General Remarks
Biographer Merrill D. Peterson summarizes Jefferson's theology:
| “ | First, that the Christianity of the churches was unreasonable, therefore unbelievable, but that stripped of priestly mystery, ritual, and dogma, reinterpreted in the light of historical evidence and human experience, and substituting the Newtonian cosmology for the discredited Biblical one, Christianity could be conformed to reason. Second, morality required no divine sanction or inspiration, no appeal beyond reason and nature, perhaps not even the hope of heaven or the fear of hell; and so the whole edifice of Christian revelation came tumbling to the ground. | ” |
In Peterson's view, Jefferson and Thomas Paine, the prominent deist, "agreed in the essentials of their theistic faith." Noting that Jefferson never had a deep or moving religious experience, Peterson adds that he "rejected revelation, the divinity of Christ, the miracles, the atonement, and so on, without which Christianity was nothing in the eyes of believers. He did not even accept Jesus on his own terms, for Jesus was a spiritualist by the grace of God and he a materialist by the grace of science."
Robert S. Alley, professor of humanities emeritus at the University of Richmond holds that "Any perusal of the Jefferson writings will establish that the Sage of Monticello was a Deist."
Avery Dulles, a leading Catholic theologian, states that while at the College of William & Mary, "under the influence of several professors, he converted to the deist philosophy." Dulles concludes:
| “ | In summary, then, Jefferson was a deist because he believed in one God, in divine providence, in the divine moral law, and in rewards and punishments after death; but did not believe in supernatural revelation. He was a Christian deist because he saw Christianity as the highest expression of natural religion and Jesus as an incomparably great moral teacher. He was not an orthodox Christian because he rejected, among other things, the doctrines that Jesus was the promised Messiah and the incarnate Son of God. Jefferson's religion is fairly typical of the American form of deism in his day. | ” |
Dulles concurs with historian Stephen Webb, who states that Jefferson's frequent references to "Providence" indicate his Deism, as "most eighteenth-century deists believed in providence."
The historian of religion Sydney E. Ahlstrom says "One religious movement which enjoyed a season of popularity, and great prestige during the era, in America as in France, was the cult of reason." Ahlstrom calls it "rational religion or deism." Ahlstrom also uses the phrases "reasonable Christianity" and "Christian rationalists," echoing Jefferson's own use of the phrase "rational Christianity." Ahlstrom adds, "Thomas Jefferson was unquestionably the most significant of the American rationalists". He notes that, in content, his theology was similar to that of John Adams, Joel Barlow, Elihu Palmer, and Thomas Paine, "though Jefferson was more doctrinaire in his materialism".
Historian Gregg L. Frazer argues that Jefferson's religious views fell between Christianity and Deism. Frazer describes Jefferson as a theistic rationalist, a term from German theology whose first-found English usage is in the year 1856. Frazer cites the following quote from Jefferson's 1785 Notes on the State of Virginia:
- "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever; that considering numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest."
Read more about this topic: Thomas Jefferson And Religion
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