Blaise Pascal in several of his books uses the example of the holes we are all born with in our spiritual hearts. How we fill those holes and what we fill those holes with defines who we are. Holes can be filled with things like money and big houses and cars. They can be filled with thoughts like hate or love, or liberty. They can be filled with people like friends and families or a spouse. No matter how much we try to fill the metaphorical holes in our hearts the only thing that ultimately works to fill the void is the Holy Spirit. We can go through life filling those holes with material things, or ideas, or feelings. The glue that ultimately seals the hole is God.
You don’t have to be a believer to be a conservative. Many libertarians were agnostic or even atheistic—Ayn Rand comes to mind. But the predicate that determines how we develop a political philosophy, is very much determined by how we look inside of ourselves and fill the holes in our own hearts, and how we look outside to the world and how we respect the holes that we know are in anyone’s heart.
The difference in how we relate to each other is very much determined by our belief in God—our faith, that will then determine how we interact socially and politically. My Quaker grandmother told me often that we don’t own anything, but rather hold it in trust—hold on this will eventually lead to liberty and property rights. C. S. Lewis asks “does it make any difference if I am so to speak to the landlord of my own mind and body, and if one was to believe that they were only to live for say 70 years, and not be held accountable in perpetuity for their actions”, then could I not be comfortable with situational ethics or a “living Constitution” neither of which requires a moral standard or personal accountability. But here is the importance in believing in our own immortality which demonstrates the difference between totalitarianism and democracy and liberty. If I believe that I am to live only for 70 years, and the State or the nation may live for more than 1000 years (certainly more than 70 years) is the State then more important than the individual? But If I believe in God’s promise—if Christianity is true, then the individual is very much more important than the State—the difference between 1000 years and forever. This is one of the key differences between totalitarian atheistic Marxism, and democracy Christian republicanism. If I were to live for only70 years, and I invested in a business or piece of property and didn’t care what happened to it after I died, would I treat that piece of property differently than if I thought I was holding it “in trust” not for myself, but for future generations of not only Livingstons, but my neighbors and fellow citizens? There is a real difference if we live only for ourselves in the present compared to if we live for the future and the future of those we hold most dear.
Our Declaration of Independence drafted by Thomas Jefferson and voted on by the Continental Congress put forth the idea that our Natural Rights proceeding through the Natural Law were given to us by a Supreme Being. The Declaration contains several references of a higher power: “The Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” makes the case that we as a nation take an equal position amongst the stations of men. In the Declaration’s conclusion Congress appeals “to the Supreme Judge of the world” for the rectitude of its intentions and professes its firm reliance on the protection of “Devine Providence”. It is thus God and not a King or Parliament that validates the assertion of individual liberty. No God……No Liberty. God gives the power and sovereignty to the people. The people then relinquish a portion of their sovereignty to the government—not the other way around. And that is precisely why Marxist/atheists want to get rid of religion and try to marginalize people of faith.
The Constitutional Convention in 1789 only had 7 original signers of the Declaration in the Assembly. They said a prayer to Almighty God every morning before the session would begin, but they purposefully created a secular document. They fully understood the limitations of theocracy and a State Religion because every delegate was familiar with the history of man’s rebellion against God many times in ancient Israel, and because of their understanding of “religious oaths” in their home countries. They understood that men working through their own conscience and because of their own individual virtue were best able to rule themselves. Coercive top down political structures always self-destructed. Just look at socialist communist regimes in the last century or even in Cuba, China, and Venezuela today. Or Sodom and Gomorrah.
Our Declaration of Independence was not only a list of grievances against King George and a Declaration of War, it was the 1st time in the history of man that a political philosophy was described for the ages that justified self- governance with a goal of individual liberty. Our founders wrote both The Declaration and the Constitution with an eye to the future. They wrote for themselves and “our Posterity”, they were thinking long term not short term because they all shared in their own way a faith in DEVINE PROVIDENCE. They were writing for their children and they were writing for us.
From now on when I write or speak about these issues my audience deserves to know where I am coming from. I believe in God and I believe God is the source of my rights. You can however believe in the American ideal without believing in God, Aristotle believed in concepts of a “Natural Law made know only through reason”—but whose reason? It is very hard to move beyond that most important fact. The combining of Enlightenment ideas of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century with the religious movement in America of the 1st Great Awakening provided for both reason and revelation to be the bases of the NATURAL LAW—a law known in the hearts of all men—for all time.
MAGA “Fight Like Hell”
