The American Crisis: Defined
Journal Entry #18
Without making ostentatious professions of religion, he was a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man. –John Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States.

The virtues of our departed friend were crowned by piety. He is known to have been habitually devout. To Christian institutions he gave the countenance of his example; and no one could express, more fully, his sense of the Providence of God, and the dependence of man. –Rev. J.T. Kirkland, December 29, 1799.

His hopes for his country, were always founded on the righteousness of the cause, and the blessing of Heaven. His was the belief of Reason and Revelation; and that belief was illustrated and exemplified in all his actions. –James K. Paulding

It is impossible to account for the creation of the universe, without the agency of a Supreme Being. It is impossible to govern the universe without the aid of a Supreme Being. It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being. Religion is as necessary to reason, as reason is to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason, in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to… -George Washington; quoted from Paulding, Life of Washington, Vol. 2, p. 209.

…I earnestly pray that the Omnipotent Being who has not deserted the cause of America in the hour of its extremest hazard, will never yield so fair a heritage of freedom a prey to Anarchy or Despotism. -George Washington. To the Secretary at War, July 31, 1788; Writings Vol. 31, p. 30.

…while just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support. –George Washington. To the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church in North America, October 9, 1789; Writings Vol. 30, p. 432.

His Excellency, The Most Venerable
Chief Executive of The United States
George Washington

Dear President Washington,
Please to accept the Warmest Salutations of a Grateful People, a Blest Nation; for all of the illustrious attainments and myriad prerogatives you have so selflessly conveyed to a fortunate Posterity.

Indeed, the political success which you and your peers have secured for the American Cause of FREEDOM has been nothing short of spectacular. Of late however, I have become greatly concerned over the meticulous indifference your Progeny now displays toward the prudent formulae for sound government and a healthy society which you have articulated with such unparalleled sagacity.

I have recently communicated these concerns to Mr. Hamilton who has, as you are well aware, enunciated quite succinctly the overarching question confronting a People; “whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.”

Mr. Hamilton went on to say that if “there be any truth in the remark, the crisis, at which we are arrived, may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act, may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.”

Inherent to Mr. Hamilton’s perceptive observation is the implication that such a question is not asked once by a People embarked upon a course of political dissolution with a parent country. Rather, it ought to be posed in perpetuity by those literate and cognizant citizens- whose number, it is ardently to be hoped, might proliferate- on behalf of all who awaken daily to the warm sunshine of political Liberty and personal FREEDOM.

Incumbent upon any People so happily endowed is the need to embrace and faithfully apply your enduring prescription requiring the exercise of Reason combined with Religion in the process of their deliberations. To do less would certainly incline a People to moral and social disorder; and after a protracted period, culminate in the spectre of either Anarchy or Despotism (though ultimately, I scarcely see any effective difference between the two).

Ironically, amidst widespread and abundant political success and material prosperity in our Republic today, your astute axiom involving the orchestration of Reason and Religion has suffered an ignominious rejection amongst an increasingly unenlightened populace who, by dint of daily custom and formal education, have come to neglect the one and despise the other.

Sadly, through the powerful delusion of scientific certainty- which frequently perpetrates a diminishment of religion- our People have succumbed to the Siren Song of Reductionism, whereby our very existence, and that of the universe, has been rendered a mere product of the efficacious juxtaposition of minute material particles. Professor Charles Van Doren explains in A History of Knowledge, that there were those “who did not see why natural reason had to bow down before the ruler of the City of God, whoever and whatever he might be. Where was the evidence that he existed and that he demanded obedience? It was lacking.”

On the other hand, many who sincerely cherish Judeo-Christian Revelation have cultivated an inordinate mistrust of Reason- whether her practices or products. Those who believe, according to Professor Van Doren, “that reason, the light of the natural intellect, is a kind of intruder in the realm of mystical communion between God and man…The heart has its reasons…that reason does not comprehend. The heart is overcome by the ecstasy of sudden belief, and what matter then all the long arguments?”

Professor Van Doren neatly summarizes the nature of this “conflict of two truths”, as he notes that it was initially “posed by implication in Augustine’s (354-430 A.D.) City of God, and first defined soon after the fall of Rome, it continued to be a leading subject of speculation for nearly a thousand years.”

“Simply put: accepting as true Augustine’s doctrine of the two cities [the City of God, and the City of Man] is there one truth for both, or do they have separate and different truths? If something is true in one city, must it also be true in the other? Or, if there are two distinct truths, is one truth more important than the other? Consequently, must a person choose between them?”

Notwithstanding this perceived bifurcation in truth, the intuitive wisdom reflected in your statement, President Washington- “religion is as necessary to reason, as reason is to religion…the one cannot exist without the other”- is in my view, as valid today as it was in your age. It also anticipated the sage insight of Professor Russell Kirk, in his study entitled The Roots of American Order, that “Ants and bees may cooperate by instinct; men must have revelation and reason.”

Despite the valiant effort of the brilliant theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) to reconcile the truths of the two cities, Western thought has nonetheless suffered encumbrance. In the attempt to escape Augustine’s view that the two cities are in “eternal conflict” Aquinas labored, “in deference to Aristotle, to open the door to placing revelation and human reason on an equal footing”, according to the historian and philosopher Francis A. Schaeffer, in The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture. (Aquinas spent nine years as a pupil at the Benedictine monastery on Monte Cassino before joining the Dominican Order).

Because Thomas Aquinas viewed revelation and reason as being equally established, it followed that “people could rely on their own human wisdom, and this meant that people were free to mix the teachings of the Bible with the teachings of the non-Christian philosophers”, Schaeffer points out. He states further that “as a result of this emphasis, philosophy was gradually separated from revelation- from the Bible-and philosophers began to act in an increasingly independent, autonomous manner.”

Thereafter, such independence and autonomy contemplated no restraint to the near-hostile ascendancy of naturalistic philosophy over supernatural revelation, in spite of the irreparable harm and calamity this ascendancy has wrought upon Western thought and society. The Judeo-Christian culture, for its part, inexplicably appears disinclined to press home the distinct (one might even say unique) philosophical advantage that knowledge of the God of Israel- revealed through the Hebrew Scriptures and the Testimony of Jesus Christ- makes possible.

Perhaps Mr. President, some degree of reconciliation between reason and revelation might be secured were we to recast the nature of the relationship the former shares with the latter. A fortuitous discovery in my bookshelf recently- a rare gem I had almost forgotten was there- Dava Sobel’s book Longitude. The subject of which explores British Parliament’s Longitude Act of 1714, “naming a prize equal to a king’s ransom (several million dollars in today’s currency) for a ‘Practicable and Useful’ means of determining longitude.”

Ms. Sobel writes that “for lack of a practical method of determining longitude, every great captain in the Age of Exploration [1492-1607 A.D.] became lost at sea despite the best available charts and compasses. From Vasco da Gama to Vasco Nunez de Balboa, from Ferdinand Magellan to Sir Francis Drake- they all got where they were going willy-nilly, by forces attributed to good luck or the grace of God.”

“As more and more sailing vessels set out to conquer or explore new territories, to wage war, or to ferry gold and commodities between foreign lands, the wealth of nations floated upon the oceans. And still no ship owned a reliable means for establishing her whereabouts. In consequence, untold numbers of sailors died when their destinations suddenly loomed out of the sea and took them by surprise.”

“In a single such accident, on October 22, 1707, at the Scilly Isles near the southwestern tip of England, four homebound British warships ran aground and nearly two thousand men lost their lives. The active quest for a solution to the problem of longitude persisted over four centuries and across the whole continent of Europe.”

Through the subtle genius of the English clockmaker John Harrison (1693-1776) the solution to this grave problem was arrived at. Certainly, Mr. President, you are familiar with the rest of the story concerning the brilliant contribution of Mr. Harrison, “…who pioneered the science of portable precision timekeeping…[and] invented a clock that would carry the true time from the home port, like an eternal flame, to any remote corner of the world.”

My point, Mr. President, is that I believe the American Cause of FREEDOM should be very well served were we to equate the working of Reason and Revelation to the salutary association which obtains between latitude and longitude. As the navigator requires a precise measurement of these in order to avoid shipwreck, so our citizenry must combine with Reason the aid of Revelation to navigate the shoals of Anarchy and Despotism which threaten a free people unawares.

May God richly bless you President Washington for your Esteemed Leadership, as well as the inestimable Bequest of Liberty, which is your singular Legacy to a most favored People- the fortunate descendants of the American Revolution.

In Christ,
Montag