Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Politics and Religion
Truths no longer self-evident

Truths no longer self-evident

Last updated on: July 4, 2013 at 12:15 pm by Gene Veith

0 Comments

Truths no longer self-evident 2013-07-04T12:15:56-04:00 Gene Veith

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Part of the genius of the Declaration of Independence, whose passage we celebrate today, is that it lays out in very explicit terms the assumptions–the “self-evident” truths–upon which the new nation and its government would be founded:

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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

via Declaration of Independence – Text Transcript.

Today, these truths are no longer “self-evident”; that is, needing no proof because they can be taken for granted. On the contrary, a good number of Americans don’t believe them at all, and they would seem to have little, if any place in contemporary American culture.

“All men are created equal”? Their “Creator” endows them with unalienable right (that is, rights that cannot be taken away)? Such creationism cannot be taught in most schools and is no longer intellectually respectable. I’m surprised that there are not lawsuits to prevent the Declaration of Independence from being read publicly and from being cited in any kind of official government capacity. Such language is surely offensive to non-believers, and its pre-Darwinian worldview is a violation of modern science.

Neither the government nor the culture accepts the inalienable right to life, not in our day of abortion on demand. Liberty? Our freedoms are being violated and restricted all the time, both by the government’s laws and regulations and by the cultural pressure that imposes intellectual and social conformity. I will grant that the government and our people still value “the pursuit of happiness” above all, to the point of trumping the right to life (as in the pursuit of sex without having to worry about conceiving children) and the right to liberty (as in the pursuit of health, wealth, and safety even at the expense of a coercive and intrusive government). Though the government is quite willing to thwart a citizen’s pursuit of happiness when it conflicts with larger social ends.

The Declaration says that the purpose of governments is to “secure these rights”; and yet today the government seems to be the power that threatens these rights. And in the void left when the Creator is taken out of consideration, the government has rushed in. Today governments are thought to endow people with rights–as in the government’s construction of gay marriage–not some absolute transcendent Creator, and what government endows, it can take away.

Here is the question: Can America exist as a free, self-governing nation once its founding assumptions are no longer believed? It is often said that, unlike other nations, being an American is not a matter of belonging to a particular ethnic group; rather, being an American means holding to certain ideas, as embodied in our founding documents. Immigrants who want to become citizens are tested on their knowledge of these American principles. Well, what happens if no one believes in those ideas any more?

One possibility is that these ideas and ideals are encoded in our Constitution, our political system, and our laws. Even if the citizens no longer accept the presuppositions that gave rise to them, our Constitutional system can keep America going like a machine. But is that going to be enough?

UPDATE: I am NOT saying that the ideals of the Declaration are specifically Christian or that Americans need to be Christians. Jews, Unitarians, Muslims, and followers of other religions could sign the Declaration, as could non-religious Deists like its author. And I’m not just referring to the creationist assumptions here but to other aspects of the worldview that manifested itself in the founding of the United States.

The point is that worldviews manifest themselves in different political theories. It’s no accident that post-Darwinian views of inevitable progress led to utopian, collectivist government systems like socialism, Marxism, and Fascism. Ayn Randian objectivism, which rejects God in favor of the free markets, would result in a kind of plutocracy, or government by the wealthy. A Nietzschean mindset would favor government by a “strong man.”

Postmodernism, which believes reality is a social construction, would favor a government that can freely construct new moralities and structures, unrestrained by any notion of creation, nature, or objective reality.. This is what we have today, as we see in the construction of gay marriage.

My question is simply whether a particular form of government and national culture can last, once the worldview that gave it birth is no longer generally accepted. When Russians stopped believing in Marxism, the Soviet Union collapsed. Could that happen here?

Declaration of Independence

Previous Post

July 4, 2013

Man Without a Country

Next Post

July 5, 2013 Sequester update

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"I know wired earbuds are making a comeback (I never stopped using them as I ..."

reg

Luther on Tools

"VCRs, tape decks, and cassette players are all having a revival among a segment of ..."

Tom Hering

Luther on Tools

"As a (retired) lawyer I see potential liability from sharing things like power or sharp ..."

reg

Luther on Tools

"I am not sure the items you mentioned, though disused, discontinued, discarded, could be considered ..."

reg

Luther on Tools

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category America Apologetics Art baseball Bible Blog Christ Church crime Culture Economics Education Ethics Family Food Football Government History Holidays Holy Week Humor International Islam Language Law Life Issues Literature Media Medicine Movies Music Nature News Personal Philosophy Politics psychology Reformation Religions Sacraments Science sex Social Science Sports technology television terrorism Theology Uncategorized Vocation war

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who gave birth to Isaac at a very old age?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Rebekah Sarah Rachel Leah

Books by This Author Books by Gene Veith

See All Titles »