Our Founding Fathers and Humanism

"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves." —Abraham Lincoln

Our Founding Fathers were definitely part of the humanist tradition. Norman Cousins suggested that Enlightenment philosophers like John Locke and David Hume were the "invisible Founding Fathers." All of them retained a belief in God, but Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Paine, and Franklin rejected major Christian doctrines, including original sin, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, etc.

The famous Jefferson-Adams correspondence is filled with references to their common reading in the Greeks and the humanistic philosophers of the Enlightenment. It is also replete with criticisms of Orthodox Christianity, especially Calvinism. In one letter, Jefferson said "it would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all than to blaspheme Him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin."

Other early Americans like John Jay, Patrick Henry, and Samuel Adams had much more conservative views about Christianity, but they too agreed to put personal religious views aside and to establish a secular state free from all religious doctrine. The most striking proof of our Founding Fathers' belief in a secular state was the Treaty of Tripoli, whose eleventh article begins: "As the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion...." President Washington negotiated this treaty, the Senate ratified it without any recorded debate, and President Adams signed it.

One would look in vain in the documents of our Founding Fathers for such a parochial reason for America to exist. America exists not for the protection of the Jewish state or the evangelizing of the world. America does not exist as a mere means for any specialized interests, religious or secular. The humanist ideal for America is that America exists as an end itself: to allow for the greatest fulfillment of human freedom and dignity.

We have seen that traditional humanists believe that human beings have intrinsic value and are autonomous centers of value with free-will and moral responsibility. They hold that all persons have inalienable rights, including free expression and inquiry. They also use reason, not divine revelation, as the guide for moral action and education; but this does not mean that humanism is anti-Christian or anti-religion in general.

The fundamental principles of humanism turn out to be the principles of our state, not of any particular church. To ban the teaching of humanism in pubic schools would be to effectively ban the teaching of basic American values. The political philosophy taught in civics classes would also have to be rejected as "humanistic religion." The idea of free market capitalism is yet another contribution of classical liberalism and humanism. It too would have to be banned from our schools.