Christianity was the first non-political religion in the West. Being a Christian was not a question of what political community you belonged to, it was a matter of faith or belief. While that was incredibly liberating—because it meant salvation was open to every human being—it created unprecedented challenges for politics and citizenship.
In order to establish republican self-government, the American Founders had to solve these complicated problems. The solution they came up with is famously stated in the Declaration of Independence:
“the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
This revolutionary truth, combining human reason and divine revelation, provided the basis for establishing religious liberty for the first time in human history.
By looking to the laws of nature (or laws of reason) and nature’s God as the ultimate justification for their revolution, the Founders were asserting that there was an objective moral order in the world because that world was created by a benevolent and reasonable God.
Since our minds are a gift from God, and He intended us to use them, we can perceive much of this moral order through our own rational faculties.
This natural moral order exists outside of our will—it exists whether we like it or not. We are born into both a physical and a moral world that we do not create. the laws of nature and nature’s God are fixed and unchanging. They serve as the ground for political authority and supply conventional or everyday law with sacred and transcendent authority. In establishing this foundation for American politics,the Founders -
First, they solved the split between piety and citizenship by supplying a common ground for morality. Because the morality of the Bible and the morality of reason are compatible, one can be both a pious believer and a good citizen, while avoiding the contentious sectarian disputes that tore Europe apart.
Second, the separation of church and state becomes possible for the first time. The Declaration’s teaching about the laws of nature and nature’s God establishes a kind of political theology, a non-sectarian ground of legitimacy that makes the laws “sacred” without getting the government involved in theological disputes about the Trinity, faith versus works, etc. According to many Protestant ministers of the Founding era, this also allowed true Christianity to flourish for the first time because Christianity could be practiced by choice rather than by coercion.
Third, the Founders solved the problem of religious persecution. Because the government and the churches can agree on a moral code that is compatible with both reason and revelation, each can operate in its proper realm without intruding on the other. It becomes possible to institutionalize religious liberty by prohibiting religious tests for office and keeping government out of the business of punishing heresy.
The American Founders’ invocation of the transcendent moral authority of nature is one of the most remarkable acts of statesmanship in human history. The question which we and all American patriots confront today is whether we still understand and appreciate this incredible gift of religious liberty bequeathed to us by the Founders.
Do we still have the knowledge and courage to keep alive the sacred fire of liberty?
Glenn Ellmers
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