“We Hold These Truths to Be Self Evident”
What Does Genesis 1– 3 Have to Do with Our System of Government?
If you want to get into a heated argument, go to a political message board and assert that America is a “Christian nation.” That question is not only an emotional one, but it is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which is a serious ambiguity about what the words mean. Much of the debate involves the question of to what degree and what ways our constitutional order presupposes or depends upon Christian principles. There is ample disagreement, not only between Christians and secularists, but among Christians themselves.1 Nevertheless as we will see, there are some Biblical principles that are foundational to our constitutional system of government. Two of these are the fact of Creation and the fact of the Fall.
The Creation and the Declaration of Independence
This July was the 240th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Last summer my family and I visited Washington, DC. While there, we biked the bridge over the Tidal Basin to the Jefferson Memorial. We looked around at the engraved words on the walls, excerpts from some of Jefferson’s writings. On the Southwest portico is a selection from the Declaration of Independence containing these famous phrases:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness— That to secure these Rights Governments are instituted among Men.
Here is a succinct statement of the political philosophy upon which American independence and form of government rests. It is generally accepted out that Jefferson and the other Founders were significantly influenced by John Locke and various continental political philosophers, such as Montesquieu; however, the words of the Declaration itself point to another source: the creation of Man in God’s image.2
How does this biblical principle form the foundation of the Declaration and its political philosophy? In the quotation above, we see four “self-evident” propositions: (1) that all people are fundamentally equal; (2) that they have inherent, inalienable rights; (3) that these rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and (4) that the purpose of government is to protect those rights. But where do these rights come from? The Declaration asserts that they come from the Creator.
Of all of God’s creatures, human beings are the only ones made in His image. This image is reflected in the first mention of God’s intention to create man (Gen. 1:26) and is reaffirmed after the Fall (Gen. 9:6). It is the fountainhead of human dignity (James 3:9). Also, in the political philosophy of the Founders, it gave rise to the idea of transcendent human rights. These rights are “unalienable,” that is, they are inherent and may not be taken away. Their permanent legitimacy is due to their being given to us by our Creator. They are neither dependent on the government nor may they legitimately be abridged by the government.
Not only does Creation undergird the concepts of rights and of self-government, but it also by implication defines their nature and limits. Creatures are accountable to their Creator, and rights are subject to their Grantor. This truth necessitates that the equality and the rights referred to in the Declaration be defined by God and not by us. This provides a philosophical foundation for the concept of ordered liberty, and it prevents liberty from turning into license.
Although the Declaration of Independence was not made part of the Constitution, it is foundational to it and to the system of government that it created. In adopting the Declaration, the Second Continental Congress made two foundational claims: first, that the people of the Colonies had the right of self-government, and, second, that the Colonies themselves were independent states. Near the conclusion of the Declaration the signers stated,
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these untied Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.
The Declaration’s twin assertion of popular sovereignty and independence undergird the Constitution. This fact is apparent when one studies the latter document. The first clause of the first sentence of the Constitution says, “We the People of the United States,” and it has in its conclusion the words “done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present.” Here both popular sovereignty and political independence are presumed. The enduring force of the Declaration’s concept of inalienable rights is also evidenced by the fact that the promise of a Bill of Rights was necessary for the Constitution to pass in crucial states such as Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, and North Carolina.3 Moreover, the Declaration’s “inalienable rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are paralleled in the Fifth Amendment, which states that no person shall be deprived of “life, liberty or property” without the due process of law.4 These various parallels demonstrate that it is the Declaration that provides the philosophical ground that made our system of government possible.
The Fall and the Constitution
Of all the written national constitutions in operation today, the United States boasts the oldest.5 It was unique in its day in its provision for and careful limitation of national governmental power. These structural elements include things that we tend to take for granted, such as a legislature with two houses, a federal system of state and national governments, the separation of powers between the three branches of government, and a Bill of Rights. But all of these provisions raise the question, why were they incorporated into our governmental system in the first place? The answer lies in a view of human nature that is consistent with the biblical teaching of the Creation and the Fall.
To understand this, it is helpful to turn to the debate over the ratification of the Federal Constitution. Writing under the name of “Publius,” James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay argued the case for the Federal Constitution. These Federalist Papers were important not only for the effect they had on people’s opinions but also for explaining the political philosophy underlying our Constitution. Madison in his famous Federalist 51 pointed to human nature as the foundation of political theory: “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature.” Madison’s analysis expressed the common understanding that however noble, people are also subject to baser and more destructive passions. He based his argument for our particular form of government with its system of checks and balances on the fact that neither the governed nor the governors are free from evil and error.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
As asserted by the Declaration, because people are created in the image of God, they have a fundamental equality and liberty. Therefore, as the Declaration asserts, they have basic God-given rights, for which they are not beholden to the government. On the other side of the balance, because all people are fallen, they must be subject to governmental power so that they do not fall into anarchy and trample the rights of others. The necessity of governmental power introduces a new problem, however. Because those in power are also fallen, mechanisms must be devised to control the governing power and prevent it from devolving into tyranny. Therefore, the concept of limited government reflects both human nobility and human depravity.
These ideas were not new to Madison but were part of the Natural Rights Philosophy that influenced the Founders. According to Duane Smith, they came from the concept of “man’s fall from grace” that Locke received from his Puritan background:
It is important to remind ourselves that the political philosophy of natural rights was influenced by both Puritan and Enlightenment ideas. Nowhere is the Puritan influence more clearly illustrated than in this basic perception of human nature and its relationship to the political order.6
In large measure, then, it was to the twin ideas of our creation in God’s image and our fall from grace that provided both the rationale and the form for our system of government incorporated in the Constitution.
Why This Matters
There are at least two important implications of what we have been discussing. First, for rights to have the meaning that they were intended to have in our Constitutional system, they must be more than mere human inventions. In the Western world we still use the language of the Declaration when we talk about political and civil liberties. However, without an acknowledgment of humans as creatures in God’s image, the concept of rights becomes progressively untenable. If not given by God, then rights have no greater moral sanction than the exercise of human will, either the will of the collective or the will of the individual. And, of course it is precisely the control of human will that is the essence of governmental power. If rights come from the political process, then those rights provide no genuine protection against tyranny. In fact, there is not even a logical basis to call it tyranny, since what “rights” the State gives it may just as easily take away. Your only protection in such a case is to try to influence the State to ensure that your “rights” are protected and your interests advanced. Everything becomes politics and everyone must be a lobbyist. There is no sphere of individual or social life outside the long reach of the government. Although the government may be limited as a matter of practicality, it cannot be limited as a matter of principle.
An alternative to seeing rights as coming from the State is to see them as coming from within the individual. Under such a conception, rights are little more than deep-seated desires. This is a popular modern notion, but it is completely unworkable when my desires come into conflict with yours. As Orwell might have put it, “all desires are equal, but some desires are more equal than others.” This concept has been applied with a vengeance in the promotion and expansion of the Sexual Revolution. Sexual “rights” that are not in the Constitution are given preference over rights that are in the constitution, such as freedom of religion, association, and even life.
The second implication of a biblical view of human nature is the wisdom of limited government. As already noted, in our constitutional system government is subject to checks and balances out of a healthy skepticism of the pure motives and superior wisdom of the rulers. But there is a further rationale for limiting the aims and powers of government: people and societies are not perfectible. Because of the Fall, only radical transformation through Jesus Christ can genuinely make a person good, and even that transformation is not fully accomplished in this life. Therefore, in this age there will never be perfect people, and we will never have a perfect society. Of course, that is not to say things can never improve in human terms by the grace of God with wise effort, but they can also get worse through bad intentions, folly, or unintended consequences. There is no “long-arc of history” progressing inevitably toward heaven on earth, there is no policy or set of policies that will bring in the Millennium. In fact, history has shown repeatedly over the past two hundred years that utopianism has a way of promising heaven but delivering hell.
Our system of government is decidedly antiutopian. The system is designed on purpose to make it hard to get things done if those things do not command majority support or if they do not properly look out for the rights and interests of minorities. That often leads to messy compromises and gridlock. However, our constitutional system, based as it is on a realistic view of human nature, intentionally favored gridlock over tyranny. With significant portions of the electorate clamoring for the government to “do something” or for a political savior who will magically make everything better, the Founders’ caution is well worth heeding.
David Shumate holds doctoral degrees in Law and Old Testament Interpretation. He is the director of Mission Gospel Ministries International in Phoenix, Arizona, where he also serves as the graduate academic officer at International Baptist College.
(Originally published in FrontLine • July/August 2016. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.)
- For example, see the video, “Russell Moore on Whether America Is a Christian Nation,” https://www.youtube.com /watch?v=cYtwU7dLMEo (accessed 5/6/16). Moore denies that the United States was founded in some form of covenant relationship with God. He argues that the Founders were profoundly influenced by Christian ideas coming out the Protestant Reformation as well as by Enlightenment concepts. [↩]
- The Founders, of course had various religious beliefs ranging from orthodox Christianity to Deism. The content of their beliefs has been a matter of much argument. The common claim that they were mostly Deists is false. David L. Holmes, in his extensive analysis of their letters and public statements, concluded that a few were Deists, a few were conservative Christians, and a larger group were rationalistic Christians, or “Christiandeists” (The Faiths of Our Founding Fathers [Oxford, 2006]). The Declaration’s use of the phrase “Nature and Nature’s God” reflects this range of beliefs. Despite their religious differences, it is generally acknowledged that none of the Founders were atheists. The Declaration itself not only refers to the Creator but appeals to Him as the “Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions.” [↩]
- See the discussion in “Teaching with Documents: The Ratification of the Constitution” on the website of the National Archives, http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/constitutionday/ ratification.html (accessed 5/5/2016). [↩]
- The protection of property is the guarantor of the liberty to “pursue happiness” not because riches make one happy but because “property” is the right to decide how to use resources in that pursuit. Without property, people are serfs, living only at the sufferance of others, whether of other individuals or of the collective. [↩]
- “The Charters of Freedom,” The National Archives Website, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/charters of_freedom_ 6.html (accessed 5/6/16). [↩]
- “An Introduction to the Political Philosophy of the Constitution,” http://www.civiced.org/papers/political.html (accessed 5/6/2016). [↩]