I will be writing some posts on how many of the American Indian wars of independence were inspired by Indian prophets who claimed to have had mystical visions of the Great Spirit promising that He would lead the Indians as His chosen people to defeat the white people and expel them from Indian lands. This leads me to wonder whether there is any resemblance between these holy wars of Indian independence and the theology of the American Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration of Independence appeals to God as Lawmaker, Creator, Supreme Judge, and Divine Providence. But in Thomas Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration, the only reference to divinity was "Nature's God." Later, other members of the Congress added three more references to deity: "they are endowed by their Creator" in the second sentence; "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intensions" in the penultimate sentence; and "with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence" in the last sentence. God as Creator, as Supreme Judge, and as Providential Caregiver does suggest a divine agency above or beyond the natural world that might intervene miraculously in the natural world against natural law to serve His purposes and thus enforcing a transcendent morality.
In his Defense of the Constitutions of the United States of America (1786-1787), John Adams explained: "The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history." Those who formed these new American governments did not claim "interviews with the gods" or "the inspiration of Heaven." These thirteen governments were contrived "merely by the use of reason and the senses," and founded "on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery" (Adams 2000: 117-118).
Here Adams was following Jefferson in appealing to "Nature's God," in appealing to "the simple principles of nature" that can be known "merely by the use of reason and the senses," without "interviews with the gods" or "the inspiration of Heaven." Here Adams and Jefferson were on the side of reason rather than revelation.
But it's possible for those religious Americans who are on the side of revelation rather than reason to see support for their religious faith in the Declaration's references to God as Lawmaker, Creator, Supreme Judge, and Divine Providence. These Americans can pray to this God and ask for His miraculous intervention in history to preserve America as a free and independent state.
Thus, the Declaration is open to freedom of thought and speech about the reason/revelation debate, so that people are free to choose between the philosophic life and religious experience without the need for persecution to enforce some religious orthodoxy.
Although it's not completely clear to me that the American Indian nations allowed such freedom of thought about reason and revelation, I do see some evidence for this. For example, in Roger Williams' Key into the Language of America (1643), he describes the remarkable openness of the Narragansett Indians in discussing their religion and pondering whether Williams might be right about Christianity being the only true religion.
Williams taught the Indians the Bible's creation story in Genesis 1, and then he taught them the Bible's story about how those who know, love, and fear the one true God will go to Heaven after death for eternal happiness, while those who don't worship this God will go to Hell after death for eternal punishment. Williams then described how the Indians reacted to these stories:
Once after I had talked, as well as my language permitted, before the chief Sachim, or Prince, of the country with his Archpriests and many others in full assembly and, being night, and tired from travel and talking, I laid down to rest. Before I fell asleep, I heard this discussion:
A Qunnihticut Indian (who had heard our discussion) told the Sachim Miantunnomu, that he heard from the discussion that souls went up to Heaven, or down to Hell, but, he said, "Our fathers have told us that our souls go to the Southwest" [to the Southwest God Kautantowwit].
The Sachim answered, "But how do you know yourself, that your souls go the Southwest. Did you ever see a soul go there?"
The Native replied: "When did Roger Williams see a soul go to Heaven or Hell?"
The Sachim again replied: "He has books and writings, and one which God himself made, concerning men's souls, and therefore may well know more than we, that have none, but take all upon trust from our forefathers" (Williams 2019: 117).
Notice the implication here that these Indians recognized two ways of knowing: what we see with our own eyes versus what we take upon trust from what we have heard from our forefathers or from a book that our forefathers have told us is the holy word of God.
The first way of knowing is what Adams identified as "the use of reason and the senses," while the second is believing in those who claim "interviews with the gods" and "the inspiration of Heaven." This is what I mean by Reason versus Revelation.
In previous posts, I have argued that there is no final resolution to this reason/revelation debate because neither side can refute the other. But still, it is possible for the zetetic philosopher or scientist to make a rational choice for the philosophic life even without refuting revelation.
Do we see some intimation of the zetetic philosopher in the Qunnihticut Indian?
REFERENCES
Adams, John. 2000. The Political Writings of John Adams. Ed. George W. Carey. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.
Williams, Roger. 2019. A Key into the Language of America. Eds. Dawn Dove, Sandra Robinson, Loren Spears, Dorothy Herman Papp, and Kathleen Bragdon. The Tomaquag Museum Edition. Yardley, PA: Westholme.
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