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Revolutionary Deists: Early America's Rational Infidels
This illuminating discussion of deism in the early American colonies presents an overview of its main tenets, showing how its influence rose swiftly and for a time became a highly controversial subject of debate among the first citizens of our nation. The deists were students of the Enlightenment and took a keen interest in the scientific study of nature. They were thus critical of orthodox Christianity for its superstitious belief in miracles, persecution of dissent, and suppression of independent thought and expression.At the heart of his book are profiles of six "rational infidels," most of whom are quite familiar to Americans as founding fathers or colonial Benjamin Franklin (the ambivalent deist), Thomas Jefferson (a critic of Christian supernaturalism but an admirer of its ethics), Ethan Allen (the rough-edged "frontier deist"), Thomas Paine (the arch iconoclast and author of The Age of Reason), Elihu Palmer (the tireless crusader for deism and perhaps its most influential proponent), and Philip Freneau (a poet whose popular verses combined deism with early romanticism). This is a fascinating study of America''s first culture war, one that in many ways has continued to this day.
276 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 24, 2010
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June 3, 2024
A HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE RELIGIOUS VIEWS (E.G., DEISM) OF SIX “FOUNDERS”
Author Kerry Walters wrote in the Introduction to this 2011 book, “this book deals with a revolution in religious and ethical thought, one that started modestly enough in the beginning but swelled to inflammatory militancy toward the eighteenth century’s end. In the process, it helped to change the way in which American religious leaders practiced theology, as well as influenced the direction of popular religious sensitivity. This revolution, which the first major widespread challenge to Christian orthodoxy in America, was spearheaded by a group of thinkers who can be called ‘rational infidels.’ These men defended a religion of nature and reason known then and now as deism.” (Pg. 7)
He continued, “they dismissed… the supernaturalist doctrines of miracles and special revelation, argued that neither Scripture nor ecclesial tradition possessed divine authority or internal consistency, and refused to accept either the divinity of Jesus or the orthodox trinitarian definition of the Godhead. Such doctrines, they charged, violated ordinary human experience and were antithetical to the dictates of reason. Belief in them… also insulted the majesty and dignity of God. Even more radically, many (but not all) of the American deists also argued that the Christian religion exerted a pernicious moral influence upon humankind… it was also a fundamental obstacle to the improvement of humankind and the amelioration of social and political injustices.” (Pg. 8)
He adds, “In the eyes of their orthodox theological and political opponents, they were loathsome apostates, traitors to the ways of both God and religion… one thing was clear… the gauntlet these rational infidels threw down before Christianity could not be ignored. Orthodoxy in the United States would not reel again from such a sustained onslaught against its cherished beliefs until the late nineteenth-century debate sparked by Darwinism.” (Pg. 9)
He observes, “Ironically, the Christian establishment’s rather hysterical reaction to the spread of deism only served to keep the movement in the public eye. Men of the cloth relentlessly blasted the ‘new infidelity’ from their pulpits, unwittingly arousing their parishioners’ already lively curiosity about this threat to orthodox hegemony.” (Pg. 22)
He summarizes, “Less radical than French atheism, which in part was shaped by its background of overpowering church and state oppression, but more militant than the staidly liberal character of British deism, American deism in retrospect can be seen as occupying the middle ground in eighteenth-century free thought. It advocated religious and social reforms that undoubtedly struck contemporary observers as radical in nature, but it stopped short of the total overthrown of the established order championed by the more radical proponents of French thought. It sought the liberation of mind and spirit, but always within the boundaries… of ‘reason, righteous and immortal reason.’” (Pg. 44)
He explains, “the diverse approaches of individual American deists should not blind us to the common thread of argument that runs through and hence unifies their thought… all of them were in solid agreement with the fundamental tenets of natural religion… that humans are likewise imbued with a spark of the Divine Reason that permeates reality, and hence are capable of understanding that reality… and that the highest form of worship humanity can offer the Supreme Architect is rational inquiry and virtuous behavior… The demolition of Christian supernaturalism thus represented for them … the beginning of a new epoch---an epoch of reason---in which humankind, freed from the bondage of centuries, would at last come into its own.” (Pg. 45-46)
He notes, “even though [Benjamin] Franklin settled in his late twenties on the deistic position that he would hold for the rest of his life, he nonetheless clung to at least one theological holdover from his Calvinist background: a belief in the possibility of ‘special providences.’… Although affirming that reality is governed by natural laws, he also argued that the Deity is capable of overturning or even reversing them upon occasion.” (Pg. 73) Later, he adds, “In his youth he had drunk too deeply from the waters of Calvinism to throw over completely the uneasy suspicion that, when it came to the practice of virtue, humans needed a rigorous regimen of [discipline] and self-inquiry.” (Pg. 80)
He says of Ethan Allen, “Allen has rejected orthodox Christianity’s worldview on several grounds. He has argued that human reason is a necessary as well as sufficient means of understanding reality, that scriptural accounts of miracles are suspect because they blemish the concept of God, and that faith, properly understood, is a conclusion derived from either deductive or inductive logic… not a mysterious and intrinsically incomprehensible revelation.” (Pg. 102) He adds, “Ethan Allen … does not belong in the intellectual first rank of American deism… But for all that… the issues with which he dealt blazed a trail for the work of subsequent, more sophisticated champions of natural religion.” (Pg. 111)
Of Thomas Paine’s ‘Age of Reason,’ he comments, “No American deist before him had so stirred up public debate over religious issues… Paine’s ‘Age of Reason’ … was readily accessible on the street, and the clarity of its style as well as its outrageously iconoclastic denunciations of supernaturalism propelled it to center stage. In short, there may have been nothing new IN the book, but there was certainly something new ABOUT it. It spoke in such strident terms that it simply could not be ignored.” (Pg. 142)
He states, “Jefferson was not, then, a Christian in the dogmatic sense of the word. Orthodox… theology… violated those structural foundations that he deemed necessary conditions of all legitimate knowledge… Yet the curious fact remains that Jefferson insisted upon calling himself a ‘real Christian.’ This suggests that he believed there was some way to strip the Platonic accretions from Jesus’ original teachings to arrive at their pure, unsullied message. It also implies that Jefferson took that original message to be consistent with his own deistic notions of God.” (Pg. 155)
He continues, “Jefferson’s deism is best described as firm but moderate. He was not as ambivalent in his endorsement of Enlightenment rationalism as a Benjamin Franklin… Nor was Jefferson as stridently contemptuous of the Christian ethos as a Tom Paine of Elihu Palmer… he retained an honest admiration for the man Jesus and his original teachings… He can be viewed as a deistic Christian… while jettisoning, in good Enlightenment style, its supernaturalist excesses.” (Pg. 170)
He says of Elihu Palmer, “It is not too much to say that Palmer irrevocably influenced the character of nineteenth-century religious thought in America. After his deistic crusade, orthodox apologists realized that their defenses of Christianity could no longer credibly bypass textual criticism or ignore natural science… In short, Palmer’s doggedly militant challenge to the Christian worldview was too serious to ignore. It is because of this that he so richly deserves the title… ‘the chief of American deists.’” (Pg. 207-208)
He states of Philip Freneau, “He was a believer in the deistic worldview, but also admitted to a proto-romantic skepticism about the ability of reason to fathom reality. He admired the mechanistic natural philosophy of Lucretius and Newton, but attempted to wed it with an almost mystical vision of a divine emanationism that ‘loved’ the world into being.” (Pg. 241)
He suggests, “Why did a movement that exercised the American imagination for two generations end in such a dismal way? There are several explanations. To begin with, the leading voices in the movement died out one by one, and no new generation of deists arose to take their place… This depletion occurred largely because the ideal of rational religion had lost currency in the minds of many. It no longer spoke to those dissatisfied with conventional Christianity, no longer offered an alternative to supernaturalism that was deemed viable… new expressions of heterodoxy … more ably spoke to and for the new generation… deism’s demise … was hastened by the growth of what one historian calls the ‘democratization’ of religion in the early Republic… a Christian revivalism swept through the country between, roughly, 1780 and 1830.” (Pg. 246-247)
This is an excellent treatment of the subject, that will “must reading” for anyone seriously studying the religious views of the founding fathers.
Author Kerry Walters wrote in the Introduction to this 2011 book, “this book deals with a revolution in religious and ethical thought, one that started modestly enough in the beginning but swelled to inflammatory militancy toward the eighteenth century’s end. In the process, it helped to change the way in which American religious leaders practiced theology, as well as influenced the direction of popular religious sensitivity. This revolution, which the first major widespread challenge to Christian orthodoxy in America, was spearheaded by a group of thinkers who can be called ‘rational infidels.’ These men defended a religion of nature and reason known then and now as deism.” (Pg. 7)
He continued, “they dismissed… the supernaturalist doctrines of miracles and special revelation, argued that neither Scripture nor ecclesial tradition possessed divine authority or internal consistency, and refused to accept either the divinity of Jesus or the orthodox trinitarian definition of the Godhead. Such doctrines, they charged, violated ordinary human experience and were antithetical to the dictates of reason. Belief in them… also insulted the majesty and dignity of God. Even more radically, many (but not all) of the American deists also argued that the Christian religion exerted a pernicious moral influence upon humankind… it was also a fundamental obstacle to the improvement of humankind and the amelioration of social and political injustices.” (Pg. 8)
He adds, “In the eyes of their orthodox theological and political opponents, they were loathsome apostates, traitors to the ways of both God and religion… one thing was clear… the gauntlet these rational infidels threw down before Christianity could not be ignored. Orthodoxy in the United States would not reel again from such a sustained onslaught against its cherished beliefs until the late nineteenth-century debate sparked by Darwinism.” (Pg. 9)
He observes, “Ironically, the Christian establishment’s rather hysterical reaction to the spread of deism only served to keep the movement in the public eye. Men of the cloth relentlessly blasted the ‘new infidelity’ from their pulpits, unwittingly arousing their parishioners’ already lively curiosity about this threat to orthodox hegemony.” (Pg. 22)
He summarizes, “Less radical than French atheism, which in part was shaped by its background of overpowering church and state oppression, but more militant than the staidly liberal character of British deism, American deism in retrospect can be seen as occupying the middle ground in eighteenth-century free thought. It advocated religious and social reforms that undoubtedly struck contemporary observers as radical in nature, but it stopped short of the total overthrown of the established order championed by the more radical proponents of French thought. It sought the liberation of mind and spirit, but always within the boundaries… of ‘reason, righteous and immortal reason.’” (Pg. 44)
He explains, “the diverse approaches of individual American deists should not blind us to the common thread of argument that runs through and hence unifies their thought… all of them were in solid agreement with the fundamental tenets of natural religion… that humans are likewise imbued with a spark of the Divine Reason that permeates reality, and hence are capable of understanding that reality… and that the highest form of worship humanity can offer the Supreme Architect is rational inquiry and virtuous behavior… The demolition of Christian supernaturalism thus represented for them … the beginning of a new epoch---an epoch of reason---in which humankind, freed from the bondage of centuries, would at last come into its own.” (Pg. 45-46)
He notes, “even though [Benjamin] Franklin settled in his late twenties on the deistic position that he would hold for the rest of his life, he nonetheless clung to at least one theological holdover from his Calvinist background: a belief in the possibility of ‘special providences.’… Although affirming that reality is governed by natural laws, he also argued that the Deity is capable of overturning or even reversing them upon occasion.” (Pg. 73) Later, he adds, “In his youth he had drunk too deeply from the waters of Calvinism to throw over completely the uneasy suspicion that, when it came to the practice of virtue, humans needed a rigorous regimen of [discipline] and self-inquiry.” (Pg. 80)
He says of Ethan Allen, “Allen has rejected orthodox Christianity’s worldview on several grounds. He has argued that human reason is a necessary as well as sufficient means of understanding reality, that scriptural accounts of miracles are suspect because they blemish the concept of God, and that faith, properly understood, is a conclusion derived from either deductive or inductive logic… not a mysterious and intrinsically incomprehensible revelation.” (Pg. 102) He adds, “Ethan Allen … does not belong in the intellectual first rank of American deism… But for all that… the issues with which he dealt blazed a trail for the work of subsequent, more sophisticated champions of natural religion.” (Pg. 111)
Of Thomas Paine’s ‘Age of Reason,’ he comments, “No American deist before him had so stirred up public debate over religious issues… Paine’s ‘Age of Reason’ … was readily accessible on the street, and the clarity of its style as well as its outrageously iconoclastic denunciations of supernaturalism propelled it to center stage. In short, there may have been nothing new IN the book, but there was certainly something new ABOUT it. It spoke in such strident terms that it simply could not be ignored.” (Pg. 142)
He states, “Jefferson was not, then, a Christian in the dogmatic sense of the word. Orthodox… theology… violated those structural foundations that he deemed necessary conditions of all legitimate knowledge… Yet the curious fact remains that Jefferson insisted upon calling himself a ‘real Christian.’ This suggests that he believed there was some way to strip the Platonic accretions from Jesus’ original teachings to arrive at their pure, unsullied message. It also implies that Jefferson took that original message to be consistent with his own deistic notions of God.” (Pg. 155)
He continues, “Jefferson’s deism is best described as firm but moderate. He was not as ambivalent in his endorsement of Enlightenment rationalism as a Benjamin Franklin… Nor was Jefferson as stridently contemptuous of the Christian ethos as a Tom Paine of Elihu Palmer… he retained an honest admiration for the man Jesus and his original teachings… He can be viewed as a deistic Christian… while jettisoning, in good Enlightenment style, its supernaturalist excesses.” (Pg. 170)
He says of Elihu Palmer, “It is not too much to say that Palmer irrevocably influenced the character of nineteenth-century religious thought in America. After his deistic crusade, orthodox apologists realized that their defenses of Christianity could no longer credibly bypass textual criticism or ignore natural science… In short, Palmer’s doggedly militant challenge to the Christian worldview was too serious to ignore. It is because of this that he so richly deserves the title… ‘the chief of American deists.’” (Pg. 207-208)
He states of Philip Freneau, “He was a believer in the deistic worldview, but also admitted to a proto-romantic skepticism about the ability of reason to fathom reality. He admired the mechanistic natural philosophy of Lucretius and Newton, but attempted to wed it with an almost mystical vision of a divine emanationism that ‘loved’ the world into being.” (Pg. 241)
He suggests, “Why did a movement that exercised the American imagination for two generations end in such a dismal way? There are several explanations. To begin with, the leading voices in the movement died out one by one, and no new generation of deists arose to take their place… This depletion occurred largely because the ideal of rational religion had lost currency in the minds of many. It no longer spoke to those dissatisfied with conventional Christianity, no longer offered an alternative to supernaturalism that was deemed viable… new expressions of heterodoxy … more ably spoke to and for the new generation… deism’s demise … was hastened by the growth of what one historian calls the ‘democratization’ of religion in the early Republic… a Christian revivalism swept through the country between, roughly, 1780 and 1830.” (Pg. 246-247)
This is an excellent treatment of the subject, that will “must reading” for anyone seriously studying the religious views of the founding fathers.
August 29, 2015
I have discussed this excellent book here in an essay entitled "Deism, Unitarianism, and the US Founders."
October 28, 2018
Very well researched and explained. My only difficulty was the constant in insistent use of $14 words. It made the flow cumbersome for those of us not associated with the philosophy vocabulary.
January 16, 2013
Not as riveting as I ad hoped. Still a test read, but its 'case by case' approach promised to be revealing, yet filled in much material available in the biographical matter available on each of the founders. Certainly this is a great book to orient oneself regarding the religious radicalism of some of the Founding Fathers, yet it failed to explain Deism's later fortunes, nor the profound influence it had on the nation. Certainly an interesting primer, but given the tameness of the Founding Father's chosen, nor a contextualisation of Deist beliefs and its origins this work begs for a rewrite, or even a series.
January 7, 2014
Well worth taking my time over - I will probably refer to this as a source of information & ideas for the foreseeable future.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews