Self-Contradiction in the U.S. Constitution: The Influence of John Locke

Constitution Day, a U.S. “federal observance” (holiday) on September 17, was established in 2004. I am planning to post a blog article about that on Sept. 15, but this post provides background information and is largely about philosopher John Locke—with a little about “original sin.”   

John Locke was born in England on August 29, 1632, and died in 1704 at the age of 72. Although he never traveled to what more than 70 years after his death became the United States of America, he had considerable influence upon the new nation formed by rebellion against England.

Just last month, University of Chicago Press published America's Philosopher: John Locke in American Intellectual Life by historian Claire Rydell Arcenas.

Locke, who was born into a Puritan home, became the author of hundreds of essays, tracts, and letters, many of which opposed political tyranny and religious persecution. His philosophical, religious, and political thought bolstered the North American British colonists’ fight for freedom.

Although the framers of the United States Constitution, drafted in 1787, were influenced by many different persons, John Locke’s ideas were the most influential factor. (See this instructive website.)

In his seminal work “Second Treatise of Government” (1690), Locke put forward the concept that the power of government originates from the consent of the governed, writing,

Men being . . . by nature, all free, equal and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent.

At the same time, however, Locke condoned slavery, denied women full inclusion in civil society, and, ultimately, excluded atheists and Catholics from his calls for toleration. To a large extent, his self-contradictory ideas were accepted by those who wrote and approved the U.S. Constitution.

Heather Cox Richardson introduces John Locke in “The Roots of Paradox,” the first chapter of her intriguing book How the South Won the Civil War (2020).*

In “Introduction,” Richardson states: “America began with a great paradox: the same men who came up with the radical idea of constructing a nation on the principle of equality also owned slaves, thought Indians were savages, and considered women inferior” (p. xv).

She asserts that the “self-evident” truths that Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration of Independence were “cribbed” from John Locke. Based on Locke’s Two Treatises on Government, Jefferson agreed with Locke’s Enlightenment idea of government as a social compact, saying that

the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitled the colonists to create a separate government equal to that of England (Richardson, p. 12).

But Locke, and Jefferson, also held the view that some people—particularly white, moneyed men—were superior to others, especially women as well as indigenous and enslaved people.

So in spite of my deep appreciation for Richardson, she is misleading on calling Locke’s/Jefferson’s position “the American paradox.”

A real paradox expresses truth in statements that just seem to be self-contradictory. However, the stance of Locke and Jefferson was, in reality, self-contradictory.

John Locke’s name also appears repeatedly in Mark Ellingsen’s thought-provoking book Blessed are the Cynical: How Original Sin Can Make America a Better Place (2003), mostly in his second chapter, “Augustinian Realism and the American Constitutional System.”**

Locke was one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers, and as Ellingsen points out, the “Enlightenment’s optimistic view of human nature seems embedded in both the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence” (p. 56).

But along with their embracing that optimistic view, Ellingsen argues that “founding fathers” such as James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and even Benjamin Franklin also maintained “Augustinian convictions,” that is, a view of the reality of “original sin” that can be traced back to Augustine.

The paradox of the Constitution is seen in this juxtaposition of the Enlightenment view and the Augustinian view of human nature.

There are many deficient ways that the doctrine of original sin has been explained, and some of Augustine’s basic assertions are problematic.

But I think Ellingsen’s ideas about original sin are correct and agree with his conclusion: “Vigilance about the low sides of human nature, a healthy cynicism, improves civic life.”

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* Richardson (b. 1962) is an outstanding historian/history professor who daily posts “Letters from an American.” Early every morning I read her latest “letter” and always find them very informative. Here is the link to her blogsite.

** Ellingsen (b. 1949), an Augustinian scholar with a Ph.D. from Yale, is an ordained Lutheran (ELCA) pastor and a church history professor at the Interdenominational Theological Seminary in Atlanta. This link should take you to my 2011 review of his book on Goodreads (scroll down). 

Should Jesus Be Demoted?

“We must begin by giving Jesus a demotion. He asked for it, he deserves it, we owe him no less.” These words by Robert W. Funk are cited at the head of Chapter Seven of my book The Limits of Liberalism, which I am currently updating and slightly revising. So, what about it? Should Jesus be demoted?

The Traditional/Orthodox Position

Jesus of Nazareth has been a problematic person to many ever since he walked the shores of the Sea of Galilee and was crucified outside the city walls of Jerusalem and, according to his followers, resurrected.

Jesus was a problem for the Jewish religious leaders who thought he was guilty of blasphemy. Jesus was a problem for the Roman political leaders who thought he was probably a dangerous insurrectionist.

Jesus soon became a problem for Christian thinkers as well. There were some who espoused Docetism, the view that Jesus was a divine being who only appeared to be human. That idea was explicitly branded as a heresy by Ignatius (A.D. c.35~107).

Then there was Arius (256~336), who propounded that Jesus was neither fully God nor fully human but rather a type of demigod. His view was labeled a heresy at the Council of Nicaea (325), which concluded that Jesus Christ was both “true” God and a “true” human being.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church  states clearly the orthodox view, which is also held by most traditional Protestants: “He [Jesus] became truly man while remaining truly God. Jesus Christ is true God and true man” (1994 ed., 464). 

The Liberal Position

The traditional view of Jesus has long been called into question by various Christian thinkers.

In contrast to the view of the Catholic Church as well as the Protestant Reformers and most of their followers through the centuries, according to which the primary message about Jesus is his death and resurrection which brings about the atonement of sinful humans, the liberal position emphasizes the life and work of Jesus before his death.

Liberal Christians follow Jesus not because he was “God incarnate,” but because he was and remains an exceptional and exemplary human being. And according to many liberal theologians, the human Jesus was “promoted” to divinity by the faith of the early church.

Robert W. Funk, cited at the beginning of this article, was the well-respected New Testament Scholar who founded the Jesus Seminar in 1985. Funk (1926~2005) made that striking proposal in “Jesus for a New Age,” the epilogue of his book Honest to Jesus (1996, p. 306).

Funk, and many other liberals, seem to think that a choice has to be made: either Jesus Christ must be acknowledged as an eternal divine being or as a “humble Galilean” sage who lived some 2,000 years ago.

But why does it have to be either/or?

The Paradoxical Position

Last week I happened to run across an article by Daniel P. Horan, a youngish (b. 1983) Catholic theologian. His fine piece is titled “The heresy of oversimplified Christianity.”

Horan says well what I have said and taught for decades—but maybe not so clearly. For example, he explains that heresy results from “mistaking part of the truth for the whole truth in a matter of faith or doctrine.”

He then asserts that this explanation “reveals what is so appealing about heresies and why so many Christians inevitably fall for them.” Heretical positions are usually oversimplified and reductionistic statements.

Thus, and these are my words, heresies are always appealing because they are easier to understand and to affirm than the traditional/orthodox position.

To quote Horan again, “The truth is that Christianity is not a religion for those who seek easy answers or black-and-white thinking.” He goes on to assert that “false Christianity promotes ‘either/or’ approaches to faith and morals” whereas “true Christianity has always been a ‘both/and’ tradition.

That is why in Chapter Seven I insist that we don’t have to take an either/or position with reference to Jesus Christ as Funk and many liberals do. As I say there, “Surely our minds can expand to the extent necessary to affirm and embrace a paradoxical view of Jesus Christ as both human and divine.”

The Importance of "And"

Last month I posted articles directly related to new books by the noted authors / theologians Richard Rohr and Serene Jones. Each in their own way emphasized the importance of the word/term “and.”  

Rohr’s Emphasis on “And”

For many years now, and in many ways, the Franciscan friar Richard Rohr has emphasized the importance of “and.”

In 1986 Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation. Concerning that name, he has said repeatedly that the most important word in the Center’s name is “and.”

In his new book, about which I wrote last month (here), as well as in his book The Naked Now (2009), which I have just finished reading, Rohr writes about the importance of “and” by explaining the deep significance of paradox, nonduality, and “third eye” thinking.

In The Naked Now, Rohr has a lucid section in the 20th chapter titled “The Value of Paradox” (pp. 144~9). He writes,

Because paradox undermines dual thinking at its very root, the dualistic mind immediately attacks paradox as weak thinking or confusion, separate from hard logic. The modern phenomenon of fundamentalism shows an almost complete incapacity to deal with paradox (p. 144).

Rohr goes on then to assert, “The history of spirituality tells us that we must learn to accept paradoxes or we will never love anything or see it correctly” (ibid.).

“Dual thinking” sees things as either/or--so that is the reason Rohr emphasizes nonduality. 

At the very end of The Naked Now, Rohr makes 26 short statements about what he calls “The Shining Word ‘And.’” (You can also read those statements at this link.)

Jones’s Emphasis on “And”

While not as direct as Rohr, in her book Call It Grace (2019), Serene Jones makes repeated emphasis on “and” by linking seemingly opposing concepts. Her book is divided into four “stations” (rather than parts), and the title of each is two (or three) words connected by “and.”

Jones emphasizes “Sin and Grace,” “Destiny and Freedom,” “Hatred and Forgiveness,” as well as “Redeeming Life and Death.” In addition, like both Luther and Calvin, she writes in the last chapter of her book, “We are saints and sinners, flawed and graced, the extremes always mingling in us” (p. 295, bolding added.)

Jones, a Protestant, like Rohr, a Catholic, adeptly recognizes and emphasizes the importance of “and.”

My Emphasis on “And”

As some of you know, my doctoral dissertation, completed more than 50 years ago, was titled “The Meaning of Paradox.” It was because of my early recognition of the importance of “both/and” thinking that I chose that topic--and it has been a key to my theological (and other) thought through the years.

Some of you also know that the 17th chapter of my recently published book Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now is titled “Both/And Is Generally Better and More Nearly True than Either/Or.” (That chapter was written before I read Rohr enough to cite him in the chapter.)

There is so much we could understand more correctly--and so much mistaken thinking and action we could avoid--if we just learned to appreciate the importance of “and.”

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In a more “popular” book, Jen Pollock Michel has just published Surprised by Paradox: The Promise of “And” in an Either-Or World. A review of Michel’s book appears in the June 2019 issue of Christianity Today.

The reviewer concludes: “Surprised by Paradox asks us to reject an either-or approach to certain irreducible mysteries of Christian faith, assuming instead a posture of humility and wonder as we contemplate the fathomless riches of God and his grace.”

TTT #17 Both/And is Generally Better and More Nearly True than Either/Or

As narrated in my 6/20 blog article, D. Elton Trueblood’s book Philosophy of Religion (1957) greatly impacted my life and thinking. Particularly, I was significantly influenced by the chapter titled “Faith and Reason” as I learned about the Danish philosopher/ theologian Søren Kierkegaard and his “Christian existentialism” and about the French mathematician/physicist/philosopher Blaise Pascal as well as about the idea of paradox as a serious philosophical concept.

Embracing Paradox

The use of paradox as a literary device is widely recognized as a legitimate, and often helpful, means of enlarging one’s perspective and consideration of complex issues. In the English speaking world, however, it was not until the 1950s that paradox became the subject of serious theological consideration.

Of course, the idea of paradox as a way to comprehend reality goes back far earlier than to the last century or to the centuries in which Kierkegaard and Pascal lived.

The concept of yin and yang, for example, is an ancient Chinese concept. Taken together, yin and yang describe how polar or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent. So, according to that perspective, reality is not just unitary (one) but neither is it dual. It is, as is sometimes expressed in East Asia, “not-two.”   

Truth is often found in the combination or unity of opposites. That is the philosophical or theological idea behind the concept of paradox and the reason I assert that in most cases both/and is better than and more nearly true than either/or.

In the 1960s I became so interested in the concept of paradox that I ended up writing my doctoral dissertation on The Meaning of Paradox.

Paradox is, I believe, a key concept that helps us grasp the truth about reality. Accordingly, both/and thinking is almost always better than either/or thinking.

Affirming Coincidentia Oppositorum

Recently I came across a significant statement by Charles Simeon (1759-1836), who emphasized that “truth is not in the middle, and not in one extreme, but in both extremes.”

That idea can be traced back at least to Nicholas of Cusa in the fifteenth century. He wrote about coincidentia oppositorum (the “coincidence of the opposites”).” This means that in many cases Truth is not on one side or the other—or even in the middle between the opposites. The truth is in both extremes held simultaneously.

This seems to have been the position of Kierkegaard, who referred to Jesus Christ as the Absolute Paradox. By that he meant that Jesus is not only wholly God and wholly human but also wholly unexpected and wholly incomprehensible to normal rational thought.

The nature of Jesus Christ is just one of many Christian doctrines that have a paradoxical nature, at least the way that I and many others understand the matter.

Seeing the Limits of Both/And Thinking

While generally, or in most instances, both/and thinking is better than either/or, that is not always true. It is especially not true when it comes to ultimate commitments.

For example, Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth” (Matt. 6:24, NRSV). Here is a clear case of either/or being correct; both/and doesn’t work.

So, this section turns out to be an illustration of the point of the chapter. Rather than say we should always use both/and thinking or always use either/or thinking, it is far better to realize that both “both/and” and “either/or” thinking should be used at times and that neither can nor should be used exclusively.

[Click here to read the 17^th chapter in Thirty True Things Everyone Needs to Know Now, my unpublished book manuscript.]

In Praise of Pascal

Many years ago I made a list of the top ten modern (since 1500) theologians and/or philosophers by whom my thinking had been most influenced. The first name on that chronological list was, and remains, Blaise Pascal. That French genius, who died 355 years ago in 1662, was a man whose ideas are certainly praiseworthy still.

Pascal’s Precocity 

There is no question that Pascal (b. 1623) was a precocious child. He reputedly discovered for himself the first 32 of Euclid’s propositions while still a boy, and as a teenager he invented the first calculating machine.

In his twenties, Pascal confirmed the existence of the vacuum and instigated the development of calculus. His expertise as a physicist is such that “pascal” became the name for “a unit of pressure in the meter-kilogram-second system equivalent to one newton per square meter.”

Later, “Pascal” became the name for “a structured computer programming language developed from Algol and designed to process both numerical and textual data.”

There is no question that Pascal from an early age excelled as a mathematician, physicist, and inventor. However, it is because of his deep religious experience and then because of his keen thinking as a Christian philosopher that I find him most worthy of praise.

Pascal’s Profundity 

Pascal’s great contribution as a Christian thinker came after a profound religious experience in November 1654, when he was 31 years old. At that time he wrote, and then carried with him until the time of his death, the following testimony of that mystic experience:

Fire!
"God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob," not of philosophers and scholars.
Certainty, certainty, heartfelt, joy, peace.
God of Jesus Christ. . . .
Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.

Following that “night of fire,” Pascal abandoned his pursuit of science until just before his death and decided to write a book for the vindication of the Christian faith. But, alas, he died at the young age of 39 before the book was published and even before his copious notes were organized.   

By 1670, though, Pascal’s thoughts were published, without much organization, under the name Pensées—and the book is still published in various translations and editions, including more than one on Kindle. 

While some of Blaise’s thoughts may seem a little blasé, many are quite profound. Of particular import are these contentions:

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing: . . . (423)

It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason. (424)

(Pascal’s quoted words are all from A.J. Krailsheimer’s 1966 translation of Pensées.) 

Pascal’s Paradoxicality  

It is particularly Pascal’s dual emphasis on opposites that I have found most helpful. For example, concerning reason: 

If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous. (273)

Pascal’s paradoxical view of human nature is of great significance. “Man is only a reed, but he is a thinking reed.” (200)

He repeatedly wrote about both the wretchedness and the greatness of humans.

Pascal also averred, “There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.” (562)

Wikipedia interestingly, and correctly, summarizes Pascal’s paradoxicality in these words: “In the Pensées, Pascal surveys several philosophical paradoxes: infinity and nothing, faith and reason, soul and matter, death and life, meaning and vanity—seemingly arriving at no definitive conclusions besides humility, ignorance, and grace.”

Many of Pascal’s “thoughts” are praiseworthy and unquestionably worth thinking about—perhaps especially in the present day.

An Atheist Who Believes in God

Frank Schaeffer is an interesting guy, and I’m looking forward to hearing him again tonight. He has come to Kansas City to promote his new book, “Why I am an Atheist Who Believes in God: How to Give Love, Create Beauty and Find Peace.”

The other time I met Frank was when he was in town promoting a previous book, one with an even more arresting title: “Sex, Mom, and God” (2011).

Frank’s “Mom” was Edith, who died last year at the age of 98. And his father, Edith’s husband, was the widely known conservative/fundamentalist theologian and author Francis Schaeffer (1912-84).

Frank is a complex man. You see that in the title of his new book. Some may even say his thinking is perhaps a bit schizophrenic.  

But rather than being schizoid, he just has a paradoxical view of reality. That is one reason I appreciate his views so much. (One chapter in my as yet unpublished book, “Thirty True Things Every Christian Needs To Know Now,” deals with the significance of paradox.)

Early in his book, Frank avers, “Embracing paradox helped me discover that religion is a neurological disorder for which faith is the only cure (p. 13). I like this, for I too often feel negative toward religion but positive about faith.

“With the acceptance of paradox,” Frank writes, “came a new and blessed uncertainty that began to heal the mental illness called certainty” (ibid.).

Later on, Frank advises his readers to “flee from exclusionary certainty.” Then he asserts,

There is only one defense against the rising, worldwide, fear-filled fundamentalist tide engulfing all religions (including the intolerant religion of the New Atheists) which once engulfed me: the embrace of paradox and uncertainty as the virtuoso expression of love (p. 90).

Frank seems to be a very honest man. He shares himself, “warts and all,” quite freely. (I do wonder, though, if the title of his new book was chosen more to sell books than to express accurately his real belief about God.)

Frank is not so much an atheist as he is an afundamentalist. That is, he is not a nonbeliever in God. Rather, he is a nonbeliever in the God of his fundamentalist past.

Actually, he is quite a good apologist for Jesus—and for Christianity as it should be: a religion of love and grace.

While his rhetoric is perhaps exaggerated at times (as was that of the One who spoke about camels going through eyes of needles), his is a vibrant spirituality that probably Jesus would have been, and is, delighted with.

“Jesus’ co-suffering love,” according to Frank, “is the best lens through which to reconsider God” (p. 127). A little later he writes, “Our hope is that when we look at God through the eyes of the loving Christ we will see who God really is “ (p. 138).

So it is because of Jesus that Frank is “an atheist who believes in God.” Blessings on him and his highly significant writing and speaking!
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Frank Schaeffer is in Kansas City this week thanks to the efforts of Thinking Friend Charlie Broomfield. Frank will be speaking at the Community Center in North Kansas City this evening from 7:30 and at the beautiful downtown Kansas City Public Library from 6:30 tomorrow (Thurs.) evening. There is no charge for attending either gathering. 

Either/Or

In his comments on my October 26 posting, DHJ (whom I still do not know who is for sure) made reference to Kierkegaard and either/or thinking. I immediately took notice of that comment both because of my interest in Kierkegaard stretching back nearly fifty years and also because of my generally being an advocate of both/and thinking.

Kierkegaard's first book was titled (in Danish) Enten -- Eller (1843), translated into English as Either/Or. But that book is not about either/or thinking; rather, it is about living either the aesthetic/ethical life or the religious life.

The choice one is forced to make in that regard is related to Jesus' words, "‘No one can serve two masters; . . . You cannot serve God and wealth" (NRSV). Jesus was stating the necessity of an either/or choice, and that, I think, was the same sort of thing Kierkegaard was doing.

It is interesting that Kierkegaard, who wrote Either/Or, is the philosopher/theologian who most widely used the concept, and the word, paradox in his serious writings. I know he used that word a lot, for my doctoral dissertation was "The Meaning of Paradox: A Study of the Use of the Word 'Paradox' in Contemporary Theological and Philosophical Writings with Special Reference to Søren Kierkegaard."

Paradox is very much about both/and thinking, and in general I heartily espouse that kind of thinking over either/or thinking, as was DHJ in his comments.

There are situations, though, in which both/and is not a possibility. We must choose either/or. Where we stand on issues of aggression, oppression, discrimination, and the like are of the latter type. It has been said that one is either on the side of the oppressor or the side of the oppressed. That is most probably true. Some fences can't be straddled.

By what he wrote in his comments on my blog postings and said in our discussion at lunch last week, Chris Thompson seemed to think I was "aiding and abetting" (not his words) the oppressors in my second and third postings about Columbus. That was not my intention. If that seemed to be what I was saying, I apologize.

I want always to be on the side of the oppressed and not on the side of the oppressor. In many ways, though, I probably am on the side of the oppressor just by being a white American male. But that is the way I was born, not a choice I made.

I did choose, though, to be a follower of Jesus, and as such I want to live, and I try to live as much as possible, in solidarity with those who are oppressed, including the Native Americans who have been grossly mistreated in multifarious ways since the time of Columbus.