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AFA JournalRELIGIOUS FREEDOMThe Bible In Our Founding DocumentsBy Brian FahlingAttorney, AFA Center for Law and Policy AFA Journal, February 2001 Edition Considered to be the charter of our nation, the Declaration of Independence is the principal expositor of the terms of the Constitution. In the Declaration, justification for the colonies' separation from the British empire, and rationale for the cause of independence, were firmly grounded upon the "laws of nature and of nature's God." That extraordinary document, though political in purpose, thus rested justification for the cause of independence entirely upon biblical precepts. Everyone in Jefferson's day understood that his appeal was to the law written by God across the heart of man, general revelation (Romans 1), and to that which is written in the Holy Scripture, special revelation. Indeed, only the "laws of nature and of nature's God," and no other religion or philosophy, would sustain the Declaration's assertion that, "[w]e 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 . . . ." These are the principles, rooted in the transcendence and sovereignty of the God of the Holy Bible, that are embodied in the Constitution. So, the rights of man against government, and the duties and limitations upon government, were understood and expressed according to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Thus, while recognizing God as the source of man's inalienable rights, the architects of the Constitution also recognized man's fallen nature and ordered the constitutional frame to safeguard against it. For them, the Bible was clear about man's depravity. James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 51, argued, "[b]ut what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary." It was from this understanding of the nature of man that the structure of the Constitution gained its form that it might be a "security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department." The particulars of the constitutional allocation of powers and the nature of those powers must be understood in light of the Framers' commitment to the rule of law, for it is the rule of law that infuses positive law with its force and moral legitimacy. When we fail to understand the Constitution as embodying these principles, then we have, as Jefferson feared, rendered the Constitution "a blank paper by construction." |
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