates little about their personal devotion or the degree to which they intended to incorporate Christian principles into the organs of government they helped create,” and that “Enlightenment rationalism and secular Whig political ideas” were also highly significant to the founders and their theories of government. And he does well to remind us that it is very, very difficult to “fit” individual founders into any modern religious category, and probably pointless to try.

Steven Green: "The Religious Beliefs of the Founders Don’t Always Fit in Present-Day Categories"

In the conversation at this month's Cato Unbound, the following is Steven Green's response after Mark David Hall's initial response to the interlocutors involved in the discussion. A taste from Professor Green:

I agree with most of Professor Kidd’s observations. As I suggested in my essay, we should resist forcing twenty-first century categorizations about belief onto those leaders of the founding generation who were, by all accounts, complex individuals. The presence of Christianity (Protestantism) in the founding culture was ubiquitous, so commentators should resist attempts to segregate its religious aspects from its secular ones. All of the founders were religiously literate—something that stands in stark contrast to many political leaders today—and were comfortable discussing religious ideas. But they were also synthesizers of Enlightenment rationalism and Whig political theories. Professor Kidd and I agree that “deism” was a broad and ill-defined perspective, at least its American variant. That’s why I prefer—like Professor Kidd—to consider figures like Washington and Jefferson theistic rationalists. But they were not conventional Christians.

Mark David Hall: Responses to the Panel on Deism, Orthodoxy, and the American Founding at Cato

The conversation at this month's Cato Unbound has begun. This is Mark Hall's response. A taste:

Rather than simply state the uncontroversial fact that virtually all late eighteenth century Americans identified themselves as Christians, I chose to address the common assertion that “most” or “many” of America’s founders were deists. Far too many sensible scholars make these or similar claims, including Professor Allen (“The Founding Fathers were … skeptical men of the Enlightenment who questioned each and every received idea they had been taught”) and Professor Green (“Although many of the nation’s elites privately embraced deism, The Age of Reason and other works popularized irreligion among the laboring and working classes”).[1] 

In addition to Professors Allen and Green, academic and popular authors including Gordon Wood, Geoffrey Stone, Richard Hughes, Frank Lambert, Matthew Stewart, R. Lawrence Moore, Isaac Kramnick, Garry Wills, Steven Keillor, Richard Dawkins, and many others have claimed that America’s founders were deists.[2] Because this assertion is so widespread, it seemed worthwhile to set the historical record straight. In my short essay, and in Did America Have a Christian Founding?, I offer excellent reasons for rejecting this error. That Professors Allen and Green do not even attempt to refute my arguments suggest that I have succeeded.

Steven Green's Contribution to Cato Unbound

Here is a link to the Steven Green contribution to the Cato Unbound symposium on the faith of the American founders. A taste:

The incidence of religious language and discourse among leaders of the founding generation more likely tells us something different. As public figures, they understood the power of religious rhetoric to motivate and inspire people. That public speakers used those familiar idioms is unsurprising—everyone did it, including that “filthy little atheist” Tom Paine, as Theodore Roosevelt called him.[6] One must not lose sight of the significant challenges—with the high likelihood of failure—that the founders faced in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Both political and religious figures purposefully drew on Biblical types to legitimize their revolutionary and governing efforts. Political and religious leaders sought to score symbolic points by identifying America’s successes with divine providence; another favorite was to analogize Britain and King George to Egypt and pharaoh and the colonists to the Children of Israel (with George Washington as Moses, leading them to the promised land). This purposeful use of religious imagery served an important political purpose of anointing the struggle with a transcendent purpose. In light of the extraordinary times and the commonality of religious discourse, it would have been remarkable if the founders had not employed biblical terminology in their public statements.[7]  

An undue focus on the religious upbringing of leading Founders, or on the religious discourse during the Founding, also undervalues the significance of Enlightenment rationalism and secular Whig political ideas on the founding generation. By the second half of the century, both strains of thought were significantly impacting the emerging ideas about revolution and republicanism.[8] The writings of figures such as John Locke, Baron Montesquieu, Hugo Grotius, and David Hume not only influenced the thinking of political leaders, they were adapted and integrated into the thought of clergy.[9] ...

Thomas Kidd's Contribution to Cato Unbound

Here is a link to Thomas Kidd's contribution to the Cato Unbound symposium on the faith of the American founders. A taste:

The problem is that people in eighteenth-century Anglo-America did not always use our textbook definition of a deist. Deist could mean a person who denied God’s providence, but it could mean other things as well. Sometimes it referred to a person who was critical of Reformed theology and its emphasis on humankind’s lack of free will. Or someone who did not believe that the whole Bible was the Word of God. Sometimes “deism” meant monotheism. Sometimes the use of deism had no skeptical connotations at all, such as when it was used as an antonym for “atheism.” Franklin and others rarely unpacked all those variant meanings, but it would have surprised few people in Revolutionary America to find that a “deist” also believed in God’s providence. Among the various “Enlightenments” of the era, the French Enlightenment tended to be the most radically skeptical, even producing some atheists. Advocates of the British-American Enlightenment, scholars now understand, were mostly friendly to theism, if not Christianity per se. Often British Enlightenment thinkers had a reformist agenda for institutional Christianity, such as disestablishing the official state churches, ending tests of faith for elected officials, or repudiating Reformed or Calvinist doctrines such as predestination.  

Another reason that the founders’ faiths are elusive is that even the “deistic” founders, such as Jefferson and Franklin, knew the Bible and quoted it liberally. As Hall notes, George Washington, typically quiet about his own faith, loved to quote Micah’s peaceful image of the vine and the fig tree. ...

Allen Responds to Hall

Over at Cato Unbound,  Brook Allen has written her response to Mark David Hall. You can read it here. A taste:

Dr. Hall has put the founding in philosophical context but not the wider historical context, which is all-important. “Enlightenment ideas indisputably had some positive influence,” he allows, “but a more important reason Americans embraced religious liberty was because of their Christian convictions.” No, no, and no! For there were Christians and Christians—though Dr. Hall writes as though the various sects formed a monolithic bloc. In fact, for more than two-and-a-half centuries—ever since Martin Luther posted his 95 theses—Christians had been torturing and slaughtering each other all over Europe. Bitter warfare in France, culminating in the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of Protestants by Catholics in 1572, endured until the very end of the century, and recommenced, just as brutally, in 1685. It was still going on during deliberations over the American constitution. The Netherlands suffered 80 years of warfare before the Protestant provinces finally succeeded in detaching themselves from Catholic Spain. Germany and other parts of Central Europe were torn apart by the inconceivably savage Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), in which entire regions were devastated and the population of the area was reduced by 30 percent. Britain, closer to home for most American colonists, had seen Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, Mary I’s persecution of Protestants, and finally the bloody Civil War (1642-51), in which Puritan parliamentarians took on Anglican royalists, divided the nation, and executed the monarch.

This Month's Cato Unbound

I'm happy to see that this month's Cato Unbound is on "the faith of the American Founders," with Mark David Hall providing the lead essay.

This is Dr. Hall's first essay. A taste:

The Liberty Bell is one of the most prominent symbols of American freedom. It is inscribed with the words “proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all inhabitants thereof,” which are taken from Leviticus 25:10. In Did America Have a Christian Founding?, I contend that the connection between the Bible and liberty is no accident. America’s founders drew from their Christian convictions, and ideas developed within the Christian tradition of political reflection, when they created a constitutional order committed to protecting and expanding freedom.[1] 

The book’s argument is, to put it mildly, controversial. Andrew Seidel of the Freedom From Religion Foundation asserts that the Bible and liberty are fundamentally incompatible.[2] Similarly, Matthew Stewart proclaims that the skeptical philosopher Benedict de Spinoza is the “principal architect of the radical political philosophy that achieves its ultimate expression in the American republic … ”[3] Both authors agree that America’s founders were deists who created a godless Constitution and desired the strict separation of church and state. 

Far too many scholars make similar claims. ...  

I will have more to say later. I also look forward to reading the contributions from Steven Green, Thomas Kidd, and Brooke Allen. 

American States of Nature

The book American States of Nature looks informative and relevant to my interdisciplinary interests regarding America's founding. Below is what the latest edition of the American Political Science Association’s Perspectives on Politics journal (published by Cambridge) has to say about it:

In American States of Nature, Mark Somos makes the simple but important argument that the concept of the state of nature is central to the American founding, an idea “comparable to rights, liberty and property” in importance (p. 2). Its centrality, he contends, nevertheless has been largely missed by scholars for the past two centuries. For Somos, the state of nature discourse proceeds through four stages. The first, the buildup to the Revolution from 1761–72, saw the concept of a state of nature invoked as a source of rights that supported the colonists’ grievances against the actions of Parliament. In the second stage,1772–75, the concept was invoked to justify independence, as the colonists increasingly saw themselves as effectively abandoned by England and left on their own. In the third stage, 1775–89, a constitutional framework was built on the basis of this distinctively American state of nature, and in the fourth the concept was adapted to developing the nascent state. In this book, Somos explores the first two stages, leaving the latter two for future work. Following John Adams, Somos finds the beginning of the movement for independence in a speech by James Otis in a court case in 1761. It was Otis, he argues, who first began to transform the concept of a state of nature into a revolutionary idea for the colonists. The idea evolved into “a constitutive sense of American state of nature, in which the colonists formed a natural community” (p. 161). This constitutive meaning, which carries well beyond the works of Otis, formed a basis for colonial arguments for independence, whether partial or total, well before 1776. As early as 1772, and certainly after that, “every side in every colonial constitutional debate ... regarded the state of nature as a crucial component of the intellectual and ideological debates concerning imperial reform and the colonies’ future” (p. 216).

See more here and here.

Frazer on Riots and Resistance

Gregg Frazer sends along the following note on rioting and resistance. His comments are below.

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I’m curious: what is the reaction of you guys (esp. Mark) who believe in a “right of resistance” to the riots in Minneapolis and other cities?  Americans generally celebrate the exercise of rights – so are you cheering the exercise of their “right of resistance” by people who claim to be tyrannized?  I know that you are required to approve of it, I just wonder if you’re enthusiastically supporting it.

Mark is writing a book claiming that the American Revolution was just. The current rebels have probably destroyed as much private property (in terms of value) as those who did the Boston Tea Party (but without the charming Indian outfits).  Should it be revered in future textbooks?  Face masks aren’t nearly as picturesque as feathers and moccasins. But they claim to be resisting tyranny, so are you celebrating their efforts?

We know that people who don’t like duly-passed government policies have a right to use force and violence to impose their will against that of the legal authorities because they have a “right” to do so.  We know that efforts by the legal authorities to enforce the law are themselves tyrannical and that governments do not have a right to maintain order if a particularly noisy portion of the population objects.

Has the bottle- and rock-throwing of these freedom fighters been enough to venerate – even though they couldn’t goad the authorities into a Boston Massacre-type end result?  Is their attempt to do so enough to warrant a Freedom Trail in Minneapolis or outside the White House, or does someone have to die?

Have they looted enough private property (big-screen TVs, etc.) and assaulted enough law enforcement personnel to be celebrated with the hallowed ranks of the mobs who attacked Loyalists, stamp agents, and government officers in the 1770s?

They have fallen somewhat short of the sterling example set by the 1776 “patriots” because they haven’t confiscated the property of those who simply hold a different political view and they haven’t yet imprisoned their political opponents without due process of law.  They’re not even requiring their fellow citizens to sign oaths of allegiance to their cause or threatening the freedom and livelihood of those who refuse – but give them time. They haven’t denied freedom of religion by closing churches, denied freedom of the press by destroying the presses of their opponents and burning their publications, or denied freedom of speech by sending mobs to the homes of those who express a different opinion.  But they’ve made a good start, haven’t they? You can at least hope that some tarring and feathering is in the works.

Apparently, carrying on the honored tradition of the Committees of Correspondence, many of these rioters are organized and shipped in from outside the community. The rabble-rousers of the 1770s (e.g. Sam Adams and John Hancock) would be proud.

Perhaps they’ll achieve the level of rebellion and social disruption of your heroes: the “Patriots” in 1776 and the Southerners in 1861.  After all, the U.S. government today taxes millions of Americans without representation – in Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Samoa, the Northern Marianas, and the nation’s capital: Washington, D.C.  The time to “resist” is long overdue – right?  These “patriots” focused on “systemic injustice” are perhaps the vanguard of a larger movement.  Perhaps they’ll get the support of 1/3 of Americans; we know that level has been established as sufficient to justify war and to cast off the authority of a government.

Frazer Responds to Hall's Article on Reformed Resistance

See the article that Mark David Hall co-wrote with Sarah Morgan Smith here. Gregg Frazer's comments are below.

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In the original set of “comments” on Mr. Hart’s question about Calvin’s views, Mark included the following excerpt from an article he had co-written:

“These events seem to have encouraged Calvin to embrace a more radical approach to resisting tyrants. For instance, in a 1560 sermon on Melchizedek, Calvin contends that Abraham was a private person who received a ‘special vocation’ to pick up the sword to save his people from ungodly rulers. A wave of violence against the Huguenots beginning in 1561 apparently inspired even further movement. In a 1562 sermon, he contended that all citizens—public and private alike—have an obligation to pursue justice and righteousness. ‘We should resist evil as much as we can. And this has been enjoined on all people in general; I tell you, this was said not only to princes, magistrates, and public prosecutors, but also to all private persons.’”

In a previous post, I noted that this was clearly a spiritual command for every individual – no matter their station in life – to be holy and resist evil in that sense (not permission to rebel against authority).  If interested, one can look up the previous discussion to see the Bible verses and arguments I made. I want to return to the first part of the excerpt, though, and Mark’s conclusions from it that Calvin changed his mind about these issues in later years.  In my original response, I noted that Calvin had discussed the role of special avengers sent from God 25 years earlier in the Institutes – this was not a new revelation for him. Given that some do not always report all the relevant information that we need from a quotation’s context, I went back to the 1560 sermon on Melchizedek to which Mark referred.  The following is some of what Calvin says there:

“we must hold this for a general rule. That it is not lawful for any man whatsoever, to take Arms upon him. For it is God alone that must do that.  …  no man may use force and violence, without he receive the same from him [God] to which it belongeth.  And therefore there are none but Kings, Princes, and, Magistrates, that may take Arms upon them, and with whom men may join themselves.  …  God taketh this office of revenge unto himself, if there be any extremity and wrong committed, because it is his office to punish the same  …  he that shall arm himself, robbeth God as I have already said, of the jurisdiction which he giveth to himself for the defense of his. To be short, private persons ought not only to abstain from all kind of violence, but also are to have a quiet and peaceable mind to suffer ….”

 Re Abram:

“Abram is not to be accounted of as the rest, seeing that God himself had testified unto him that he gave him the possession of this land  …  God might for once, give leave and liberty unto his servant Abram, to exercise the force of the sword  …  God giveth oftentimes singular motions unto his servants, which we must not draw unto ourselves to follow. … certain men whom God had stirred up to aide his people, the same are so many testimonies unto us, to show that we should not think, that there is always an assured and certain election [choice], when any one man should be armed, with the sword and with authority.  … all that which is here recited unto us, is not for us to make a general rule thereof. For it were a mockery and a foolish argument for us this to reason.”

 Speaking of other specially chosen deliverers executing God’s judgment:

“they had their particular motions, as if they had been privileged thereunto by a public law. And we are in all things to note, that when God worketh extraordinarily, being grounded upon his word, that privilege is not of us to be usurped.  … if I shall do the like that he doeth which is privileged: I shall join myself with him that would separate himself from the common order. For we must leave the authority of Kings and Magistrates to do whatsoever they know to be best for the commonweal …  so often as we shall see God minded to remember the redemption and deliverance of his Church by such as he hath ordained to be as it were ministers of his own preparing, we must understand, these to be singular acts past from his own hand. And those men to be chosen by him: and armed also by his authority and power.” 

Why?:

“God would thereby show him, that when he intended to put his successors in possession of the land, that it was an easy matter for him [God] to do it  …  when GOD sendeth us any afflictions, although at the first they be ever so hard and grievous, yet for all that, in the end, the issue of them if profitable and beneficial to our good.”  [in other words, God does these deliverances for His glory and, although suffering is a constituent element of Christianity, God works everything together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).

Clearly, there is no movement on the part of Calvin on this issue.  God may remove tyrants – that’s His role and right.  He may use special agents to do so on His behalf for His purposes according to His judgment.  But individuals or groups of people are not to usurp that role from God, take up arms, or presume that they have any right to do so.  The role of the people is to obey and suffer (if necessary).  Calvin says to try to make this into a general approval of rebellion is a “mockery” of God’s rule and a “foolish argument.” These are all the same things Calvin taught 25 years earlier in the Institutes.  In the context, Calvin specifically and pointedly says the opposite of Mark’s conclusion. In general, if one did not know that Calvin wrote 500 years ago and Mark just a few years ago, one might think that Calvin wrote specifically to counter Mark’s claims.

Frazer Responds to Van Dyke III

Tom Van Dyke made three comments (one, two, and three) on 5/28/20. Gregg Frazer responds to them below.

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Mr. Van Dyke: You persist in making claims in my name that I do not make.

I am not arguing that no one else held some of the same views as Locke.  I am arguing about who actually influenced the “patriot” preachers.

Re “Just because Locke was cited does not mean that those ideas and arguments were not already part of the growing body of Christian/Protestant/"Calvinist" political theology”: OK, but I’m not arguing that they didn’t have some of the same ideas – I’m arguing that the “patriot” preachers did not get them from “the growing body of Christian/Protestant/’Calvinist’ political theology,” but from Locke.  I’m arguing the apparently controversial notion that they got the ideas from the source they said they got them from.

You and Mark largely hold the same views.  If someone reads Mark’s book and cites him in support of their own view, is it equally valid to claim that you influenced them?  It makes no difference who they cited for the ideas they’re expressing?

The fact that someone cites Locke and not anyone in the cast of “Reformed” characters does not indicate that they got their ideas from Locke? – irrespective of whether the ideas of others are similar?

It is, of course, not necessary for someone to directly quote from a source that influenced their thought, but to attempt to satisfy Mr. Van Dyke, here’s an example of a “patriot” preacher quoting Locke directly:

“Men in society having property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the law of the community are theirs, that nobody hath a right to take their substance, or any part of it from them, without their own consent: Without this they have no property at all; for I have truly no property in that, which another can by right take from me when he pleases against my consent. Hence it is a mistake to think, that the supreme or legislative power of any commonwealth, can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them at pleasure.  Lock on civil Government”

-- John Tucker, An Election Sermon, Boston, 1771

Next from you is a demand that Mark supply direct quotes from Beza or another Reformer in a “patriot” sermon – right?  I’ve noticed that “read my book” isn’t OK when I say it, but it’s fine with you when Mark does.

“Almost all” is an important distinction.  I would be interested to see, for example, a 16^th-century “Reformed” writer building his argument on the state of nature. “Social contract” was not a Founding principle?  You might have trouble telling that to Jefferson, Bernard Bailyn, Clinton Rossiter, Pauline Maier, Forrest McDonald, and countless other scholars of the Founding.
 

Frazer Responds to Van Dyke, Part II

Below is the second part of Gregg Frazer's response to Tom Van Dyke's post (The first part is here).

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As I looked up Mayhew’s affirmation of Locke’s influence, I was reminded that Samuel Clarke was perhaps the greatest theological influence on Mayhew (apart from politics).  That, in turn, reminded me of the important gap in Mark’s thesis.  In Roger Sherman and the Creation of the American Republic (in which he makes the lengthiest argument for “Reformed” influence), Mark points out that most preachers of the period were graduates of Harvard or Yale (p 28).  That works against his thesis and in favor of mine. 

As early as 1701, the belief that Harvard had forsaken the fundamentals of the [Reformed] faith was a key factor in the founding of Yale.  Pressure was brought to start a new college because congregations were complaining about the poor quality (in terms of orthodoxy) of ministers Harvard was producing.  Many churches remained orthodox, but the graduates they received from Harvard were humanistic rationalists.  Harvard had a “Satan’s bookshelf” of rationalist authors whose works were an essential part of Harvard’s intellectual milieu as early as 1723.  For 40 years, Harvard’s famed Dudleian lectures taught Harvard students that reason and natural religion were the core of religion. The last such lecture in 1799 was a defense of religion against atheism spawned by rationalism.

Ministerial graduates from Harvard found their alma mater a disadvantage because of its reputation.  According to Josiah Quincy’s History of Harvard University, the “most eminent” of the clergymen who “openly avowed … Arminianism, Arianism, Pelagianism, Socinianism, and Deism” were alumni from Harvard.  Graduates said “the tendency of all classes was to skepticism” and testified of a prevailing “infidel and irreligious spirit.”  The theology professorship was vacant for a time and Harvard came to be regarded as an appropriate training ground only for unitarian pulpits.  In the 1740s, famed evangelist George Whitefield said: “As for the Universities, I believe it may be said, their Light is become Darkness” and he complained of the low state of religion among the clergy at both Harvard and Yale.  When he visited Harvard, Whitefield preached on the text “We are not as many who corrupt the Word of God” and applied its conclusion as a rebuke of the professors and students.  Similar descriptions and remarks were made about Yale from 1714 on by such luminaries as Samuel Johnson, Lyman Beecher, and Timothy Dwight.  When Dwight became president of Yale, he reported that “European rationalistic philosophers were popular and students considered it smart to be called by the name of some infidel.”

I could go on and on with this evidence – and I do in chapter three of The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders – but perhaps most important are the well-documented attacks on Calvinism leading up to the Revolutionary era.

Graduates from Harvard and Yale in the 18^th century were studying Enlightenment rationalist authors, not Calvin or Beza, etc.  That is the reason they didn’t cite Beza or other Reformers; they cited what they knew – writers such as Locke.
 

Frazer Responds to Van Dyke, Part I

Gregg Frazer responds to Tom Van Dyke's post; it's divided up into two posts and this is the first. His comments are below.

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I’m not speculating that Mayhew was influenced by Locke; he says so.  In his sermon “The Snare Broken,” Mayhew specifically says that he was influenced by Locke because he “seemed rational” (which, in Mayhew's mind, is the highest compliment he could bestow).  For the record, I do mention this in my first book, The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders.  Starting with Elisha Williams (who Mark quotes in his most recent book) in 1741, a lot of preachers cited Locke by name – who among them cited Beza?

As for “Lockean,” I am happy to dilate.  In The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders, I lay out basic Lockean principles and demonstrate how the “patriot” preachers followed and promoted those principles.  They are: a state of nature; equality; consent; the law of self-preservation; popular sovereignty; self-determination; the social contract; rulers accountability to the people; the common interest as the purpose of government; natural rights; political liberty; confidence in the majority; republican government; and resistance to tyranny.

These should all sound familiar because of Locke’s influence that virtually everyone recognizes to one degree or another – most to a great degree.

Yes, Mayhew’s sermon was delivered decades before the immediate rebellion-provoking events.  That allowed his ideas to disseminate broadly and to be, as Adams said, “read by everybody.”  Surely Mr. Van Dyke is not suggesting that someone cannot be influenced by a work written many years before.  That would invalidate this entire website.

The fact that Mayhew – and every other – preacher used a passage from the Bible as a springboard for what he wanted to say does not mean that his source authority is Paul or that the premises are theological.  For Mayhew, revelation (the Bible) was secondary to reason and, in fact, reason determined what counted as revelation.  He believed that God Himself was limited by “the everlasting tables of right reason.”  Mayhew was speaking to a congregation who expected him to speak from/about the Bible.  So he said what he wanted irrespective of what the Bible actually said and then claimed that Paul said what Mayhew wanted to say.  In other words, he would have fit in quite well in 21^st-century America.

I did NOT concede that “the prior Reformers ‘influenced’ Locke” and the link doesn’t take one to a place where I supposedly did.

As for Strauss and Straussians, Mr. Van Dyke is much more enthralled with him/them than I.  Truth be told, much too much is made of the singularities of Straussianism.  Either way, I do not identify as a Straussian – and for Mr. Van Dyke and for Mark, self identification is determinative, right?  I listed two Straussians among those who disagree with Mark’s “take” and who’ve had some influence on my views, but I listed FIVE non-Straussians (plus “others”).  My view is not dependent on Strauss or identical with Strauss’s.  In his peer review of my manuscript, Pangle pointed to a couple of things upon which he and I agreed to disagree.

Mr. Van Dyke says: "Gregg doesn't do it [provide argument and evidence somewhere what was uniquely 'Lockean'] here at American Creation among his tens of thousands of words on this topic, and he doesn't do it in his book either. This is the lacuna in his thesis. He may be right about Locke and the Reformed preachers, but he hasn't begun to prove it.”  I actually do prove it with numerous quotes from the “patriot” preachers in chapter three of The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders – including references to whole sections of sermons that are extensive direct quotations from Locke. Some have read the book and could confirm that.  In his much-celebrated Sacred Scripture, Sacred War, James Byrd also concludes that “many” preachers blended “the philosophy of John Locke” with references to the Bible.

Frazer Responds to Hall's Comment on May 25 about John Fea

Gregg Frazer's response to Mark David Hall's comment on May 25 about John Fea is below:

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On a May 25 comment in response to my defense of John Fea, Mark says; “To my way of thinking, if one is interested in Calvin's view of resisting tyrants one should read Calvin, not rely on an unpublished dissertation no matter how good it is. But perhaps that is just me.”

I would point out to those who have not read Fea’s book or the specific part that Mark referenced: Fea quoted four statements of Calvin accurately (though indirectly) before summarizing with a quote from a secondary source (the dissertation in question).  That is four more quotes from Calvin in support of the point he is making than Mark can muster from Calvin calling for armed or violent rebellion/resistance or appealing to “lesser/inferior magistrates.”  As long as the quotes are accurate, why does it matter if they come via another source?

Fea concludes that part of his argument by quoting the author of the dissertation.  We all – Mark included – use secondary quotes that we find pithy to summarize points.  The 12^th footnote in Mark’s most recent book is an “as quoted in.” Starting with footnote #25, he has numerous references to something quoted in secondary sources – most prominently and most often in his own The Sacred Rights of Conscience (which is a fine collection, by the way). Why doesn’t Mark cite the originals?  I don’t know any reason that Fea should be criticized for it – unless only Mark’s secondary work is to be trusted or deemed valuable.

Frazer Replies to Hall and Van Dyke's ...

Respective comments from 5/23 (Mark David Hall) and 5/24 (Tom Van Dyke), under Gregg Frazer's post from 5/22. Frazer's response is below:

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Mark: I do not understand what the following sentences mean. If you’re willing, please explain: “It would be silly to say that they are obviously influenced by Gandhi because Scripture doesn't require pacifism. Yet that is exactly what Gregg does with Locke and active resistance.”

Mark is willing to cut and paste some material from his and Sarah’s article, but not any quotes supporting the repeated claims that Calvin embraced active resistance (violence/taking up arms) or that he ever spoke of “inferior magistrates.”  I suspect the reason is that there aren’t any such quotes.  I’ve never seen any (and I read the articles – though a while ago).  [This is familiar. He was willing to cut and paste some material from his book, but not anything to demonstrate the many “inaccuracies” he claimed were in my original review – other than the “unfair” “lumping”].

As for being “informed by their understanding of Scripture,” did I say they weren’t?  The issue is how they came to that understanding and the problem is a chicken and the egg problem.  They had a preferred view and read that view in light of their own contemporary circumstances into Scripture, then declared that was the meaning of Scripture.  Knox illustrates this well.  That is eisegesis.  Exegesis starts with a text in the original language and works to find what it means in its own historical and literary context – the same way we fairly study a political philosopher or any other writer if we really want to know what they meant.  It is the same way Mark wants his books to be interpreted.

I again wonder why Mr. Van Dyke is not jumping down Mark’s throat for again conflating “Reformed” tradition with “Calvinist” tradition?  Luther’s views are, of course, not very relevant to the “Calvinist” tradition (except that he and Calvin agreed on this), but he was a fairly significant Reformer – was he not?  Hasn’t Mark been claiming it is “Reformed” tradition (although he does keep switching back and forth)?  Didn’t Luther have a fairly significant role in the whole Reformation thing?

Re: “The question is, where did America's founders get the idea that tyrants may biblically and justly be resisted? The answer is the Calvinist tradition of political reflection. Locke affirmed this tradition, but didn't invent it.”

1. If they got the ideas from Reformers, why didn’t they cite them?  And now that you’re calling it “Calvinist” in this case, why did they not cite Calvin?
2. Why did they cite Locke instead?
3. Where/when did Locke “affirm” the “Reformed tradition?”  Where did he cite Beza or Ponet or the others?
4. Locke began with the “state of nature” – from which Reformer did he get that idea?

Locke’s argument is very different from that of the Reformed guys.  Locke does not appeal to “inferior magistrates” or construct a faux argument supposedly from Romans 13.  Locke’s argument is contractarian.  Interestingly, when the “patriot” preachers made their case, they: a) cited Locke; b) made the contractarian argument; and c) did not make a “lesser magistrate” argument.  You don’t need to check my chapter on the “patriot” preachers; see if you can find the “lesser magistrate” argument in James Byrd’s celebrated Sacred Scripture, Sacred War.  His index does not include Beza or Ponet; it includes three multi-page references to Mayhew. Since his book is about the Revolution, he also does not mention Calvin.

As for Locke, Byrd says of Stephen Johnson (a Connecticut preacher in a Calvinist church): “He and many other preachers typically blended constitutional arguments and the philosophy of John Locke and others with biblical exhortations to liberty (30).”  There were unspecified “others” (might include the Reformed guys, but not important enough to be mentioned), but Locke is the indispensable one.  Like me, Byrd has read the actual sermons.

Mr. Van Dyke is quite astute to suggest that the authority of Calvin was “hijacked” by later Reformers.  That is my very point and I appreciate finally getting him on my side for something.  I am pleased to affirm that he is also right that the revolutionaries (though he says “Founders”) did not carefully “por(e) over every word and phrase.”  They actually took a lot of sources grossly out of context (Blackstone and the Bible being the prime examples) in search of anything useful to make their case.  That is important to note because they clearly couldn’t find any quotes from Calvin that could even be massaged and molded into usable arguments for rebellion.  They would have jumped at them in order to win over the large portion of the population that, as Mark notes, was Calvinist. [Again, this is why Calvin matters to the overall discussion – beyond Mr. Hart’s questions]  Mark exceeds the “patriots” in his creativity.  As Mr. Van Dyke suggests, they did not spend “excruciating hours poring over the Institutes with a biblical faithfulness and fortitude” – because there was nothing useful in Calvin for their side of the argument.

Calvin matters because his views were a hurdle that had to be overcome by “patriot” preachers and they overcame it with a boost from Locke.

Mr. Van Dyke: please do me the courtesy of not basing arguments against my positions on posts from other people.  My argument here is not based on whether Calvin or Beza is right theologically or biblically. [that part of my argument was simply to help Mr. Hart]  My argument is that to the extent that “patriots” were influenced in favor of rebellion by religious arguments, they were not so influenced by Calvin, but mostly by Mayhew and Locke adapted to religion, with a few perhaps somewhat influenced by a few “Reformers.”

Yes, “it was Beza and the rest who … defined the ‘Reformed tradition’” as you and Mark are defining it. I’ve never said – in fact, I’ve denied – that Calvin defined that “tradition” of rebelling against authority.  That does not make Calvin insignificant from a historical perspective; it just means his historical significance on this question is different.  He represents the “losing” side, as you put it – but doesn’t the losing side deserve attention historically?  And isn’t it important to understand why the “winners” (e.g. Mayhew) were necessary in the first place?  The winners write history, but the winners are not always right or worthy of imitation.  Those are at least two reasons why historians also study – or should study – the losers.  There’s that whole thing about history repeating itself as a result of ignorance.

And, Mr. Van Dyke, why do you repeatedly make this “accept his theology” argument with regard to me, but not with regard to Mark?  He has told us that in his book he used a very specific and narrow definition of Christianity – one to which you do not subscribe and which does not encapsulate all of the other types/branches of “Christianity.”  As I’ve repeatedly reminded you, in my professional writing, I do not use my own personal definition of Christianity, but the definition used by the 18^th-century American churches – the people we’re actually talking about.  Why do you let Mark get away with what you accuse me of doing?

From your perspective, doesn’t his definition cause you to disagree with his entire thesis?  You don’t believe that American was founded as an “orthodox” Christian nation based on conservative Reformed theology, including belief in the deity of Jesus – do you?   Why don’t you say so?
 

Frazer Replies to Hall's 5/21 Comment

Gregg Frazer sends along the follow note, reproduced below, that responds to Mark David Hall's post on 5/21/20.

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The critical issue is not who was first to come up with ideas, but who the rebels were actually influenced by.  They cited Locke.  And Lockean “resistance theory” is not the same as “Reformed” resistance theory; the “patriot” preachers reflect Locke’s argument, not Beza’s.  As far as I can tell, not a single “patriot” preacher made the “lesser magistrate” argument. I have asked numerous adherents to Mark’s view to give some examples, but no one has done so.  Locke did not cite or credit Reformers; Locke did not hold to the fundamentals of Reformed theology.

If you read my post carefully, I said that “this part” of the “Reformed political tradition” did not begin or end with Calvin because he did not subscribe to it.  I made no comment about “the Reformed tradition” – unless you think resistance to authority is all there is to “the Reformed tradition.”  This – as Mark is fond of saying – does not change my argument at all, either.  I have never argued that there were no “Reformers” who justified rebellion; I have never argued that Calvin justified rebellion.  My argument concerning Calvin was and remains that he opposed rebellion and that he – not Beza or others – was most influential in those churches that were “Calvinist”; consequently they opposed rebellion until Mayhew gave the rebels a path around Calvin’s teaching that was exploited by those promulgating rebellion.  This is why Calvin matters.

In my article explaining why the American Revolution was not a “just war,” I do, in fact, make that same argument on pgs. 49-50 – that Calvin was most influential and he did not support rebellion.  It’s not a “move,” it’s a reasoned and supported argument.

I find it interesting that despite Mark’s (and Mr. Van Dyke’s) repeated insistence that the proper identification is not “Calvinist,” but “Reformed/Reformers”, Mark uses the terms interchangeably – not just in these posts, but also in his book on Sherman (e.g. pgs. 26, 27, 29 etc.).  It is interesting that Mr. Van Dyke doesn’t “call” Mark on it. 

But then, he didn’t “call” Mark on the fact that Mark revealed in these posts that in his book he meant “orthodox Christianity” when he referred to “Christianity” in the American Founding.  My work is to be dismissed because it is based on my narrow conservative theological beliefs – even though it isn’t based on that at all, but on the definition of Christianity held by the 18^th-century American churches (which I document). I am to be criticized because today there are other views of what Christianity means and, for some reason, it is appropriate and necessary to anachronistically transport them back to the founding era.  But Mark is not criticized when he specifically says that he meant “orthodox” Reformed Christianity when he claimed that America had a “Christian” founding.  hmmmm

I am surprised that, in his desire to discredit my work, Mark questions the professionalism and research of a fine historian: John Fea.  It is also disingenuous to suggest that only those who’ve come under my bewitching spell question Mark’s view of Calvin, the Reformers, and whose influence on the Revolution was most important.  My power must be great indeed if I influenced those who wrote before me, such as Steven Dworetz and Michael Zuckert and Thomas Pangle and Quentin Skinner and Harry Jaffa and Alice Baldwin and Robert Kraynak and others.  I had no idea I was so powerful and influential!  And I thought they influenced me.  Thanks for the compliment, though, Mark.

As for that “unpublished doctoral dissertation” to be differentiated from primary sources: I notice that Mark quotes his share of secondary sources (his definition of deism comes entirely from secondary sources). This particular dissertation is not, of course, a primary source, but it cites hundreds of them. The fact that a doctoral dissertation is not published has not kept scholars from citing them for decades.  One of the measurements of a dissertation is how many times – and by who – it is cited.  That particular dissertation cited by Fea was eventually published.  It was published by the University Press of Kansas as part of their prestigious American Political Thought series.  It was peer reviewed by perhaps the foremost living expert on early American political thought, Thomas Pangle, and by a distinguished professor from Dartmouth.  It has since been affirmed by the editor of the premiere edition of The Federalist Papers, the professor who coined the term “deliberative democracy,” a renowned scholar of the American Founding at Claremont Graduate University, a preeminent Founding era scholar at Stanford, scholars at Notre Dame, Colgate, the University of Georgia, University of Missouri, Grove City College, and others that don’t immediately spring to mind. 

Apparently, Mark was not too dismissive of the work in that dissertation, as he edited two books that included chapters that were adaptations of chapters in that dissertation. It was good enough for Mark and Daniel Dreisbach (perhaps the most respected scholar on religion and the Founding), but not for citation by Fea? And when Mark set up a roundtable discussion of that work, none of the discussants Mark selected had any significant criticisms of it – so the entire discussion time centered on a minor, throwaway comment in the book.  Jon Rowe no doubt remembers that, as he was a member of the panel. Jon was the only one who had a criticism until I explained why Richard Price was not included.

Yes, Adams mentioned Ponet – but couldn’t even do that without also mentioning Locke. Ponet no doubt influenced some, but Adams’s quote does not indicate that Locke “dilated” on Ponet’s work, but on the same essential principles as did Ponet.  In the article to which Mark refers, I also mention Vindiciae, contra Tyrannos on the pages he mentions and suggest that it apparently influenced some.  My contention is that a few “Reformed” writers influenced some, but the primary influence in Calvinist churches was … Calvin.  And again, that is why Jonathan Mayhew’s pivotal sermon was so important and earth-shaking. If the New England Calvinists were already on board with rebellion, why the big deal about Mayhew and that seminal sermon?

Adams raved about Mayhew: “If the orators on the 4^th of July really wish to investigate the principles and feelings which produced the Revolution, they ought to study … Dr. Mayhew’s sermon on passive obedience and non-resistance…” and Adams said it was “read by everybody.” [my italics]

As for Mark’s closing quote from Adams, it refers not to the political theory of the Reformers, but the Reformation itself which created Protestantism and subsequently produced the vast bulk of American colonists.  The “exertions” and “sufferings” of these guys were for separating from the Catholic Church – not rebellion against kings.

Frazer Responds to Hall's 5/20 Comment

Gregg Frazer has sent along the below note that responds to Mark David Hall's comment made on 5/20/20. 

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Who’s not reading carefully now?  I spent some time distinguishing between “obedience” and “subjection” and showing that Calvin made the same distinction. Now Mark suggests that I falsely insert “obey” in place of “subjection” into the biblical text.  As Mark insists on changing the text, I would appreciate it if he would not accuse me of doing so.

It seems more likely that Mark and Seidel went to the same school because both of them insist on substituting the word “obey” for “subjection.”  As applied to the American situation, Romans 13 says that English subjects – which the “patriots” claimed to be as late as after Bunker Hill – must be subject [hupotasso] to King George.  In Titus 3:1, Paul instructs believers to be obedient [peitharcheo] as well as subject.  Being in subjection is also a matter of conscience (Rom. 13:5) – is that not what the verse says?  I do not agree with Seidel on much, but he apparently knows how to read and assumes that an author means what he says.

Mark’s position is not one of exegesis, but of eisegesis.  His position reads 16^th-century circumstances and preferences into the biblical text.  Mark complains about how I read the text of his book if he doesn’t think I do so accurately.   Doesn’t Paul deserve the same treatment – especially since Mark and I agree that he was inspired by the Holy Spirit?  Why can Paul’s text rightly be massaged and manipulated and its meaning changed by events 1500 years after it was written?  What about the many clear and direct passages from Calvin that Mark has not explained?  Why should we take Mark’s words literally and seriously, but not afford the same to Paul’s and Calvin’s words?

Mark thinks I unfairly treated his text, but he ascribes talk of armed rebellion to Calvin, who never used that language. He ascribes exceptions for “lesser magistrates” to Calvin, who never used those terms.  Mark says that I unfairly draw conclusions about his text because he states a counterclaim at one point.  But when Calvin many times explicitly condemns resistance to rulers and commands subjection and (with one exception) obedience to them, Mark ignores those statements in favor of his preferred conclusion drawn from other peoples’ comments on Calvin or by inserting words into Calvin’s text or substituting words that Calvin did not use.

Mark says “almost every Reformed writer … disagreed” with Seidel’s adaptation of Romans 13.  Since George did not require anyone to disobey God, Calvin did not disagree with Seidel’s statement.  Neither did Martin Luther.

Luther said:

“Here is what the law says, ‘No one shall fight or make war against his overlord; for a man owes his overlord obedience, honor, and fear’ (Romans 13 [1-7]).  … That is the law in a nutshell. God himself has instituted it and men have accepted it, for it is not possible both to obey and resist, to be subject and not put up with their lords.”

“subjects are to be obedient and are even to suffer wrong from their tyrants.  … (I)f the subjects rise up and rebel … then it is right and proper to fight against them. That, too, is what a prince should do to his nobles and an emperor to his princes if they are rebellious and start a war.”

As for “lesser magistrates”: “Compared to his overlord the emperor, a prince is not a prince, but an individual who owes obedience to the emperor, as do all others, each for himself.  ...  So the emperor, too, when compared with God, is not an emperor, but an individual person like all others; compared with his subjects, however, he is as many times emperor as he has people under him. The same can be said of all other rulers. When compared to their overlord, they are not rulers at all and are stripped of all authority. When compared with their subjects, they are adorned with all authority.”

Luther emphasizes the biblical principle that God may remove a ruler, but that role is not given to us: “Thus, in the end, all authority comes from God, whose alone it is; for he is emperor, prince, count, noble, judge, and all else, and he assigns these offices to his subjects as he wills, and takes them back again for himself” [emphasis mine].