DOCSLIB.ORG

Natural Rights, Natural Religion, and the Origins of the Free Exercise Clause

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Natural Rights, Natural Religion, and the Origins of the Free Exercise Clause ARTICLES REASON AND CONVICTION: NATURAL RIGHTS, NATURAL RELIGION, AND THE ORIGINS OF THE FREE EXERCISE CLAUSE Steven J. Heyman* ABSTRACT One of the most intense debates in contemporary America involves conflicts between religious liberty and other key values like civil rights. To shed light on such problems, courts and scholars often look to the historical background of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. But that inquiry turns out to be no less controversial. In recent years, a growing number of scholars have challenged the traditional account that focuses on the roles of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the movement to protect religious liberty in late eighteenth-century America. These scholars emphasize that most of the political energy behind the movement came from Evangelical Christians. On this revisionist account, we should not understand the Free Exercise Clause and corresponding state provisions in terms of the Enlightenment views of Jefferson and Madison, which these scholars characterize as secular, rationalist, and skeptical—if not hostile—toward religion. Instead, those protections were adopted for essentially religious reasons: to protect the liberty of individuals to respond to God’s will and to allow the church to carry out its mission to spread the Gospel. This Article offers a different understanding of the intellectual foundations of the Free Exercise Clause. The most basic view that supported religious liberty was neither secular rationalism nor Christian Evangelicalism but what contemporaries called natural religion. This view held that human beings were capable of using reason to discern the basic principles of religion, including the duties they owed to God and one another. Because religion was founded on reason, individuals had an inalienable natural right to develop their own beliefs and to worship in accord with them. At the same time, that right was limited by the law of nature and reason, which required people to respect the rights of others. In this way, the concept of natural religion established both the foundations and the limits of religious liberty. This view enabled people with different religious and philosophical perspectives to find common ground. It provided the basis for a political coalition between Evangelicals, rationalist Christians, and Enlightenment * Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Tech. A.B. 1979, J.D. 1984, Harvard. This Article was presented at a Chicago-Kent faculty workshop in November 2019. For their thoughts on previous versions, I am grateful to Sungjoon Cho, David Franklin, Andrew Ingram, Nancy Marder, Mark Rosen, Stephanie Stern, and Cristina Tilley. Kathleen Brady and Steven D. Smith were remarkably generous with their insights and knowledge, which did much to improve the article. Sofiia Kulitska, LL.M. 2019, and Rawan Hishmeh, J.D. 2021, provided valuable research assistance. As always, I want to thank my wife, Alison Kate Baldwin, for her wise counsel. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Mandy Lee, Nicole Mszal, and other members of the Chicago-Kent library and administrative staff for their extraordinary efforts in obtaining and archiving many of the historical materials used in this Article. 1 2 JOURNAL OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW [Vol. 23:1 liberals that secured the adoption of state and federal constitutional guarantees for religious freedom. The Article begins by demonstrating that natural religion and its associated ideas of natural law and natural rights were central to the intellectual world of eighteenth-century Americans. Those ideas played a vital part in many areas of thought, including political and moral philosophy, natural jurisprudence, English law, Christian and Deist theology, and even Newtonian natural science—intellectual strands that came together in the Radical Whig ideology that animated the American Revolution. Next, I explain how those ideas can enhance our understanding of the religious-liberty provisions of the first state declarations of rights; the political controversy that culminated in the passage of Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom in Virginia; and the debates surrounding the adoption of the Federal Constitution and the Free Exercise Clause itself. Finally, I explore the founders’ views on the problem of religious exemptions from civil laws, and discuss the implications of this history for our current debates over civil rights and religious liberty—a subject that the Supreme Court recently grappled with in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and that is before the Court again this Term in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 4 I. JOHN LOCKE ON RELIGION, TOLERATION, AND THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE ........................................................ 10 A. Locke on Natural Religion .............................................................. 10 1. The Concept of Natural Religion ............................................ 10 2. The Limits of Natural Religion and the Need for Revealed Religion ................................................................................... 13 3. The Relationship Between Faith and Reason ......................... 15 B. Locke on Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State ............................................................................................... 17 1. Religious Liberty ....................................................................... 17 2. Separation of Church and State ............................................... 20 3. The Limits of Religious Liberty and Toleration ..................... 20 C. Conclusion ....................................................................................... 22 II. NATURAL RELIGION IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY THOUGHT................ 22 A. The Law of Nature and Nations ..................................................... 23 B. English Law and the Toleration Act of 1689 ................................. 28 C. Moral Philosophy ............................................................................ 34 1. Sentimentalism and the Scottish Enlightenment ..................... 34 January 2021] ORIGINS OF THE FREE EXERCISE CLAUSE 3 2. Rationalism ............................................................................... 38 3. Uniting Reason and Sentiment ................................................ 40 D. Theology ......................................................................................... 41 1. Deism ........................................................................................ 42 2. Anglicanism .............................................................................. 44 3. New England Congregationalism ............................................. 47 E. Natural Science ................................................................................ 51 F. The Radical Whig Tradition ........................................................... 53 G. Conclusion ...................................................................................... 56 III. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND THE FIRST STATE CONSTITUTIONS ................................................................................. 56 A. The Revolution................................................................................ 56 B. The First State Constitutions and Declarations of Rights .............. 58 1. Virginia ...................................................................................... 58 2. Pennsylvania ............................................................................. 60 3. Massachusetts ........................................................................... 62 4. Conclusion ................................................................................ 64 IV. THE BATTLE OVER RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN 1780S VIRGINIA ............ 67 A. The Controversies of the Mid-1780s .............................................. 67 1. The General Assessment Bill .................................................. 67 2. Jefferson’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom ................ 73 B. Interpreting the Virginia Controversy ............................................. 76 C. Conclusion ....................................................................................... 88 V. THE ADOPTION OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION AND BILL OF RIGHTS ................................................................................................. 92 A. The Debate over the Constitution .................................................. 92 1. The Demand for a Bill of Rights ............................................. 92 2. The Ban on Religious Tests ..................................................... 94 B. The Free Exercise Clause and the Bill of Rights ........................... 97 VI. RELIGIOUS EXEMPTIONS FROM CIVIL LAWS .......................................101 A. Background ...................................................................................101 B. General Views on a Right to Religious Exemption During the Founding Era ..............................................................................103 4 JOURNAL OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW [Vol. 23:1 C. The Congressional Debates over Religious Exemption from Militia Duty .............................................................................................110 1. The Debate over the Bill of Rights ........................................110
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Augustine and Rousseau on the Politics of Confession
    Augustine and Rousseau on the Politics of Confession by Taylor Putnam A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2014, Taylor Putnam Abstract This thesis looks at the widely acknowledged but largely unexplored relationship between Augustine’s Confessions and Rousseau’s Confessions. In particular, it argues that Rousseau’s text demonstrates an indebtedness to both Augustine’s treatment of time within eternity and the political figure of the Christian preacher. By first comparing their competing interpretations of original sin as told in Genesis and then tracing those interpretations through the autobiographical narratives of each text, it is argued that Augustine and Rousseau both offer their lives as examples of their respective understandings of human nature. Further still, Rousseau’s attempt to supplant Augustine’s autobiography with his own sees the Augustinian preacher reformulated into the figure of the solitary walker. As a result, what was a politics of the will restrained by the temporal horizon of man becomes unleashed as the imposition of the timeless imagination. i Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Newell for his willingness to have me as a graduate student and for supervising my thesis. He generously provided me with the opportunity to pursue this education and I will be forever thankful for it. I would also like to thank Professor Darby for being my second reader and, more importantly, for his unwavering support throughout my degree. Lastly, I would like to thank my parents who in their wisdom gave me the freedom to fail and demystified what is required to learn.
    [Show full text]
  • A Constitutional Right of Religious Exemption: an Historical Perspective
    Columbia Law School Scholarship Archive Faculty Scholarship Faculty Publications 1992 A Constitutional Right of Religious Exemption: An Historical Perspective Philip A. Hamburger Columbia Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Family Law Commons, First Amendment Commons, Housing Law Commons, Human Rights Law Commons, Labor and Employment Law Commons, Land Use Law Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Law and Society Commons, and the Property Law and Real Estate Commons Recommended Citation Philip A. Hamburger, A Constitutional Right of Religious Exemption: An Historical Perspective, GEO. WASH. L. REV. (1992). Available at: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/2766 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Publications at Scholarship Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholarship Archive. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A Constitutional Right of Religious Exemption: An Historical Perspective Philip A. Hamburger* Did late eighteenth-century Americans understand the Free Exer- cise Clause of the United States Constitution to provide individuals a right of exemption from civil laws to which they had religious ob- jections? Claims of exemption based on the Free Exercise Clause have prompted some of the Supreme Court's most prominent free exercise decisions, and therefore this historical inquiry about a right of exemption may have implications for our constitutional jurispru- dence.' Even if the Court does not adopt late eighteenth-century ideas about the free exercise of religion, we may, nonetheless, find that the history of such ideas can contribute to our contemporary analysis.
    [Show full text]
  • A Contextual Examination of Three Historical Stages of Atheism and the Legality of an American Freedom from Religion
    ABSTRACT Rejecting the Definitive: A Contextual Examination of Three Historical Stages of Atheism and the Legality of an American Freedom from Religion Ethan Gjerset Quillen, B.A., M.A., M.A. Mentor: T. Michael Parrish, Ph.D. The trouble with “definitions” is they leave no room for evolution. When a word is concretely defined, it is done so in a particular time and place. Contextual interpretations permit a better understanding of certain heavy words; Atheism as a prime example. In the post-modern world Atheism has become more accepted and popular, especially as a reaction to global terrorism. However, the current definition of Atheism is terribly inaccurate. It cannot be stated properly that pagan Atheism is the same as New Atheism. By interpreting the Atheisms from four stages in the term‟s history a clearer picture of its meaning will come out, hopefully alleviating the stereotypical biases weighed upon it. In the interpretation of the Atheisms from Pagan Antiquity, the Enlightenment, the New Atheist Movement, and the American Judicial and Civil Religious system, a defense of the theory of elastic contextual interpretations, rather than concrete definitions, shall be made. Rejecting the Definitive: A Contextual Examination of Three Historical Stages of Atheism and the Legality of an American Freedom from Religion by Ethan Gjerset Quillen, B.A., M.A. A Thesis Approved by the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies ___________________________________ Robyn L. Driskell, Ph.D., Interim Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Approved by the Thesis Committee ___________________________________ T.
    [Show full text]
  • Completed Thesis
    THE UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Human Uniqueness: Twenty-First Century Perspectives from Theology, Science and Archaeology Josephine Kiddle Bsc (Biology) MA (Religion) Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy February 2013 This Thesis has been completed as a requirement for a postgraduate research degree of the University of Winchester. The word count is: 89350 THE UNIVERSITY OF WINCHESTER ABSTRACT FOR THESIS Human Uniqueness: Twenty-First Century Perspectives from Theology, Science and Archaeology A project aiming to establish, through the three disciplines, the value of human uniqueness as an integrating factor for science with theology Josephine Kiddle Bsc (Biology) MA (Religion) Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Doctor of Philosophy February 2013 The theme that underlies the thesis is the challenge presented by science, as it developed from the time of the Enlightenment through the centuries until the present day, to Christian theology. The consequent conflict of ideas is traced in respect of biological science and the traditions of Protestant Christian doctrine, together with the advances of the developing discipline of prehistoric archaeology since the early nineteenth century. The common ground from which disagreement stemmed was the existence of human beings and the uniqueness of the human species as a group amongst all other creatures. With the conflict arising from this challenge, centring on the origin and history of human uniqueness, a rift became established between the disciplines which widened as they progressed through to the twentieth century. It is this separation that the thesis takes up and endeavours to analyse in the light of the influence of advancing science on the blending of philosophical scientific ideas with the elements of Christian faith of former centuries.
    [Show full text]
  • David Hume, "The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion," and Religious Tolerance
    University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Supervised Undergraduate Student Research Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects and Creative Work 5-2020 David Hume, "The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion," and Religious Tolerance Jarrett Delozier [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_chanhonoproj Part of the History of Philosophy Commons, History of Religion Commons, Intellectual History Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Delozier, Jarrett, "David Hume, "The Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion," and Religious Tolerance" (2020). Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_chanhonoproj/2382 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Supervised Undergraduate Student Research and Creative Work at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DeLozier 1 Introduction In the history of philosophy of religion and natural theology, David Hume is an immensely influential contributor. One of his most important works in the field is his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, which contains his greatest treatment of natural theology, specifically the design argument. However, there’s a big problem which the Dialogues present to understanding Hume. Eleven of the twelve parts of the Dialogues contain Hume’s sharp criticisms and attacks on the Design argument. But in the final part, in what is often called “Philo’s Reversal,” he seems to completely reverse course by renouncing his skepticism and endorsing the Design argument.
    [Show full text]
  • 2018 Annual Report 11 the American Baptist Churches
    2018 ANNUAL REPORT 11 THE AMERICAN BAPTIST CHURCHES OF MASSACHUSETTS MAIL 189 Prescott Street, Groton, MA 01450 PHONE 978-448-1445 FAX 978-448-0025 EMAIL [email protected] URL www.tabcom.org1 OFFICERS & LEADERSHIP 21 EXECUTIVE MINISTER’S REPORT 22 PRESIDENT’S REFLECTION 24 ADMINISTRATION & FINANCE 25 2018 FINANCIAL REPORTS 26 GROTONWOOD 26 OCEANWOOD 30 TABCOM CORE 34 FRIENDS OF REGIONAL MINISTRIES 36 GEORGE WRIGHT FUND 36 MA AMERICAN BAPTIST INVESTMENT TRUST 37 AREA MINISTRY SERVICES 38 ADONIRAM JUDSON ASSOCIATION 40 BERKSHIRE ASSOCIATION 40 BOSTON SOUTH WEST ASSOCIATION 41 CENTRAL MA ASSOCIATION 43 MERRIMACK VALLEY ASSOCIATION 44 OLD COLONY ASSOCIATION 45 PIONEER VALLEY ASSOCIATION 47 SAMUEL STILLMAN ASSOCIATION 48 HAITIAN LIAISON 49 HISPANIC LIAISON 49 NATIVE AMERICAN LIAISON 50 PORTUGUESE SPEAKING LIAISON 51 SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR 52 DEAF & HARD OF HEARING MINITRY 53 DIRECTOR OF MISSIONS 53 ELDER MINISTRY 54 SCHOOL OF MINISTRY 55 BY-LAWS TASK FORCE 55 TABCOM REGIONAL CONTACTS 56 PARTNER ORGANIZATIONS AND FRIENDS 57 2018 ANNUAL REPORT 22 THE AMERICAN BAPTIST CHURCHES OF MASSACHUSETTS MAIL 189 Prescott Street, Groton, MA 01450 PHONE 978-448-1445 FAX 978-448-0025 EMAIL [email protected] URL www.tabcom.org2 OFFICERS Executive Minister: Rev. Mary Miller President: Rev. Gary Ludwig Vice President: Paul Moore Treasurer: Weimin Feng Clerk: Barbara Drauschke Immediate Past President: Annette Thomas BOARD OF DIRECTORS Elected Representatives Nominated by Ethnic Communities Rev. Atula Jamir ~ Lowell, Calvary Baptist Hispanic Ministries Representative Richard Lynch ~ Boston, Tremont Temple Rev. Jackson Oliveira ~ Portuguese Speaking Ministries Jessica Merrill ~ South Hadley, Second Baptist Representative Pearl Morrison ~ Boston, People’s Baptist Rev.
    [Show full text]
  • The Latitudinarian Influence on Early English Liberalism Amanda Oh Southern Methodist University, [email protected]
    Southern Methodist University SMU Scholar The Larrie and Bobbi Weil Undergraduate Research Central University Libraries Award Documents 2019 The Latitudinarian Influence on Early English Liberalism Amanda Oh Southern Methodist University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.smu.edu/weil_ura Part of the European History Commons, History of Religion Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Oh, Amanda, "The Latitudinarian Influence on Early English Liberalism" (2019). The Larrie and Bobbi Weil Undergraduate Research Award Documents. 10. https://scholar.smu.edu/weil_ura/10 This document is brought to you for free and open access by the Central University Libraries at SMU Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Larrie and Bobbi Weil Undergraduate Research Award Documents by an authorized administrator of SMU Scholar. For more information, please visit http://digitalrepository.smu.edu. The Latitudinarian Influence on Early English Liberalism Amanda Oh Professor Wellman HIST 4300: Junior Seminar 30 April 2018 Part I: Introduction The end of the seventeenth century in England saw the flowering of liberal ideals that turned on new beliefs about the individual, government, and religion. At that time the relationship between these cornerstones of society fundamentally shifted. The result was the preeminence of the individual over government and religion, whereas most of Western history since antiquity had seen the manipulation of the individual by the latter two institutions. Liberalism built on the idea that both religion and government were tied to the individual. Respect for the individual entailed respect for religious diversity and governing authority came from the assent of the individual.
    [Show full text]
  • A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Satisfaction of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO PUBLIC CATHOLICISM AND RELIGIOUS PLURALISM IN AMERICA: THE ADAPTATION OF A RELIGIOUS CULTURE TO THE CIRCUMSTANCE OF DIVERSITY, AND ITS IMPLICATIONS A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology by Michael J. Agliardo, SJ Committee in charge: Professor Richard Madsen, Chair Professor John H. Evans Professor David Pellow Professor Joel Robbins Professor Gershon Shafir 2008 Copyright Michael J. Agliardo, SJ, 2008 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Michael Joseph Agliardo is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2008 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ......................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents......................................................................................................................iv List Abbreviations and Acronyms ............................................................................................vi List of Graphs ......................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................. viii Vita.............................................................................................................................................x
    [Show full text]
  • An Essay in Descriptive Ecclesiology
    Grosvenor Essay no. 4 the shape of our church An essay in descriptive ecclesiology The Doctrine Committee of the Scottish Episcopal Church GROSVENOR ESSAY No. 4 The Shape of Our Church: An Essay in Descriptive Ecclesiology ISBN 0 905573 78 1 © Doctrine Committee of the Scottish Episcopal Church 2007 Comments or questions on this Essay should be directed to The General Synod Office 21 Grosvenor Crescent Edinburgh EH12 5EE Tel: 0131 225 6357 Email: [email protected] Also available in this series: Grosvenor Essay No. 1 - sketches towards a theology of science. £2.50 Published 2004. ISBN 0 905573 64 1 Grosvenor Essay No. 2 - theology and the power of the image. £3.00 Published 2005. ISBN 0 905573 66 8 Grosvenor Essay No. 3 - the inter-faith encounter. £2.50 Published 2006. ISBN 0 905573 71 4 GROSVENOR ESSAY No. 4 The Shape of Our Church: An Essay in Descriptive Ecclesiology Contents Preface 1 1. Introduction 3 2. Mission 13 3. Our Anglican Context 21 4. Foundations: Scripture, Tradition and Reason 24 5. Ministry 30 6. A Note of Caution 36 7. Worship 38 8. Conclusion 40 Further Reading 42 Preface The Shape of our Church: an Essay in Descriptive Ecclesiology The present Essay is the fourth in the series of Essays produced by the Doctrine Committee of the Scottish Episcopal Church. Like its predecessors, it is intended to be a stimulus to inquiring readers. Previous Essays have examined topics of general interest: the interrelationships of theology and the sciences (Essay no. 1) and of theology and the visual arts (Essay no.
    [Show full text]
  • Can Two Walk Together Unless They Be Agreed?" the Origins of the Primitive Baptists, 1800-1840
    "CAN TWO WALK TOGETHER UNLESS THEY BE AGREED'' THE ORIGINS OF THE PRIMITIVE BAPTISTS, 1800-1840 By JAMES R MATHIS A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1997 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation, by any human standard, should never have been completed. It has survived personal difficulties which necessitated my getting a job, cutting severely into the amount of time I was able to spend in research and writing. It has survived a fire which led to a hard drive crash and necessitated a slow process of reconstructing notes and drafts which added about six to nine months of work to the project. It survived bouts of despair, depression, and disillusionment, a pervasive sense that it was never going to be finished. But here it is—late, but finished. I have accumulated innumerable debts I will never be able to repay. I would like to thank, first, my father, James D. Mathis, who did not live to see his son earn first a master's and then a doctorate degree. He introduced me to libraries and the wonders contained in their shelves at an early age. He passed onto me a thirst for knowledge and love of writing which sustained me through many hours trying to piece one fi-agment after another together into something resembling coherence. My mother, Oleta O. Mathis, carefiilly avoided the topic of the dissertation during the time when I had not been near the computer in months.
    [Show full text]
  • In Search of an Established Church
    Roger Williams University Law Review Volume 26 Issue 2 Vol. 26: No. 2 (Spring 2021) Article 3 Symposium: Is This a Christian Nation? Spring 2021 In Search of an Established Church Teresa M. Bejan University of Oxford Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.rwu.edu/rwu_LR Part of the First Amendment Commons, and the Religion Law Commons Recommended Citation Bejan, Teresa M. (2021) "In Search of an Established Church," Roger Williams University Law Review: Vol. 26 : Iss. 2 , Article 3. Available at: https://docs.rwu.edu/rwu_LR/vol26/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Roger Williams University Law Review by an authorized editor of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. In Search of an Established Church Teresa M. Bejan* INTRODUCTION I approach the question guiding this Symposium as a political theorist, as well as a historian of political thought. I approach it, too, as an American—albeit one who has lived and taught for many years overseas. The politics of religion in the United States fascinates me, personally and professionally. I am interested above all to understand the way in which past ways of thinking and doing have affected—and continue to affect—how we think about politics, and how we do things politically, today. For many political theorists, the question “Is America a Christian Nation?” will provoke a straightforward¾“no.” Empirically, while a strong majority (65% in 2019) of Americans still identify as Christian when asked, that number has declined sharply over the past decade.1 At the same time the rise of the “Nones,” i.e., those Americans who claim no religious affiliation, identified by Robert Putnam and David Campbell in 2010 proceeds apace.2 More important than the facts—for political theorists anyway—is the theory.
    [Show full text]
  • MALEBRANCHE's THEODICY for NATURAL EVILS a Dissertation
    MALEBRANCHE’S THEODICY FOR NATURAL EVILS A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Ziqian Zhang August 2021 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Colin Chamberlain, Advisory Chair, Philosophy Department Dr. Kristin Gjesdal, Philosophy Department Dr. David Wolfsdorf, Philosophy Department Dr. Samuel Newlands, External Member, University of Notre Dame ABSTRACT My dissertation examines Malebranche’s theodicy for natural evils (i.e., Malebranche’s reconciliation of the existence of God with the existence of natural evils). In Chapter 1, entitled “The Conceptual Possibility of Natural Evils,” I explain how Malebranche conceives of certain natural things (e.g., pains, deformities/monstrosities, and disasters) as natural evils. Chapter 1 is preliminary: it clarifies Malebranche’s conception of natural evils as certain deviations from the biological forms that agree with the dictates of God’s Reason or wisdom. In Chapter 2, entitled “The Physical Possibility of Natural Evils,” I explain how Malebranche’s God produces natural evils in the physical world. Similar to Chapter 1, Chapter 2 is preliminary: it clarifies the causal involvement of Malebranche’s God in His production of natural evils, and it therefore specifies His activities that are to be reconciled with His absolute perfection. In Chapter 3, entitled “The Theological Possibility of Natural Evils,” I reconstruct Malebranche’s theodicy for natural evils by explaining how Malebranche’s God – who is by definition absolutely perfect – performs the aforespecified activities that result in natural evils. On my reconstruction, Malebranche’s God is determined by His absolute perfection – His Reason or wisdom, more precisely – to bring about natural evils, so natural evils do not pose any threat to His absolute perfection, and, accordingly, the existence of God is reconciled with the existence of natural evils.
    [Show full text]