Wednesday, September 28, 2011

America IS A Christian Nation, Part IV, Despotism and the Theory of America

In the last installment of America IS A Christian Nation, I purposely doubled back to speak to one consideration that automatically arises when the subject of God and country comes up, the idea that anything that has to do with God is religion.  No, that is not necessarily the case.  In America's case, God is an assumed TRUTH on which America's sovereign authority depends.  God is in the mix of assumptions that lead to America's right to sovereignty.  Because according to the Declaration of Independence, that right is one of God's Natural Laws, then without God, that law would not exists, and therefore America's right to sovereignty would not exist, and therefore of course, in the theoretical sense, America itself would not exist.  So in that same sense, America's very right of existence depends upon the TRUTH of God.

And as we have seen in previous installments, God on which America's sovereignty exists is no deist god, and certainly no god created in the minds of the Founders.  No, each colonial representative who signed the Declaration of Independence was more than just a professed Christian at the time.  According to the laws of each of the 13 colonies, he was also legally a Christian.   Therefore any reference to God in the DoI is legally God of the Bible and New Testament.  The colonial laws in place at the time required that to be.  So as the Treaty of Paris of 1783 proclaims and certifies, that God of the New Testament is a necessary assumed truth for America's existence, was no secret to anyone, any American, or any citizen of the world at the time.

So let's talk about that assumption, that God is 'truth' and that God has imparted certain natural laws that govern the universe and mankind.  Because these assumptions are necessary for America's sovereignty to exist, one result should be apparent.  And that result is very simply that

Because American governmental authority is assumed from God, America's government 
has no authority, the use of which effectively denies that assumption.  

I hope you understand what I just wrote.  This is very important.  Because all American government authority comes from God, no tool of American government, using that authority, can effectively deny the truth of God.  This is a vital concept  for anyone to truly understand what America is all about.  Any tool of American government which attempts to even question the truth of God, God of the Bible and New Testament, can only use rogue authority, someone's personal authority to do so.  Using 'personal authority,' I can say whatever I like and so can you.  But if I purport to carry the authority of the United States Government, because that authority comes from God, I have no authority within that capacity to even question whether God exists.  To do so would be to question the authority by which I might try.  Therefore, any tool of American government that questions God's existence, is effectively NOT a tool of American government.  For any purported tool of American government to take steps to enforce its will in defiance of the possibility of the truth of God, using the power of American government in the process, that act would provide an example of what the Founders' termed, 'despotism.'  In the Founders' lexicon, the term, 'despotism,' is the 'unauthoritative use of the power of government.' 

The practice of that kind of despotism is precisely the reason the Founders justified the use of the terms, 'despot,' or 'tyrant,' to describe King George.  They used those terms applying the standard of God's Natural Laws, assumed as truth and self-evident for their purposes.  According to the Founders, because he used the power of British government to enforce his personal will to suppress the colonists, King George broke God's Laws, thereby losing any authority he may have had to do so.  Because even the king's authority comes from God, when a king steps beyond God's authority, he becomes a despot using powers, but with no requisite authority to do so.

People commonly use the terms, power and authority almost interchangeably.  And as long as power is used along with the necessary authority to do so, then these terms are at least very similar.  But when a tool of government uses power WITHOUT the requisite authority, then that tool becomes despotic.

None of what I have written here changes the unavoidable fact that in anyone's mind, the truth of God is encumbered by a certain amount of doubt.  Even the most devout Christian has doubts regarding the existence of an unseen, supernatural realm in which the Creator of the Universe might reside.  To many, that prospect sounds perfectly absurd!  But to the Founders, these men believed it to the extent that they acted on that belief and brought forth their new nation dependent upon that belief.  In that respect, the Founders created America as an act of faith in their belief of the Bible and New Testament scriptures.

Still, all the faith in the world does not prove the Founders' grand assumption of God, as fact, to folks who do not share that faith.  So the Founders knew that they could not, and should not, portray unproven propositions as truth, expecting to get away with it. For this reason, the Founders stated their assumptions in the Declaration of Independence and created their new nation as something more tangible than just assuming that God exists.  Instead, they created their nation as a very real, very tangible, scientific experiment, one which would test their assumptions, those assumptions being that that
  • God exists
  • God has imparted certain natural laws to His creation
  • Men who obey these laws shall receive God's blessings
  • A nation that obeys God's Laws, fulfilling God's will on earth, shall be protected by divine Providence
And that is why the Founders who signed the Declaration of Independence each endorsed that document 'with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence.'  That is why each Founder pledged 'his life, his fortune and his sacred honor.'  In essence, each Founder who signed the Declaration of Independence 'bet the farm' that the Theory of America would be proven true over time.

Earlier in these series of articles, I quoted from George Washington's Farewell Address, issued at the close of his two terms as first President of the United States under the Constitution.  In that address, George Washington embalmed the truth of the American founding for all future generations to discover, and to utilize, possibly even as I am in this application.  At the risk of repeating, Washington wrote:
It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it?  Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature.
In his farewell address, George Washington makes it clear for us that America is an experiment designed to confirm whether God has connected a nation's permanent felicity with its virtue, whether a nation guided by the exalted justice and benevolence of God's Laws would be protected by divine Providence.  Washington left us this to find, if we as Americans are so inclined to look for it, to use this information to our advantage as secular forces attempt to either legislate God out of existence in America, or utilize the courts to do so from the bench.  Washington knew that, as God is held in the hearts of Americans, freedom will reign.  Washington also knew that as soon as God disappears from American hearts, freedom would as well.  So one practical lesson Washington leaves us should be clear, and that is for all Americans to know that
No tool of American government, a description that includes the congress, the president or the federal judiciary, nor any administrator or officer under their authority, possesses within his or her job description, the authority to even question that God exists, or that God is the source of authority for the Constitution and all  federal law, or to deny the conspicuous notice of those assertions on federal properties.
In our next installment, we will delve further into the Theory of America and see what some of our other early statesmen may have had to say on the matter.

Back before you know it!

Hank

2 comments:

  1. Terrific! I especially liked the quotes from George Washington. If people only paid attention to history . . .

    Blessings!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, if people would only pay attention to history, at least they would notice when other people attempt to change history in retrospect.

    Thanks, Martha, very much.

    ReplyDelete

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