The Founders and the Myth of Theistic Rationalism
Bill Fortenberry
As I sat down to read the book The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders by Gregg Frazer, I was struck by the opening sentence of his second paragraph. “Any historian worth the label has a desire to correct the historical record when it is in error.”[1] Now, I don’t know if Mr. Frazer would actually consider me to be a historian or not. His definition of such an individual seems to include specific training received in that field under the tutelage of a reputable university, and I do not have that particular type of training. What I do have, however, is an immense love of ancient literature that has generated a strong distaste for those who, through either ignorance or intent, twist the writings of antiquity to say things that the original authors never would have condoned. When I heard Mr. Frazer denying the Christian faith of several of our nation’s founders and attributing to them the hybrid religion of Theistic Rationalism, I determined that I would read his book for myself, compare his claims with the original writings of the founding era of this nation and see whether he spoke truthfully or not. Unfortunately, Mr. Frazer’s errors were both obvious and abundant, and it is now my turn to try my hand at correcting his flawed record.
Before we can address Mr. Frazer’s historical errors, however, it is important that we give consideration to the theological errors which form the foundation of his book. There are three theological viewpoints that Mr. Frazer presents in his book: Deism, Christianity and Theistic Rationalism. I do not have any major contentions with Mr. Frazer’s definition of Deism, so I will put off any discussion of that particular theology for now. His definitions of Christianity and Theistic Rationalism, however, leave much to be desired.
Theistic Rationalism
The primary point to keep in mind when discussing Theistic Rationalism is that Mr. Frazer is the sole creator of this belief system. The term “Theistic Rationalism” did not exist during the founding era of our nation, and none of the founding fathers ever proclaimed themselves to be of this belief. It is merely a term that Mr. Frazer has coined in order to describe men that he thinks were neither Christians nor Deists. Since this term does not exist in the historic record, Mr. Frazer is free of any responsibility to limit his use of it to any historical confession or creed. No one has ever admitted to being a Theistic Rationalist, and thus, Mr. Frazer was left with the need to invent some means of proving that certain individuals of the founding era would have accepted this label if it had been available to them.
Mr. Frazer’s solution to this problem was to define this new religion as “a hybrid belief system mixing elements of natural religion, Christianity, and rationalism, with rationalism as the predominant element.”[2] This definition sounds specific enough for Mr. Frazer to present Theistic Rationalism as a unique belief system apart from Christianity, but it remains broad enough for him to apply it to any individual who has ever lived. In short, this is just a bad definition that sounds good. At the end of this article, I will prove the worthlessness of this definition by demonstrating that Mr. Frazer himself meets this description of a Theistic Rationalist, but first let’s take the time to analyze the three components which make up this definition.
Natural Religion
In his book, Mr. Frazer defines natural religion as “a system of thought centered on the belief that reliable information about God and about what He wills is best discovered and understood by examining the evidence of nature and the laws of nature, which He established.”[3] This is simply not the correct definition of “natural religion.” Mr. Frazer appears to have confused the term “natural religion” with the term of “naturalism.” The two are similar in appearance, and there is even some similarity in their definitions, but these two terms describe vastly different philosophies.
Natural religion can be more properly understood as the knowledge of God that man is able to derive from nature. According to Webster’s dictionary, natural religion is:
“A religion validated on the basis of human reason and experience apart from miraculous or supernatural revelation; specif : a religion that is universally discernible by all men through the use of human reason apart from any special revelation”[4]
We can see from the 1710 publication Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion that this is the same definition of natural religion that was used in the eighteenth century. In that book, we read:
"I call that Natural Religion, which men might know, and should be obliged unto, by the mere principles of Reason, improved by Consideration and Experience, without the help of Revelation."[5]
That this was still the view of natural religion during the founding era of our nation can be seen in Andrew Eliot’s sermon A Discourse on Natural Religion which he delivered in the chapel of Harvard College in 1771. Here is an excerpt from that sermon in which Mr. Eliot provides an extensive definition of natural religion:
"I have said – There is a God – That there is Religion – I am now to consider in what sense this Religion is called Natural. And it is thus denominated, not because men discover it in the sole exercise of their natural faculties and powers; but because it hath its foundation in the Perfections of God, and in that constitution of nature which he has established, or which arises from the mutual relation between God and His creature Man, God having made us the beings we are, intelligent rational creatures, and having fixed our particular situation, there arise certain fitnesses and obligations, which constitute the law of our nature. This is the law of Him who is the author of our being; to act agreeable to that, is therefore to obey God, which constitutes it Religion. And to obey a law, which results, not from the positive will of God, but from the nature He hath given to man, is to him natural religion."[6]
What is perhaps one of the most succinct explanations of natural religion comes from a 1756 publication by Ralph Heathcote entitled The Use of Reason in Matters of Religion: or Natural Religion the Foundation of Revealed. Mr. Heathcote provided the following explanation of natural religion:
“Whereas Natural Religion is quite a different Thing; and by which is never meant any thing more, than the Being and Attributes of God, the Nature and Condition of Man, and the several Duties belonging to it, which relate either to God, or to our fellow-Creatures; all deduced, by a just and proper exercise of Reason, from the Fabrick of the World, and the visible Constitutions of things. This has always been understood to be Natural Religion."[7]
And later in the same book we read:
"Natural Religion, let us remember, is nothing more than the dictates of Common Sense, or the Informations, we receive from our Natural Powers, in all matters of duty, relating to God and Man; and it includes a knowledge of God's Existence, of his Attributes of Justice and Goodness, and real Conceptions of Right and Wrong."[8]
The common thread in each of these descriptions is the idea that natural religion is the knowledge which men can obtain about God by examining themselves and the world around them. In other words, natural religion is nothing more than a recognition of the truth of God’s Word which proclaims that “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead”[9] and which assures us that all men have the Law of God “written in their hearts.”[10] This was the predominant view of natural religion in the eighteenth century, and it was this view that was held by founding father John Witherspoon who claimed that “the proof of the being of God” is “the great foundation of all natural religion; without which, the moral sense would be weak and insufficient."[11] I have not discovered any reference to natural religion in the writings of the founding fathers that differs from this understanding.
This view of natural religion differs quite significantly from the view which Mr. Frazer expressed in his book. Mr. Frazer claimed that natural religion was not just the evidence of the existence of God but rather the belief that information about God and His will for man is better understood from nature than from revelation. This idea that the evidence from nature is a better conveyance of God’s will than the supernatural revelation of the Scriptures would be more properly identified as naturalism than as natural religion. Naturalism is defined by the dictionary as: “a doctrine that religious truth is derived from nature and not from miraculous or supernatural revelation.”[12] This definition includes a denial of supernatural revelation, and it appears to be this definition that Mr. Frazer utilizes whenever he refers to natural religion throughout his book. To demonstrate that this was not the way in which natural religion was viewed in the eighteenth century, we need only return to the previously referenced publication by Mr. Heathcote. In his book on natural religion, Mr. Heathcote explained that:
"When we affirm Natural Religion to be the foundation of Revealed, we do not mean, that Revealed Religion must be in every respect conformable, but only that it must not be in any contradictory, to Natural: for it is certain, that there are many particulars in Revealed, which make no part of Natural Religion, and which the purest and most improved Reason alone could never have attained the least conception of."[13]
Thus, the view of natural religion in the eighteenth century was not that information about God is best obtained from nature but rather that such information can be obtained through nature. This view is perfectly consistent with Christianity and the Scriptures.
Christianity
Having determined the flaw in Mr. Frazer’s definition of natural religion, we must now consider his definition of Christianity. It is interesting to note here that Mr. Frazer never truly defines Christianity in his book. Instead of presenting an actual definition, he attempts to limit Christianity to “a set of beliefs officially espoused by all of the major Christian sects in America in the 1700s.”[14] Ironically, Mr. Frazer criticized his own definition in a sermon by the same title as his book when he mocked Michael Novak for saying essentially the same thing. Mr. Novak claimed that George Washington should be measured by the definition of Christianity that was in vogue in the late eighteenth century, and Mr. Frazer’s response to this was to ask:
"Did God's standards change? Do we have to look at the year to see whether someone's a Christian or not? Novak proceeds as if there's no actual definition of what it means to be a Christian, just differing opinions."[15]
We could ask these same questions of Mr. Frazer. Why does he not provide an actual definition of Christianity? Does God change His standard for how to become a Christian in order to conform to the “beliefs officially espoused by all of the major Christian sects” of a given century? Why does Mr. Frazer proceed “as if there’s no actual definition of what it means to be a Christian”?
Throughout his book, Mr. Frazer emphatically states that certain individuals were not Christians. In order to make such a claim, he should have presented us with a clear explanation of what makes one person a Christian and another person not a Christian. Instead of doing this, however, Mr. Frazer chose to provide a mere consensus opinion on the beliefs held in common by those calling themselves Christians in eighteenth century America. Using a consensus opinion as a standard of measurement can only inform us of which individuals conformed to the opinions of the majority. It cannot tell us whether agreeing with the majority is necessary in order for someone to be a Christian.
Before we discuss the correct definition of Christianity, it is important that we take note of some major flaws in Mr. Frazer’s consensus opinion. This opinion consists of a list of ten doctrines that were held in common by the five major groups or sects of Christians in the eighteenth century. Those doctrines are: the trinity, the interaction of God in human affairs, the deity of Christ, original sin, the virgin birth, the atonement of Christ’s death, His resurrection, eternal punishment for sin, justification by faith and the inspiration of the Scriptures.[16] According to Mr. Frazer, belief in these doctrines is necessary for salvation, and no one who rejects any one of these doctrines can be considered a Christian. Let me state at the outset that I believe each of these doctrines to be true, but there are, nonetheless, several errors in Mr. Frazer’s claim.
The first, and perhaps the most obvious, error can be seen in the beliefs that Mr. Frazer attributed to the Catholic church. Mr. Frazer claimed that the Council of Trent in 1547 declared the Catholic church’s assent to the doctrines of justification by faith, eternal punishment for sin and the inspiration of the Scriptures. There are several major flaws in this statement.
First, it is admitted by Mr. Frazer that “although Catholics disagreed with Protestants about the sufficiency of faith for justification, they agreed that justification required faith.” Unfortunately, Mr. Frazer appears to be equivocating on the definition of the term “justification by faith.” He is using it to mean one thing when referring to the other groups of Christians in his list, but when he refers to justification by faith in the list of Catholic doctrines, he is referring to something completely different. When the other denominations in Mr. Frazer’s list speak of justification by faith, they are referring to the concept of one’s faith in Christ causing him to be declared righteous thus freeing him from the penalty of sin which is death in hell. The Council of Trent, however, proposed a different means of freeing people from the penalty of hell. Here is the statement of faith of which that Council said, “All who profess the faith of Christ necessarily believe:”
“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, and born of the Father before all ages; God of God, light of light, true God of true God; begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made: who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from the heavens, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man: crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, he suffered and was buried; and he rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures; and he ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of the Father ; and again he will come with glory to judge the living and the dead; of whose kingdom there shall be no end: and in the Holy Ghost the Lord, and the giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is adored and glorified; who spoke by the prophets and one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”[17]
Notice the last sentence in which the professor of this faith declares his belief in “one baptism for the remission of sins.” This plainly shows that it was baptism and not faith which the Catholic church declared to be the means of freeing an individual from the penalty of hell. This declaration is further explained in another part of the creed in which we read:
“If he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema…
“If any one denies, that infants, newly born from their mothers' wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining life everlasting, – whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false, – let him be anathema. For that which the apostle has said, By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned, is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation…
“If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema. For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven.”[18]
Here we see, in no uncertain terms, that the Council of Trent declared baptism and not faith to be the means of justification. Mr. Frazer claimed that the Catholic church agreed with other churches in recognizing the need for faith in order for an individual to be justified, but how can a newborn infant possibly be said to express faith in a Christ that he has never heard of or, if hearing, could not possibly understand that which he hears? Mr. Frazer is quite mistaken. The very creed which he recognizes as the official creed of the eighteenth century Catholic church states that men are justified, in the sense of being declared righteous and freed from the penalty of hell, through the means of baptism and not by faith.
There was, however, a reference to justification by faith in the Council of Trent, and it is in this reference that we discover the source of Mr. Frazer’s equivocation. In the session immediately following the session on baptism, the Council presented the following declaration on justification:
“Of this Justification the causes are these: the final cause indeed is the glory of God and of Jesus Christ, and life everlasting; while the efficient cause is a merciful God who washes and sanctifies gratuitously, signing, and anointing with the holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance; but the meritorious cause is His most beloved only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we were enemies, for the exceeding charity wherewith he loved us, merited Justification for us by His most holy Passion on the wood of the cross, and made satisfaction for us unto God the Father; the instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, without which (faith) no man was ever justified … This faith, Catechumen's beg of the Church – agreeably to a tradition of the apostles – previously to the sacrament of Baptism; when they beg for the faith which bestows life everlasting.”[19]
From this declaration, it is plainly obvious that, when the Council of Trent spoke of the faith which brings justification, they were not speaking of a belief or an assent that a man must have but rather of a gift which he must receive from the church, namely, the gift of baptism. This act of baptism is described as the sacrament of faith, and the fact that it must be begged of from the church shows that this faith cannot be a mental or even a spiritual belief in the truth of the gospel but rather a gift which is conferred upon the individual by the church in the form of a baptism.
Further evidence that the Council of Trent did not teach justification by faith in the same sense that this concept is understood by the other groups in Mr. Frazer’s list can be seen in their claim that a person can lose his justification without losing his faith. Here is the Council’s statement in that regard:
“In opposition also to the subtle wits of certain men, who, by pleasing speeches and good words, seduce the hearts of the innocent, it is to be maintained, that the received grace of Justification is lost, not only by infidelity whereby even faith itself is lost, but also by any other mortal sin whatever, though faith be not lost; thus defending the doctrine of the divine law, which excludes from the kingdom of God not only the unbelieving, but the faithful also (who are) fornicators, adulterers, effeminate, liers with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, railers, extortioners, and all others who commit deadly sins; from which, with the help of divine grace, they can refrain, and on account of which they are separated from the grace of Christ.”[20]
If an individual can lose his justification without losing the faith by which he was justified, then it follows that it was not really his faith that obtained his justification. Thus, it is evident that the Council of Trent taught that justification is a gift that must be sought of and kept through the good graces of the Catholic church. This is not justification by faith but rather justification by the church.
This brings us to Mr. Frazer’s claim that the eighteenth century Catholic church taught the doctrine of eternal punishment for sin. This claim is partially correct. The Catholic church of this time period did teach that there was an eternal punishment for sins in hell, but as we have already seen, they also taught that baptism, including infant baptism, was the means of escaping that punishment. This, of course, presented a problem for the Catholic church. If all of those who were baptized as infants were thereby delivered from the punishment for their sins and assured of a home in heaven, then there would be no incentive for anyone to participate in the many rituals and formalities of the church. This problem, and the loss of funding that must have accompanied it, gave rise to the doctrine of temporal punishment for sins in Purgatory. Here is the statement regarding Purgatory that was made by the Council of Trent:
“If any one saith, that, after the grace of Justification has been received, to every penitent sinner the guilt is remitted, and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such wise, that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world, or in the next in Purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened (to him); let him be anathema.”[21]
This doctrine of Purgatory is not to be found in the teachings of Scripture, and the Council of Trent acknowledged this when they admitted in another place that this doctrine was derived from the writings, traditions and councils of the church fathers:
“Whereas the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Ghost, has, from the sacred writings and the ancient tradition of the Fathers, taught, in sacred councils, and very recently in this oecumenical Synod, that there is a Purgatory, and that the souls there detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but principally by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar; the holy Synod enjoins on bishops that they diligently endeavour that the sound doctrine concerning Purgatory, transmitted by the holy Fathers and sacred councils, be believed, maintained, taught, and every where proclaimed by the faithful of Christ. But let the more difficult and subtle questions, and which tend not to edification, and from which for the most part there is no increase of piety, be excluded from popular discourses before the uneducated multitude. In like manner, such things as are uncertain, or which labour under an appearance of error, let them not allow to be made public and treated of.”[22]
Notice the prohibition against questioning this doctrine. The Council of Trent recognized that there was no biblical support for the doctrine of Purgatory, but instead of abandoning the concept of temporal punishment for sins, they simply decreed that no one was to question it and that those who denied it were to be anathema. This stubborn persistence in teaching an additional, temporal punishment for sins should have precluded the Catholic church from being included in Mr. Frazer’s list.
Another of the doctrines which Mr. Frazer claims no one can deny and still be a Christian is the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures. In this category, however, Mr. Frazer’s inclusion of the Catholic church should have caused him to exclude every other group of Christians, for none of the other groups agreed with the Catholic church in regards to the inspiration of Scripture. The Council of Trent decreed that:
“Seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament – seeing that one God is the author of both – as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ's own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession. And it has thought it meet that a list of the sacred books be inserted in this decree, lest a doubt may arise in any one's mind, which are the books that are received by this Synod. They are as set down here below: of the Old Testament: the five books of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Josue, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, the first book of Esdras, and the second which is entitled Nehemias; Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidical Psalter, consisting of a hundred and fifty psalms; the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch; Ezechiel, Daniel; the twelve minor prophets, to wit, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggaeus, Zacharias, Malachias; two books of the Machabees, the first and the second. Of the New Testament: the four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke the Evangelist; fourteen epistles of Paul the apostle, (one) to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, (one) to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, (one) to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; two of Peter the apostle, three of John the apostle, one of the apostle James, one of Jude the apostle, and the Apocalypse of John the apostle. But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.”[23]
It is clear from this declaration that the Catholic canon of Scripture included the books of the Apocrypha which the other groups of Christians rejected. None of the other churches recognized these books as Scripture. The Philadelphia Confession, for example, stated that:
“The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon (or rule) of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority to the church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of than other human writings.”[24]
And in An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, the Bishop of Sarum wrote:
“It were easy to carry this much further down, and to shew that these books were never by any express definition received into the Canon, till it was done at Trent; and that in all the ages of the Church, even after they came to be much esteemed, there were divers writers, and those generally the most learned of their time, who denied them to be a part of the Canon.”[25]
Throughout his book, Mr. Frazer condemns several men as non-Christians for denying that the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God. As Mr. Frazer admits, each of these men believed that God did give a written revelation to men. They simply did not accept the entire canon of Scripture as a divine inspiration, and for this, they receive his condemnation. Now, however, it is apparent that several of the groups of Christians in Mr. Frazer’s list also deny that the entire canon, that is, the Catholic canon of Scripture is divinely inspired. According to the Council of Trent, that single difference is enough to deny the Christianity of those other groups. Mr. Frazer seems to agree with this conclusion everywhere else in his book, and he should have remained consistent and denied the Christianity of all the Baptist and Protestant churches.
Mr. Frazer’s error in this point becomes even more significant when we consider what he said about Christians just before he presented his list of ten doctrines. In direct contradiction to the above decree from the Council of Trent, Mr. Frazer wrote:
“Christians believed that the whole Bible was divinely inspired, was God’s special revelation of Himself, and was the only infallible authority in all matters that it treated.”[26]
When we compare Mr. Frazer’s claim that Christians believe the Bible to be the only infallible revelation from God with the statement from the Council of Trent that the traditions of the church are an additional revelation that is equal to the Scriptures, then we can only conclude that Mr. Frazer is here denying the Christianity of the Catholic church as well. If the Baptist and Protestant churches are not Christian because they do not accept the entire Catholic canon of Scripture, and if the Catholic church is not Christian because it accepts the traditions of the church as equal to the Scriptures, then I submit that Mr. Frazer would have a very difficult time identifying a single Christian church that has existed at any time in the entire history of mankind.
In addition to Mr. Frazer’s incredible errors regarding the doctrines of the Catholic church, he also erred in claiming that his list of core Christian doctrines is derived from the “official” positions of the five groups that he listed. One of those “official” positions is identified by Mr. Frazer as the “official creed of Baptists and churches that emphasize baptism.”[27] The problem with this claim should be immediately apparent to anyone who has ever studied the history of the baptistic churches, and that is simply that there is no official creed of the Baptists.
The creed which Mr. Frazer presents as the official Baptist creed is the Philadelphia Confession of 1720. This confession, however, was never claimed to be an official creed of all the Baptist churches in America. It was merely a common confession of faith that was shared by the small group of churches which made up the Philadelphia Baptist Association. Furthermore, this association admitted that it had no authority over the churches of its membership in a 1749 publication which stated:
“That an Association is not a superior judicature, having such superior power over the churches concerned; but that each particular church hath a complete power and authority from Jesus Christ, to administer all gospel ordinances … and to receive in and cast out, and also to try and ordain their own officers, and to exercise every part of gospel discipline and church government, independent of any other church or assembly whatever."[28]
This independence of each local church is one of the distinctive qualities that has been associated with baptistic churches for nearly two millennia, and it is this quality of independence which belies Mr. Frazer’s attempt to identify an official creed for the fastest growing denomination of the founding era. Most of the more than 450 Baptist churches in America at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the nearly 900 Baptist churches during the ratification of the Constitution either had their own, independent confessions of faith or freely chose to adopt one of the dozen or so more popular confessions such as the Standard Confession, the Sandy Creek Confession, The Coalheaver’s Confession, John Gill’s Confession, and several others in addition to the Philadelphia Confession which Mr. Frazer references. No one who is the least bit familiar with Baptist history could ever honestly claim to have found the official creed of the Baptists.
As significant as the aforementioned errors may be, they all pale to a ghostly white in comparison to the error which I will mention next. Mr. Frazer repeatedly states in his book that the ten doctrines which he listed are the measure of whether any individual should be considered a Christian or an infidel. Those who accepted these ten doctrines are referred to as Christians, and those who reject any one of the ten are themselves rejected as heathens. According to Mr. Frazer’s book:
“These definitions are designed more to identify who was not a deist or Christian than to identify who was. Although some deists might add certain beliefs or attitudes to this definition, all would concur that one who disagreed with certain fundamentals was something other than a deist … For the purpose of this study, Christianity as a belief system will be defined by the standards of eighteenth-century America. It refers, then, to a set of beliefs officially espoused by all of the major Christian sects in America in the 1700s. Those who held these beliefs were considered to be Christians, and those who did not were considered to be ‘infidels’ … A Calvinist might add doctrines to the definition that an Anglican or Baptist would not, but none of them would subtract any of these. Again, the definition is designed to identify who was not a Christian or who would not be considered Christian by any of the denominations.”[29]
In an interview with Albert Mohler, Mr. Frazer stated:
“What I argue is that these are the fundamental core elements of deism just as the ten doctrines that you rattled off are the core doctrines, the fundamental doctrines, of Christianity. Whereas some Christians might add some things to the list of ten and some deists might add some things to the two or three elements of deism, everybody would agree who was a deist that if you don’t believe those fundamental things, you’re not a deist. And everybody would agree in the Christian community that if you don’t believe those fundamental things, you’re not a Christian.”[30]
This concept that no one can be a Christian who questions a single one of the ten doctrines in Mr. Frazer’s list is the cornerstone of his work. After laying this cornerstone in the first twenty pages, he then proceeds to build on it by declaring that various individuals are not Christians solely because they dared to either question or deny some point on this list. His entire claim that the patriotic preachers and the key founding fathers were not Christians rests solely on their supposed non-conformity to his list of ten fundamental doctrines. The only problem is that Mr. Frazer’s list is completely wrong.
Mr. Frazer claims to have derived his list from a comparison of the official creeds of five different groups of Christians. If we were to study those creeds, we would find that they do, in fact, make mention of the ten doctrines which Mr. Frazer has listed. What we would not find, however, is agreement within those creeds that these ten doctrines must be believed in order for someone to be a Christian. Only one of the creeds listed by Mr. Frazer agrees with his claim that no one can be a Christian who questions or denies a single doctrine from his list, and that is the creed of the Catholic church. All of the other creeds give unanimous voice to a very different definition of Christianity.
To obtain an accurate definition of Christianity, it is necessary to consider the original usage of that term as recorded in the Book of Acts. In that portion of Scripture, we read that “the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch,”[31] and from this we can see that the name of Christian was given to those who were in another place called “the disciples of the Lord.”[32] This, however, is not to be understood as a reference to the original twelve disciples only, for none of the original twelve were in Antioch at this time, and further, it is stated earlier in the Scriptures that the number of disciples on the morning of Pentecost was “about an hundred and twenty.”[33] The proper understanding of which individuals were called Christians in Antioch can be seen in the phrase which precedes that statement. Just before we are told that the disciples were called Christians, we are informed that Paul and Barnabas traveled to that city and “assembled themselves with the church.” It was thus the members of the church that are here said to have been previously known as disciples and which were, from then on, known among the heathen as Christians.
Consideration must now be given to the means by which these disciples became members of the church. This is also explained in the Book of Acts where we read that “the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”[34] The means of this salvation by which individuals are made Christians and added to the church is stated in another place to be “the gospel of Christ”[35] which is clearly defined in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”[36]
This gospel, or good news, is the means by which an individual is able to become a Christian, but he must first believe it to be true as is stated in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
“For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”[37]
It is for this reason that we read in the Epistle to the Romans that this gospel is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth”[38] and not simply to everyone regardless of his belief. Of those who refuse to believe this gospel, the Scriptures tell us that the Lord will come “in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[39] But all of those who believe are promised salvation by which they are made members of the church, disciples of Christ and Christians in the purest meaning of the word.
It is this belief which produces salvation and Christianity that is referred to by the first four of Mr. Frazer’s groups when they speak of justification by faith. The Augsburg Confession states this doctrine in this manner:
“Our churches further teach, that man cannot obtain forgiveness of sin, and be justified before God by his own strength, merits or works; but that he obtains the forgiveness of sins, and is justified before God, through grace, for Christ's sake, by faith; if he believes that Christ suffered for him, and that his sins are remitted for Christ's sake, who made satisfaction for our transgressions by his death. This faith God imputes to us as righteousness, as Paul says. (Rom. chap. iii. and iv.)”[40]
In the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, we read:
“We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort.”[41]
And in both the Philadelphia Confession and the Westminster Confession, we find:
“Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons, as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness, but by imputing Christ's active obedience unto the whole law, and passive obedience in his death, for their whole and sole righteousness; they receiving, and resting on him, and his righteousness by faith.”[42]
In addition to the creeds mentioned by Mr. Frazer, we could also point out that all of the other confessions from the various Baptist churches agree with these. The Standard Confession, for example, contains this declaration:
“God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, 2 Pet. 3.9. and the knowledge of the truth, that they might be saved, I Tim. 2. 4. For which end Christ hath commanded, that the Gospel (to wit, the glad tydings of remission of sins) should be preached to every creature, Mark 16.15. So that no man shall eternally suffer in Hell (that is, the second death) for want of a Christ that dyed for them ... The way set forth by God for men to be justified in, is by faith in Christ, Rom. 5.1. That is to say, when men shall assent to the truth of the Gospel, believing with all their hearts, that there is remission of sins, and eternal life to be had in Christ. And that Christ therefore is most worthy their constant affections, and subjection to all his Commandements, and therefore resolve with purpose of heart so to subject unto him in all things, and no longer unto themselves, 2 Cor. 5.15. And so, shall (with godly sorrow for the sins past) commit themselves to his grace, confidently depending upon him for that which they believe is to be had in him: such so believing are justified from all their sins, their faith shall be accounted unto them for righteousness, Rom. 4. 22, 23, 24. Rom. 3. 25, 26.”[43]
Nowhere in any of these creeds is there to be found any other belief which is necessary for salvation, and as we have already shown, this salvation is the only requirement given in the Bible by which an individual can become a Christian. All of the other points in these various creeds are stated to be items that particular churches believe to be true, but none of them are said to be necessary to be believed in order for someone to be a Christian. The only belief necessary in order for someone to be a Christian is a belief in the truth of the gospel.
Having said that, let me point out once again that there is one creed which agrees with Mr. Frazer’s claim that one must believe all ten of the doctrines in his list in order to be a Christian. That one creed is the creed of the Catholic church as stated in the Council of Trent, for there we find frequent assertions that those who deny various points of Catholic doctrine are to be declared anathema which is to say that they are no longer Christians. The Bible, however, states only that “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”[44] Thus it is only the gospel which is declared in Scriptures that is necessary to be believed for salvation, and this other gospel of the necessity of believing a list of ten doctrines in order to be a Christian is denounced by the Scriptures as accursed.
Rationalism
Mr. Frazer’s book describes Theistic Rationalism as a hybrid belief system which blends natural religion with Christianity while relying on reason to solve the conflicts between the two. As we have already seen, there is no conflict between natural religion and Christianity. God created both systems, and they are complements of each other. There is only way in which conflicts can arise between the two and that is through the corruption of our knowledge of one or the other. This corruption can occur on either side. Our knowledge of natural religion, for example, could become corrupted through the addition of naturalism as was done by the deists, or our knowledge of Christianity could become corrupted through the addition of non-inspired books to the canon of Scripture as was done at the Council of Trent. Our knowledge of both sides of this dichotomy can be and often has been corrupted by the errors of men which is why we have need of rationality in matters of religion.
Rationalism, according to Mr. Frazer, is “the philosophical view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge.”[45] This definition agrees with the second definition for “rationalism” found in Webster’s Dictionary, but Mr. Frazer has ignored the context in which this definition is to be used. Here are a few excerpts from Webster’s second definition:
“2 a: a theory that reason is in itself a source of knowledge superior to and independent of sense perceptions – contrasted with sensationalism b: a theory that philosophical knowledge may be arrived at by deduction from a priori concepts or necessary ideas … contrasted with empiricism c: elaboration and development of theories (as in pure mathematics) by reasoning alone without testing them by experience.”[46]
Notice the three items that are contrasted with rationalism in this definition – sensationalism, empiricism and experience. The inclusion of these three items as contrasting elements is very important. All three of these terms refer to the idea that all knowledge originates from the experiences of our senses. This is the opposite of rationalism which teaches that knowledge can be had without the use of the physical senses and that this knowledge is superior to that which is obtained from the senses.
This is consistent with the teachings of the Bible which assures us of the error of relying solely on physical experience as the source of our knowledge, for we are told that God has written His law on the heart of every individual thereby providing us with knowledge of right and wrong apart from the experiences of our senses.[47] In fact, when Peter wrote of his experiential knowledge of the glory of Christ, he immediately followed that account with the statement that “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed”[48] thus indicating once again that God has given us a source of knowledge which is to be preferred over the information received from our physical senses, and as we have seen, the theory that knowledge can be obtained apart from and in preference to the input of our senses is known as rationalism.
Additional examples of the truth of rationalism can be found throughout the Scriptures. In the prophecy of Isaiah, for example, God did not say “Come and let me give you an experience” but rather “Come now, and let us reason together.”[49] When Samuel pleaded with the nation of Israel to continue following the Lord, he began with “Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the LORD,”[50] and throughout the Book of Acts, we read of the Apostle Paul that he “reasoned with them out of the scriptures,”[51] that “he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath”[52] and that “he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.”[53] Moreover, God Himself is said to have possessed wisdom which is the same as reason “in the beginning of his way, before his works of old,”[54] and in the same passage we are told that anyone who sins against wisdom “wrongeth his own soul.”[55] Mr. Frazer claims that the “emphasis on reason had been an accepted part of Christianity since the work of Thomas Aquinas,”[56] but the Bible clearly teaches that God has made reason an integral part of both creation and revelation since before the beginning of time. For the Christian, there should be no doubt of the truth of rationalism as opposed to the errors of sensationalism, empiricism and experientialism.
Mr. Frazer was very shrewd in providing his readers with a limited definition of rationalism, for it allowed him the freedom to condemn men of the founding era even when they agreed with his list of fundamental doctrines. There are several instances in his book in which he ridicules men for arriving at correct conclusions for no other reason than that they used their rational capacity to arrive at those conclusions. He notes, for example, that John Adams believed in God’s providence over both the works of nature and the works of men, but he is quick to condemn Mr. Adams because “we know this, according to Adams, via rational processes, not through the authority of divinely inspired revelation.”[57] Mr. Adams came to the correct conclusion about the providential care of God over all of His creation, but because he dared to use his brain in the process of arriving at that conclusion, he is rejected as an infidel.
Mr. Frazer thus sets up a false dichotomy with reason on one side and revelation on the other, and concludes that when the men of the founding era used reason, they did so because they were opposed to revelation. This is not a correct use of the word “rationalism,” for we have already demonstrated that this term is the opposite of experientialism and not the opposite of revelation. If Mr. Frazer’s usage were correct, then revelation itself would be irrational, and anyone who so much as thinks about using his mental capacity in the service of the Lord would be in danger of condemnation. Thankfully, Mr. Frazer’s usage is flawed, and we can confidently conclude that Mr. Adams’ reliance on rationalism to prove the providence of God was not a rejection of revelation but rather a rejection of empiricism.
This completes our overview of the flaws in Mr. Frazer’s definition of Theistic Rationalism. If his definition is taken at face value with a correct understanding of natural religion, Christianity and rationalism, then Theistic Rationalism is the belief that the God revealed in nature and the Christian God of the Scriptures are one and the same and that the best means of obtaining knowledge of that God is through rational reflection on the truth instead of through a reliance on our physical senses alone. This concept of Theistic Rationalism could be correctly applied to nearly every Christian believer that has ever lived. The idea that the Christian God is the true God of all creation and that we can know Him inwardly without ever experiencing Him through our physical senses agrees perfectly with Christian doctrine, and in that sense, Mr. Frazer could claim that most of the Christians of our nation’s founding era were Theistic Rationalists. This is why the theologians and preachers of that era did not hesitate to make claims about the God of nature or speak of the rationality of their beliefs. They were not embracing Mr. Frazer’s strange Chimera. They spoke of the God of nature and the God of reason because they properly recognized that God as the Christian God.
If, on the other hand, we accept Mr. Frazer’s descriptions of natural religion, Christianity and rationalism, then it becomes apparent that Mr. Frazer is himself a Theistic Rationalist. We could illustrate this fact with dozens of examples. For instance, we have already noted that Mr. Frazer condemned Mr. Adams for using rational processes instead of Scripture to prove God’s providential care over all creation. According to Mr. Frazer, this is a sign of Theistic Rationalism. What, then, are we to conclude when we consider that Mr. Frazer did not rely on a single passage of Scripture in his attempt to define Christianity? If Mr. Adams is a Theistic Rationalist for using mere human reason to recognize God’s providence, then how much more of a Theistic Rationalist must Mr. Frazer be for attempting to define Christianity itself through the use of his own rationality?
Furthermore, Mr. Frazer condemns the key founding fathers as Theistic Rationalists because they dared to use human reason to determine which passages of Scripture are really the inspired Word of God, and yet he is just as guilty of this charge as they are. Mr. Frazer is not a Catholic, and it is apparent from his sermons, that he does not use a Catholic Bible. I think that it is safe to say, then, that he does not accept the books of the Apocrypha as being inspired by God. But how did he come to this conclusion? There is no passage of Scripture which states that the Apocryphal books are uninspired. The only way that Mr. Frazer could come to such a conclusion would be for him to either use his own human reason or to rely on the reasoning of others. Thus Mr. Frazer is guilty of relying on reason to determine which passages of Scripture are really the inspired Word of God.
But this elevation of reason above revelation becomes even more insidious when we consider that Mr. Frazer relies on human reason to determine the validity of individual portions of the Bible that he personally accepts as God’s Word. For example, Augustine of Hippo records that in his time there was a dispute over the ages of the men before the flood. It seems that the Hebrew copies of the Scripture disagreed with the Greek and Latin copies on the age at which the men before the flood begat their first recorded sons. Augustine described the discrepancy in this manner:
“For the very first man, Adam, before he begot his son Seth, is in our manuscripts found to have lived 230 years, but in the Hebrew manuscripts 130. But after he begot Seth, our copies read that he lived 700 years, while the Hebrew give 800. And thus, when the two periods are taken together, the sum agrees. And so throughout the succeeding generations, the period before the father begets a son is always made shorter by 100 years in the Hebrew, but the period after his son is begotten is longer by 100 years in the Hebrew than in our copies. And thus, taking the two periods together, the result is the same in both.”[58]
Mr. Frazer claims that his own Christianity depends on his acceptance of the entire Bible as the inspired and authoritative Word of God. This places him in the unenviable position of having to decide which of these two groups of manuscripts represents the true Bible. If he chooses incorrectly, then he is in danger of losing his Christianity, for he will have ceased to accept the real Bible as God’s inspired Word. Fortunately, for Mr. Frazer, Augustine recorded a solution to this discrepancy and revealed to us that the Hebrew copies are correct. Here is his conclusion:
“In this case, in which during so many consecutive generations 100 years are added in one manuscript where they are not reckoned in the other, and then, after the birth of the son and successor, the years which were wanting are added, it is obvious that the copyist who contrived this arrangement designed to insinuate that the antediluvians lived an excessive number of years only because each year was excessively brief, and that he tried to draw the attention to this fact by his statement of their age of puberty at which they became able to beget children. For, lest the incredulous might stumble at the difficulty of so long a lifetime, he insinuated that 100 of their years equalled but ten of ours; and this insinuation he conveyed by adding 100 years whenever he found the age below 160 years or thereabouts, deducting these years again from the period after the son's birth, that the total might harmonize. By this means he intended to ascribe the generation of offspring to a fit age, without diminishing the total sum of years ascribed to the lifetime of the individuals. And the very fact that in the sixth generation he departed from this uniform practice, inclines us all the rather to believe that when the circumstance we have referred to required his alterations, he made them; seeing that when this circumstance did not exist, he made no alteration. For in the same generation he found in the Hebrew manuscript, that Jared lived before he begot Enoch 162 years, which, according to the short year computation, is sixteen years and somewhat less than two months, an age capable of procreation; and therefore it was not necessary to add 100 short years, and so make the age twenty-six years of the usual length; and of course it was not necessary to deduct, after the son's birth, years which he had not added before it. And thus it comes to pass that in this instance there is no variation between the two manuscripts.”[59]
By providing this explanation, Augustine did Mr. Frazer a great service. He relieved him of the difficult task of determining which of these texts must be believed to be the Word of God in order for him to be a Christian. In doing so, however, Augustine placed Mr. Frazer into a quandary of a different sort, for he did not rely on any revelation from God to tell him which copy of the Bible was correct. Augustine and all those who agree with him are forced to rely on human reasoning alone to determine what is and what is not the Word of God. This, according to Mr. Frazer, marks Augustine, Mr. Frazer himself and nearly every Christian that has ever lived as Theistic Rationalists.
Additionally, lest anyone think that the above examples are inconclusive, let me point out further that Mr. Frazer uses a Bible which either adds to or subtracts from the ending of the Gospel of Mark depending on which Greek text it is compared to. Some of the texts end chapter sixteen of Mark’s Gospel with verse eight, others extend it to verse twenty and still others include an additional statement at the end of verse twenty. There is no passage of Scripture which informs us of which ending is correct. Therefore, Mr. Frazer has no hope of solving this discrepancy without being guilty of using his own reason to decide what is and what is not the true, inspired and authoritative Word of God. Regardless of where he decides that the Gospel of Mark should end, he will still be guilty of elevating human reason above revelation.
In a sermon presented at the Master’s College, Mr. Frazer made the following statement about the founding fathers:
“These guys had the audacity to decide which parts of the Bible were revelation from God and which weren't on the basis of their own reason.”[60]
We have now seen several examples of Mr. Frazer exhibiting this same audacity. Thus, if measured by his own standards, Mr. Frazer would be considered a Theistic Rationalist and not a Christian. Fortunately, God does not judge us according to Mr. Frazer’s standards but rather according to the teachings of His Word which assures us that the gospel is the only thing necessary to be believed in order for someone to be a Christian.
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[1] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), ix.
[2] Ibid., 14.
[3] Ibid., 15.
[4] Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, (1966) s.v. “natural religion.”
[5] Wilkins, John, Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion (London: R. Chifwell, 1710), 39. [http://books.google.com/books?id=E9c0HuEK3l0C&pg=PA39]
[6] Eliot, Andrew, A Discourse on Natural Religion (Boston: Daniel Kneeland, 1771), 22. [http://books.google.com/books?id=JfUqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR22]
[7] Heathcote, Ralph, The Use of Reason Asserted in Matters of Religion: or Natural Religion the Foundation of Revealed (London: Thomas Payne, 1756), 11. [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZtdbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA11]
[8] Ibid., 29-30. [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZtdbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA29]
[9] Romans 1:20
[10] Romans 2:15
[11] Witherspoon, John, Lectures on Moral Philosophy (Philadelphia: William W. Woodford, 1822), 48. [http://books.google.com/books?id=V7fOeZGrRFsC&pg=PA48]
[12] Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, (1966) s.v. “naturalism.”
[13] Heathcote, Ralph, The Use of Reason Asserted in Matters of Religion: or Natural Religion the Foundation of Revealed (London: Thomas Payne, 1756), 40. [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZtdbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA40]
[14] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 17.
[15] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders - Part I (Sun Valley, CA, Grace Community Church, August 5, 2012) [http://www.gracechurch.org/media/7133/the_religious_beliefs_of_america39s_founders_part_i]
[16] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 19.
[17] Waterworth, J., The Cannons and Decrees of the Sacred and Ecumenical Council of Trent (London: C. Dolman, 1848), 16-17 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA16]
[18] Ibid., 22-24 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA22]
[19] Ibid., 34-35 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA34]
[20] Ibid., 42 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA42]
[21] Ibid., 48 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA48]
[22] Ibid., 232-233 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA232]
[23] Ibid., 18-19 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA18]
[24] The Philadelphia Association, Confession of Faith (Philadelphia: The Tract Depository, 1829), 12-13 [http://books.google.com/books?id=jqc9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA12]
[25] Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop of Sarum, An Exposition of the XXXIX Articles of the Church of England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1805), 119 [http://books.google.com/books?id=2CUBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA119]
[26] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 18.
[27] Ibid., 19.
[28] Gillette, A. D., Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association from A.D. 1707, to A.D. 1807 (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 60-61. [http://books.google.com/books?id=Z777vn-7mlAC&pg=PA60]
[29] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 15-18.
[30] Thinking in Public, “What Did America’s Founders Really Believe? A Conversation with Historian Gregg Frazer,” Albert Mohler and Gregg Frazer, September 10, 2012, transcript, http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/09/10/what-did-america%E2%80%99s-founders-really-believe-a-conversation-with-historian-gregg-frazer-transcript (accessed February 06, 2013)
[31] Acts 11:26
[32] Acts 9:1
[33] Acts 1:15
[34] Acts 2:47
[35] Romans 1:16
[36] I Corinthians 15:1-4
[37] Hebrews 4:2
[38] Romans 1:16
[39] II Thessalonians 1:8
[40] Schott, Christian Heinrich, The Unaltered Augsburg Confession (New York: H. Ludwig & Co., 1848), 83. [http://books.google.com/books?id=1BRMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA83]
[41] Welchman, Edward, The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1842), 31. [http://books.google.com/books?id=XHgrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA31]
[42] The Philadelphia Association, Confession of Faith (Philadelphia: The Tract Depository, 1829), 33-34. [http://books.google.com/books?id=jqc9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA33]
[43] McGlothlin, W. J., Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911), 113. [http://books.google.com/books?id=-jMXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA113]
[44] Galatians 1:9
[45] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 14.
[46] Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, (1966) s.v. “rationalism.”
[47] Romans 2:15
[48] II Peter 2:19
[49] Isaiah 1:18
[50] I Samuel 12:7
[51] Acts 17:2
[52] Acts 18:4
[53] Acts 24:25
[54] Proverbs 8:22
[55] Proverbs 8:36
[56] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 14.
[57]Ibid., 110.
[58] Dods, Marcus, The Works of Aurelius Augustine vol II, (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1871), 65. [http://books.google.com/books?id=--owAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA65]
[59] Ibid., 71-72 [http://books.google.com/books?id=--owAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA71]
[60] Frazer, Gregg, Seminar 3: The Religious Beliefs of America's Founders - Reasons, Revelation, Revolution (Santa Clarita, CA, The Master’s College, January 18, 2013) [http://www2.masters.edu/pulpit/files/2013/Truth-and-Life-13/20130118-GreggFrazer-mp3]
Before we can address Mr. Frazer’s historical errors, however, it is important that we give consideration to the theological errors which form the foundation of his book. There are three theological viewpoints that Mr. Frazer presents in his book: Deism, Christianity and Theistic Rationalism. I do not have any major contentions with Mr. Frazer’s definition of Deism, so I will put off any discussion of that particular theology for now. His definitions of Christianity and Theistic Rationalism, however, leave much to be desired.
Theistic Rationalism
The primary point to keep in mind when discussing Theistic Rationalism is that Mr. Frazer is the sole creator of this belief system. The term “Theistic Rationalism” did not exist during the founding era of our nation, and none of the founding fathers ever proclaimed themselves to be of this belief. It is merely a term that Mr. Frazer has coined in order to describe men that he thinks were neither Christians nor Deists. Since this term does not exist in the historic record, Mr. Frazer is free of any responsibility to limit his use of it to any historical confession or creed. No one has ever admitted to being a Theistic Rationalist, and thus, Mr. Frazer was left with the need to invent some means of proving that certain individuals of the founding era would have accepted this label if it had been available to them.
Mr. Frazer’s solution to this problem was to define this new religion as “a hybrid belief system mixing elements of natural religion, Christianity, and rationalism, with rationalism as the predominant element.”[2] This definition sounds specific enough for Mr. Frazer to present Theistic Rationalism as a unique belief system apart from Christianity, but it remains broad enough for him to apply it to any individual who has ever lived. In short, this is just a bad definition that sounds good. At the end of this article, I will prove the worthlessness of this definition by demonstrating that Mr. Frazer himself meets this description of a Theistic Rationalist, but first let’s take the time to analyze the three components which make up this definition.
Natural Religion
In his book, Mr. Frazer defines natural religion as “a system of thought centered on the belief that reliable information about God and about what He wills is best discovered and understood by examining the evidence of nature and the laws of nature, which He established.”[3] This is simply not the correct definition of “natural religion.” Mr. Frazer appears to have confused the term “natural religion” with the term of “naturalism.” The two are similar in appearance, and there is even some similarity in their definitions, but these two terms describe vastly different philosophies.
Natural religion can be more properly understood as the knowledge of God that man is able to derive from nature. According to Webster’s dictionary, natural religion is:
“A religion validated on the basis of human reason and experience apart from miraculous or supernatural revelation; specif : a religion that is universally discernible by all men through the use of human reason apart from any special revelation”[4]
We can see from the 1710 publication Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion that this is the same definition of natural religion that was used in the eighteenth century. In that book, we read:
"I call that Natural Religion, which men might know, and should be obliged unto, by the mere principles of Reason, improved by Consideration and Experience, without the help of Revelation."[5]
That this was still the view of natural religion during the founding era of our nation can be seen in Andrew Eliot’s sermon A Discourse on Natural Religion which he delivered in the chapel of Harvard College in 1771. Here is an excerpt from that sermon in which Mr. Eliot provides an extensive definition of natural religion:
"I have said – There is a God – That there is Religion – I am now to consider in what sense this Religion is called Natural. And it is thus denominated, not because men discover it in the sole exercise of their natural faculties and powers; but because it hath its foundation in the Perfections of God, and in that constitution of nature which he has established, or which arises from the mutual relation between God and His creature Man, God having made us the beings we are, intelligent rational creatures, and having fixed our particular situation, there arise certain fitnesses and obligations, which constitute the law of our nature. This is the law of Him who is the author of our being; to act agreeable to that, is therefore to obey God, which constitutes it Religion. And to obey a law, which results, not from the positive will of God, but from the nature He hath given to man, is to him natural religion."[6]
What is perhaps one of the most succinct explanations of natural religion comes from a 1756 publication by Ralph Heathcote entitled The Use of Reason in Matters of Religion: or Natural Religion the Foundation of Revealed. Mr. Heathcote provided the following explanation of natural religion:
“Whereas Natural Religion is quite a different Thing; and by which is never meant any thing more, than the Being and Attributes of God, the Nature and Condition of Man, and the several Duties belonging to it, which relate either to God, or to our fellow-Creatures; all deduced, by a just and proper exercise of Reason, from the Fabrick of the World, and the visible Constitutions of things. This has always been understood to be Natural Religion."[7]
And later in the same book we read:
"Natural Religion, let us remember, is nothing more than the dictates of Common Sense, or the Informations, we receive from our Natural Powers, in all matters of duty, relating to God and Man; and it includes a knowledge of God's Existence, of his Attributes of Justice and Goodness, and real Conceptions of Right and Wrong."[8]
The common thread in each of these descriptions is the idea that natural religion is the knowledge which men can obtain about God by examining themselves and the world around them. In other words, natural religion is nothing more than a recognition of the truth of God’s Word which proclaims that “the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead”[9] and which assures us that all men have the Law of God “written in their hearts.”[10] This was the predominant view of natural religion in the eighteenth century, and it was this view that was held by founding father John Witherspoon who claimed that “the proof of the being of God” is “the great foundation of all natural religion; without which, the moral sense would be weak and insufficient."[11] I have not discovered any reference to natural religion in the writings of the founding fathers that differs from this understanding.
This view of natural religion differs quite significantly from the view which Mr. Frazer expressed in his book. Mr. Frazer claimed that natural religion was not just the evidence of the existence of God but rather the belief that information about God and His will for man is better understood from nature than from revelation. This idea that the evidence from nature is a better conveyance of God’s will than the supernatural revelation of the Scriptures would be more properly identified as naturalism than as natural religion. Naturalism is defined by the dictionary as: “a doctrine that religious truth is derived from nature and not from miraculous or supernatural revelation.”[12] This definition includes a denial of supernatural revelation, and it appears to be this definition that Mr. Frazer utilizes whenever he refers to natural religion throughout his book. To demonstrate that this was not the way in which natural religion was viewed in the eighteenth century, we need only return to the previously referenced publication by Mr. Heathcote. In his book on natural religion, Mr. Heathcote explained that:
"When we affirm Natural Religion to be the foundation of Revealed, we do not mean, that Revealed Religion must be in every respect conformable, but only that it must not be in any contradictory, to Natural: for it is certain, that there are many particulars in Revealed, which make no part of Natural Religion, and which the purest and most improved Reason alone could never have attained the least conception of."[13]
Thus, the view of natural religion in the eighteenth century was not that information about God is best obtained from nature but rather that such information can be obtained through nature. This view is perfectly consistent with Christianity and the Scriptures.
Christianity
Having determined the flaw in Mr. Frazer’s definition of natural religion, we must now consider his definition of Christianity. It is interesting to note here that Mr. Frazer never truly defines Christianity in his book. Instead of presenting an actual definition, he attempts to limit Christianity to “a set of beliefs officially espoused by all of the major Christian sects in America in the 1700s.”[14] Ironically, Mr. Frazer criticized his own definition in a sermon by the same title as his book when he mocked Michael Novak for saying essentially the same thing. Mr. Novak claimed that George Washington should be measured by the definition of Christianity that was in vogue in the late eighteenth century, and Mr. Frazer’s response to this was to ask:
"Did God's standards change? Do we have to look at the year to see whether someone's a Christian or not? Novak proceeds as if there's no actual definition of what it means to be a Christian, just differing opinions."[15]
We could ask these same questions of Mr. Frazer. Why does he not provide an actual definition of Christianity? Does God change His standard for how to become a Christian in order to conform to the “beliefs officially espoused by all of the major Christian sects” of a given century? Why does Mr. Frazer proceed “as if there’s no actual definition of what it means to be a Christian”?
Throughout his book, Mr. Frazer emphatically states that certain individuals were not Christians. In order to make such a claim, he should have presented us with a clear explanation of what makes one person a Christian and another person not a Christian. Instead of doing this, however, Mr. Frazer chose to provide a mere consensus opinion on the beliefs held in common by those calling themselves Christians in eighteenth century America. Using a consensus opinion as a standard of measurement can only inform us of which individuals conformed to the opinions of the majority. It cannot tell us whether agreeing with the majority is necessary in order for someone to be a Christian.
Before we discuss the correct definition of Christianity, it is important that we take note of some major flaws in Mr. Frazer’s consensus opinion. This opinion consists of a list of ten doctrines that were held in common by the five major groups or sects of Christians in the eighteenth century. Those doctrines are: the trinity, the interaction of God in human affairs, the deity of Christ, original sin, the virgin birth, the atonement of Christ’s death, His resurrection, eternal punishment for sin, justification by faith and the inspiration of the Scriptures.[16] According to Mr. Frazer, belief in these doctrines is necessary for salvation, and no one who rejects any one of these doctrines can be considered a Christian. Let me state at the outset that I believe each of these doctrines to be true, but there are, nonetheless, several errors in Mr. Frazer’s claim.
The first, and perhaps the most obvious, error can be seen in the beliefs that Mr. Frazer attributed to the Catholic church. Mr. Frazer claimed that the Council of Trent in 1547 declared the Catholic church’s assent to the doctrines of justification by faith, eternal punishment for sin and the inspiration of the Scriptures. There are several major flaws in this statement.
First, it is admitted by Mr. Frazer that “although Catholics disagreed with Protestants about the sufficiency of faith for justification, they agreed that justification required faith.” Unfortunately, Mr. Frazer appears to be equivocating on the definition of the term “justification by faith.” He is using it to mean one thing when referring to the other groups of Christians in his list, but when he refers to justification by faith in the list of Catholic doctrines, he is referring to something completely different. When the other denominations in Mr. Frazer’s list speak of justification by faith, they are referring to the concept of one’s faith in Christ causing him to be declared righteous thus freeing him from the penalty of sin which is death in hell. The Council of Trent, however, proposed a different means of freeing people from the penalty of hell. Here is the statement of faith of which that Council said, “All who profess the faith of Christ necessarily believe:”
“I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, and born of the Father before all ages; God of God, light of light, true God of true God; begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made: who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from the heavens, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man: crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, he suffered and was buried; and he rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures; and he ascended into heaven, sitteth at the right hand of the Father ; and again he will come with glory to judge the living and the dead; of whose kingdom there shall be no end: and in the Holy Ghost the Lord, and the giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is adored and glorified; who spoke by the prophets and one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I confess one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.”[17]
Notice the last sentence in which the professor of this faith declares his belief in “one baptism for the remission of sins.” This plainly shows that it was baptism and not faith which the Catholic church declared to be the means of freeing an individual from the penalty of hell. This declaration is further explained in another part of the creed in which we read:
“If he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema…
“If any one denies, that infants, newly born from their mothers' wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining life everlasting, – whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false, – let him be anathema. For that which the apostle has said, By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned, is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation…
“If any one denies, that, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is conferred in baptism, the guilt of original sin is remitted; or even asserts that the whole of that which has the true and proper nature of sin is not taken away; but says that it is only rased, or not imputed; let him be anathema. For, in those who are born again, there is nothing that God hates; because, There is no condemnation to those who are truly buried together with Christ by baptism into death; who walk not according to the flesh, but, putting off the old man, and putting on the new who is created according to God, are made innocent, immaculate, pure, harmless, and beloved of God, heirs indeed of God, but joint heirs with Christ; so that there is nothing whatever to retard their entrance into heaven.”[18]
Here we see, in no uncertain terms, that the Council of Trent declared baptism and not faith to be the means of justification. Mr. Frazer claimed that the Catholic church agreed with other churches in recognizing the need for faith in order for an individual to be justified, but how can a newborn infant possibly be said to express faith in a Christ that he has never heard of or, if hearing, could not possibly understand that which he hears? Mr. Frazer is quite mistaken. The very creed which he recognizes as the official creed of the eighteenth century Catholic church states that men are justified, in the sense of being declared righteous and freed from the penalty of hell, through the means of baptism and not by faith.
There was, however, a reference to justification by faith in the Council of Trent, and it is in this reference that we discover the source of Mr. Frazer’s equivocation. In the session immediately following the session on baptism, the Council presented the following declaration on justification:
“Of this Justification the causes are these: the final cause indeed is the glory of God and of Jesus Christ, and life everlasting; while the efficient cause is a merciful God who washes and sanctifies gratuitously, signing, and anointing with the holy Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our inheritance; but the meritorious cause is His most beloved only-begotten, our Lord Jesus Christ, who, when we were enemies, for the exceeding charity wherewith he loved us, merited Justification for us by His most holy Passion on the wood of the cross, and made satisfaction for us unto God the Father; the instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, without which (faith) no man was ever justified … This faith, Catechumen's beg of the Church – agreeably to a tradition of the apostles – previously to the sacrament of Baptism; when they beg for the faith which bestows life everlasting.”[19]
From this declaration, it is plainly obvious that, when the Council of Trent spoke of the faith which brings justification, they were not speaking of a belief or an assent that a man must have but rather of a gift which he must receive from the church, namely, the gift of baptism. This act of baptism is described as the sacrament of faith, and the fact that it must be begged of from the church shows that this faith cannot be a mental or even a spiritual belief in the truth of the gospel but rather a gift which is conferred upon the individual by the church in the form of a baptism.
Further evidence that the Council of Trent did not teach justification by faith in the same sense that this concept is understood by the other groups in Mr. Frazer’s list can be seen in their claim that a person can lose his justification without losing his faith. Here is the Council’s statement in that regard:
“In opposition also to the subtle wits of certain men, who, by pleasing speeches and good words, seduce the hearts of the innocent, it is to be maintained, that the received grace of Justification is lost, not only by infidelity whereby even faith itself is lost, but also by any other mortal sin whatever, though faith be not lost; thus defending the doctrine of the divine law, which excludes from the kingdom of God not only the unbelieving, but the faithful also (who are) fornicators, adulterers, effeminate, liers with mankind, thieves, covetous, drunkards, railers, extortioners, and all others who commit deadly sins; from which, with the help of divine grace, they can refrain, and on account of which they are separated from the grace of Christ.”[20]
If an individual can lose his justification without losing the faith by which he was justified, then it follows that it was not really his faith that obtained his justification. Thus, it is evident that the Council of Trent taught that justification is a gift that must be sought of and kept through the good graces of the Catholic church. This is not justification by faith but rather justification by the church.
This brings us to Mr. Frazer’s claim that the eighteenth century Catholic church taught the doctrine of eternal punishment for sin. This claim is partially correct. The Catholic church of this time period did teach that there was an eternal punishment for sins in hell, but as we have already seen, they also taught that baptism, including infant baptism, was the means of escaping that punishment. This, of course, presented a problem for the Catholic church. If all of those who were baptized as infants were thereby delivered from the punishment for their sins and assured of a home in heaven, then there would be no incentive for anyone to participate in the many rituals and formalities of the church. This problem, and the loss of funding that must have accompanied it, gave rise to the doctrine of temporal punishment for sins in Purgatory. Here is the statement regarding Purgatory that was made by the Council of Trent:
“If any one saith, that, after the grace of Justification has been received, to every penitent sinner the guilt is remitted, and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such wise, that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged either in this world, or in the next in Purgatory, before the entrance to the kingdom of heaven can be opened (to him); let him be anathema.”[21]
This doctrine of Purgatory is not to be found in the teachings of Scripture, and the Council of Trent acknowledged this when they admitted in another place that this doctrine was derived from the writings, traditions and councils of the church fathers:
“Whereas the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Ghost, has, from the sacred writings and the ancient tradition of the Fathers, taught, in sacred councils, and very recently in this oecumenical Synod, that there is a Purgatory, and that the souls there detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but principally by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar; the holy Synod enjoins on bishops that they diligently endeavour that the sound doctrine concerning Purgatory, transmitted by the holy Fathers and sacred councils, be believed, maintained, taught, and every where proclaimed by the faithful of Christ. But let the more difficult and subtle questions, and which tend not to edification, and from which for the most part there is no increase of piety, be excluded from popular discourses before the uneducated multitude. In like manner, such things as are uncertain, or which labour under an appearance of error, let them not allow to be made public and treated of.”[22]
Notice the prohibition against questioning this doctrine. The Council of Trent recognized that there was no biblical support for the doctrine of Purgatory, but instead of abandoning the concept of temporal punishment for sins, they simply decreed that no one was to question it and that those who denied it were to be anathema. This stubborn persistence in teaching an additional, temporal punishment for sins should have precluded the Catholic church from being included in Mr. Frazer’s list.
Another of the doctrines which Mr. Frazer claims no one can deny and still be a Christian is the doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures. In this category, however, Mr. Frazer’s inclusion of the Catholic church should have caused him to exclude every other group of Christians, for none of the other groups agreed with the Catholic church in regards to the inspiration of Scripture. The Council of Trent decreed that:
“Seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament – seeing that one God is the author of both – as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ's own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession. And it has thought it meet that a list of the sacred books be inserted in this decree, lest a doubt may arise in any one's mind, which are the books that are received by this Synod. They are as set down here below: of the Old Testament: the five books of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Josue, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, the first book of Esdras, and the second which is entitled Nehemias; Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidical Psalter, consisting of a hundred and fifty psalms; the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch; Ezechiel, Daniel; the twelve minor prophets, to wit, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggaeus, Zacharias, Malachias; two books of the Machabees, the first and the second. Of the New Testament: the four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke the Evangelist; fourteen epistles of Paul the apostle, (one) to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, (one) to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, (one) to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; two of Peter the apostle, three of John the apostle, one of the apostle James, one of Jude the apostle, and the Apocalypse of John the apostle. But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.”[23]
It is clear from this declaration that the Catholic canon of Scripture included the books of the Apocrypha which the other groups of Christians rejected. None of the other churches recognized these books as Scripture. The Philadelphia Confession, for example, stated that:
“The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon (or rule) of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority to the church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of than other human writings.”[24]
And in An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, the Bishop of Sarum wrote:
“It were easy to carry this much further down, and to shew that these books were never by any express definition received into the Canon, till it was done at Trent; and that in all the ages of the Church, even after they came to be much esteemed, there were divers writers, and those generally the most learned of their time, who denied them to be a part of the Canon.”[25]
Throughout his book, Mr. Frazer condemns several men as non-Christians for denying that the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God. As Mr. Frazer admits, each of these men believed that God did give a written revelation to men. They simply did not accept the entire canon of Scripture as a divine inspiration, and for this, they receive his condemnation. Now, however, it is apparent that several of the groups of Christians in Mr. Frazer’s list also deny that the entire canon, that is, the Catholic canon of Scripture is divinely inspired. According to the Council of Trent, that single difference is enough to deny the Christianity of those other groups. Mr. Frazer seems to agree with this conclusion everywhere else in his book, and he should have remained consistent and denied the Christianity of all the Baptist and Protestant churches.
Mr. Frazer’s error in this point becomes even more significant when we consider what he said about Christians just before he presented his list of ten doctrines. In direct contradiction to the above decree from the Council of Trent, Mr. Frazer wrote:
“Christians believed that the whole Bible was divinely inspired, was God’s special revelation of Himself, and was the only infallible authority in all matters that it treated.”[26]
When we compare Mr. Frazer’s claim that Christians believe the Bible to be the only infallible revelation from God with the statement from the Council of Trent that the traditions of the church are an additional revelation that is equal to the Scriptures, then we can only conclude that Mr. Frazer is here denying the Christianity of the Catholic church as well. If the Baptist and Protestant churches are not Christian because they do not accept the entire Catholic canon of Scripture, and if the Catholic church is not Christian because it accepts the traditions of the church as equal to the Scriptures, then I submit that Mr. Frazer would have a very difficult time identifying a single Christian church that has existed at any time in the entire history of mankind.
In addition to Mr. Frazer’s incredible errors regarding the doctrines of the Catholic church, he also erred in claiming that his list of core Christian doctrines is derived from the “official” positions of the five groups that he listed. One of those “official” positions is identified by Mr. Frazer as the “official creed of Baptists and churches that emphasize baptism.”[27] The problem with this claim should be immediately apparent to anyone who has ever studied the history of the baptistic churches, and that is simply that there is no official creed of the Baptists.
The creed which Mr. Frazer presents as the official Baptist creed is the Philadelphia Confession of 1720. This confession, however, was never claimed to be an official creed of all the Baptist churches in America. It was merely a common confession of faith that was shared by the small group of churches which made up the Philadelphia Baptist Association. Furthermore, this association admitted that it had no authority over the churches of its membership in a 1749 publication which stated:
“That an Association is not a superior judicature, having such superior power over the churches concerned; but that each particular church hath a complete power and authority from Jesus Christ, to administer all gospel ordinances … and to receive in and cast out, and also to try and ordain their own officers, and to exercise every part of gospel discipline and church government, independent of any other church or assembly whatever."[28]
This independence of each local church is one of the distinctive qualities that has been associated with baptistic churches for nearly two millennia, and it is this quality of independence which belies Mr. Frazer’s attempt to identify an official creed for the fastest growing denomination of the founding era. Most of the more than 450 Baptist churches in America at the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the nearly 900 Baptist churches during the ratification of the Constitution either had their own, independent confessions of faith or freely chose to adopt one of the dozen or so more popular confessions such as the Standard Confession, the Sandy Creek Confession, The Coalheaver’s Confession, John Gill’s Confession, and several others in addition to the Philadelphia Confession which Mr. Frazer references. No one who is the least bit familiar with Baptist history could ever honestly claim to have found the official creed of the Baptists.
As significant as the aforementioned errors may be, they all pale to a ghostly white in comparison to the error which I will mention next. Mr. Frazer repeatedly states in his book that the ten doctrines which he listed are the measure of whether any individual should be considered a Christian or an infidel. Those who accepted these ten doctrines are referred to as Christians, and those who reject any one of the ten are themselves rejected as heathens. According to Mr. Frazer’s book:
“These definitions are designed more to identify who was not a deist or Christian than to identify who was. Although some deists might add certain beliefs or attitudes to this definition, all would concur that one who disagreed with certain fundamentals was something other than a deist … For the purpose of this study, Christianity as a belief system will be defined by the standards of eighteenth-century America. It refers, then, to a set of beliefs officially espoused by all of the major Christian sects in America in the 1700s. Those who held these beliefs were considered to be Christians, and those who did not were considered to be ‘infidels’ … A Calvinist might add doctrines to the definition that an Anglican or Baptist would not, but none of them would subtract any of these. Again, the definition is designed to identify who was not a Christian or who would not be considered Christian by any of the denominations.”[29]
In an interview with Albert Mohler, Mr. Frazer stated:
“What I argue is that these are the fundamental core elements of deism just as the ten doctrines that you rattled off are the core doctrines, the fundamental doctrines, of Christianity. Whereas some Christians might add some things to the list of ten and some deists might add some things to the two or three elements of deism, everybody would agree who was a deist that if you don’t believe those fundamental things, you’re not a deist. And everybody would agree in the Christian community that if you don’t believe those fundamental things, you’re not a Christian.”[30]
This concept that no one can be a Christian who questions a single one of the ten doctrines in Mr. Frazer’s list is the cornerstone of his work. After laying this cornerstone in the first twenty pages, he then proceeds to build on it by declaring that various individuals are not Christians solely because they dared to either question or deny some point on this list. His entire claim that the patriotic preachers and the key founding fathers were not Christians rests solely on their supposed non-conformity to his list of ten fundamental doctrines. The only problem is that Mr. Frazer’s list is completely wrong.
Mr. Frazer claims to have derived his list from a comparison of the official creeds of five different groups of Christians. If we were to study those creeds, we would find that they do, in fact, make mention of the ten doctrines which Mr. Frazer has listed. What we would not find, however, is agreement within those creeds that these ten doctrines must be believed in order for someone to be a Christian. Only one of the creeds listed by Mr. Frazer agrees with his claim that no one can be a Christian who questions or denies a single doctrine from his list, and that is the creed of the Catholic church. All of the other creeds give unanimous voice to a very different definition of Christianity.
To obtain an accurate definition of Christianity, it is necessary to consider the original usage of that term as recorded in the Book of Acts. In that portion of Scripture, we read that “the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch,”[31] and from this we can see that the name of Christian was given to those who were in another place called “the disciples of the Lord.”[32] This, however, is not to be understood as a reference to the original twelve disciples only, for none of the original twelve were in Antioch at this time, and further, it is stated earlier in the Scriptures that the number of disciples on the morning of Pentecost was “about an hundred and twenty.”[33] The proper understanding of which individuals were called Christians in Antioch can be seen in the phrase which precedes that statement. Just before we are told that the disciples were called Christians, we are informed that Paul and Barnabas traveled to that city and “assembled themselves with the church.” It was thus the members of the church that are here said to have been previously known as disciples and which were, from then on, known among the heathen as Christians.
Consideration must now be given to the means by which these disciples became members of the church. This is also explained in the Book of Acts where we read that “the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”[34] The means of this salvation by which individuals are made Christians and added to the church is stated in another place to be “the gospel of Christ”[35] which is clearly defined in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.
“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”[36]
This gospel, or good news, is the means by which an individual is able to become a Christian, but he must first believe it to be true as is stated in the Epistle to the Hebrews.
“For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.”[37]
It is for this reason that we read in the Epistle to the Romans that this gospel is “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth”[38] and not simply to everyone regardless of his belief. Of those who refuse to believe this gospel, the Scriptures tell us that the Lord will come “in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”[39] But all of those who believe are promised salvation by which they are made members of the church, disciples of Christ and Christians in the purest meaning of the word.
It is this belief which produces salvation and Christianity that is referred to by the first four of Mr. Frazer’s groups when they speak of justification by faith. The Augsburg Confession states this doctrine in this manner:
“Our churches further teach, that man cannot obtain forgiveness of sin, and be justified before God by his own strength, merits or works; but that he obtains the forgiveness of sins, and is justified before God, through grace, for Christ's sake, by faith; if he believes that Christ suffered for him, and that his sins are remitted for Christ's sake, who made satisfaction for our transgressions by his death. This faith God imputes to us as righteousness, as Paul says. (Rom. chap. iii. and iv.)”[40]
In the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, we read:
“We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings: Wherefore, that we are justified by faith only is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort.”[41]
And in both the Philadelphia Confession and the Westminster Confession, we find:
“Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons, as righteous; not for any thing wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness, but by imputing Christ's active obedience unto the whole law, and passive obedience in his death, for their whole and sole righteousness; they receiving, and resting on him, and his righteousness by faith.”[42]
In addition to the creeds mentioned by Mr. Frazer, we could also point out that all of the other confessions from the various Baptist churches agree with these. The Standard Confession, for example, contains this declaration:
“God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, 2 Pet. 3.9. and the knowledge of the truth, that they might be saved, I Tim. 2. 4. For which end Christ hath commanded, that the Gospel (to wit, the glad tydings of remission of sins) should be preached to every creature, Mark 16.15. So that no man shall eternally suffer in Hell (that is, the second death) for want of a Christ that dyed for them ... The way set forth by God for men to be justified in, is by faith in Christ, Rom. 5.1. That is to say, when men shall assent to the truth of the Gospel, believing with all their hearts, that there is remission of sins, and eternal life to be had in Christ. And that Christ therefore is most worthy their constant affections, and subjection to all his Commandements, and therefore resolve with purpose of heart so to subject unto him in all things, and no longer unto themselves, 2 Cor. 5.15. And so, shall (with godly sorrow for the sins past) commit themselves to his grace, confidently depending upon him for that which they believe is to be had in him: such so believing are justified from all their sins, their faith shall be accounted unto them for righteousness, Rom. 4. 22, 23, 24. Rom. 3. 25, 26.”[43]
Nowhere in any of these creeds is there to be found any other belief which is necessary for salvation, and as we have already shown, this salvation is the only requirement given in the Bible by which an individual can become a Christian. All of the other points in these various creeds are stated to be items that particular churches believe to be true, but none of them are said to be necessary to be believed in order for someone to be a Christian. The only belief necessary in order for someone to be a Christian is a belief in the truth of the gospel.
Having said that, let me point out once again that there is one creed which agrees with Mr. Frazer’s claim that one must believe all ten of the doctrines in his list in order to be a Christian. That one creed is the creed of the Catholic church as stated in the Council of Trent, for there we find frequent assertions that those who deny various points of Catholic doctrine are to be declared anathema which is to say that they are no longer Christians. The Bible, however, states only that “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.”[44] Thus it is only the gospel which is declared in Scriptures that is necessary to be believed for salvation, and this other gospel of the necessity of believing a list of ten doctrines in order to be a Christian is denounced by the Scriptures as accursed.
Rationalism
Mr. Frazer’s book describes Theistic Rationalism as a hybrid belief system which blends natural religion with Christianity while relying on reason to solve the conflicts between the two. As we have already seen, there is no conflict between natural religion and Christianity. God created both systems, and they are complements of each other. There is only way in which conflicts can arise between the two and that is through the corruption of our knowledge of one or the other. This corruption can occur on either side. Our knowledge of natural religion, for example, could become corrupted through the addition of naturalism as was done by the deists, or our knowledge of Christianity could become corrupted through the addition of non-inspired books to the canon of Scripture as was done at the Council of Trent. Our knowledge of both sides of this dichotomy can be and often has been corrupted by the errors of men which is why we have need of rationality in matters of religion.
Rationalism, according to Mr. Frazer, is “the philosophical view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge.”[45] This definition agrees with the second definition for “rationalism” found in Webster’s Dictionary, but Mr. Frazer has ignored the context in which this definition is to be used. Here are a few excerpts from Webster’s second definition:
“2 a: a theory that reason is in itself a source of knowledge superior to and independent of sense perceptions – contrasted with sensationalism b: a theory that philosophical knowledge may be arrived at by deduction from a priori concepts or necessary ideas … contrasted with empiricism c: elaboration and development of theories (as in pure mathematics) by reasoning alone without testing them by experience.”[46]
Notice the three items that are contrasted with rationalism in this definition – sensationalism, empiricism and experience. The inclusion of these three items as contrasting elements is very important. All three of these terms refer to the idea that all knowledge originates from the experiences of our senses. This is the opposite of rationalism which teaches that knowledge can be had without the use of the physical senses and that this knowledge is superior to that which is obtained from the senses.
This is consistent with the teachings of the Bible which assures us of the error of relying solely on physical experience as the source of our knowledge, for we are told that God has written His law on the heart of every individual thereby providing us with knowledge of right and wrong apart from the experiences of our senses.[47] In fact, when Peter wrote of his experiential knowledge of the glory of Christ, he immediately followed that account with the statement that “We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed”[48] thus indicating once again that God has given us a source of knowledge which is to be preferred over the information received from our physical senses, and as we have seen, the theory that knowledge can be obtained apart from and in preference to the input of our senses is known as rationalism.
Additional examples of the truth of rationalism can be found throughout the Scriptures. In the prophecy of Isaiah, for example, God did not say “Come and let me give you an experience” but rather “Come now, and let us reason together.”[49] When Samuel pleaded with the nation of Israel to continue following the Lord, he began with “Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the LORD,”[50] and throughout the Book of Acts, we read of the Apostle Paul that he “reasoned with them out of the scriptures,”[51] that “he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath”[52] and that “he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.”[53] Moreover, God Himself is said to have possessed wisdom which is the same as reason “in the beginning of his way, before his works of old,”[54] and in the same passage we are told that anyone who sins against wisdom “wrongeth his own soul.”[55] Mr. Frazer claims that the “emphasis on reason had been an accepted part of Christianity since the work of Thomas Aquinas,”[56] but the Bible clearly teaches that God has made reason an integral part of both creation and revelation since before the beginning of time. For the Christian, there should be no doubt of the truth of rationalism as opposed to the errors of sensationalism, empiricism and experientialism.
Mr. Frazer was very shrewd in providing his readers with a limited definition of rationalism, for it allowed him the freedom to condemn men of the founding era even when they agreed with his list of fundamental doctrines. There are several instances in his book in which he ridicules men for arriving at correct conclusions for no other reason than that they used their rational capacity to arrive at those conclusions. He notes, for example, that John Adams believed in God’s providence over both the works of nature and the works of men, but he is quick to condemn Mr. Adams because “we know this, according to Adams, via rational processes, not through the authority of divinely inspired revelation.”[57] Mr. Adams came to the correct conclusion about the providential care of God over all of His creation, but because he dared to use his brain in the process of arriving at that conclusion, he is rejected as an infidel.
Mr. Frazer thus sets up a false dichotomy with reason on one side and revelation on the other, and concludes that when the men of the founding era used reason, they did so because they were opposed to revelation. This is not a correct use of the word “rationalism,” for we have already demonstrated that this term is the opposite of experientialism and not the opposite of revelation. If Mr. Frazer’s usage were correct, then revelation itself would be irrational, and anyone who so much as thinks about using his mental capacity in the service of the Lord would be in danger of condemnation. Thankfully, Mr. Frazer’s usage is flawed, and we can confidently conclude that Mr. Adams’ reliance on rationalism to prove the providence of God was not a rejection of revelation but rather a rejection of empiricism.
This completes our overview of the flaws in Mr. Frazer’s definition of Theistic Rationalism. If his definition is taken at face value with a correct understanding of natural religion, Christianity and rationalism, then Theistic Rationalism is the belief that the God revealed in nature and the Christian God of the Scriptures are one and the same and that the best means of obtaining knowledge of that God is through rational reflection on the truth instead of through a reliance on our physical senses alone. This concept of Theistic Rationalism could be correctly applied to nearly every Christian believer that has ever lived. The idea that the Christian God is the true God of all creation and that we can know Him inwardly without ever experiencing Him through our physical senses agrees perfectly with Christian doctrine, and in that sense, Mr. Frazer could claim that most of the Christians of our nation’s founding era were Theistic Rationalists. This is why the theologians and preachers of that era did not hesitate to make claims about the God of nature or speak of the rationality of their beliefs. They were not embracing Mr. Frazer’s strange Chimera. They spoke of the God of nature and the God of reason because they properly recognized that God as the Christian God.
If, on the other hand, we accept Mr. Frazer’s descriptions of natural religion, Christianity and rationalism, then it becomes apparent that Mr. Frazer is himself a Theistic Rationalist. We could illustrate this fact with dozens of examples. For instance, we have already noted that Mr. Frazer condemned Mr. Adams for using rational processes instead of Scripture to prove God’s providential care over all creation. According to Mr. Frazer, this is a sign of Theistic Rationalism. What, then, are we to conclude when we consider that Mr. Frazer did not rely on a single passage of Scripture in his attempt to define Christianity? If Mr. Adams is a Theistic Rationalist for using mere human reason to recognize God’s providence, then how much more of a Theistic Rationalist must Mr. Frazer be for attempting to define Christianity itself through the use of his own rationality?
Furthermore, Mr. Frazer condemns the key founding fathers as Theistic Rationalists because they dared to use human reason to determine which passages of Scripture are really the inspired Word of God, and yet he is just as guilty of this charge as they are. Mr. Frazer is not a Catholic, and it is apparent from his sermons, that he does not use a Catholic Bible. I think that it is safe to say, then, that he does not accept the books of the Apocrypha as being inspired by God. But how did he come to this conclusion? There is no passage of Scripture which states that the Apocryphal books are uninspired. The only way that Mr. Frazer could come to such a conclusion would be for him to either use his own human reason or to rely on the reasoning of others. Thus Mr. Frazer is guilty of relying on reason to determine which passages of Scripture are really the inspired Word of God.
But this elevation of reason above revelation becomes even more insidious when we consider that Mr. Frazer relies on human reason to determine the validity of individual portions of the Bible that he personally accepts as God’s Word. For example, Augustine of Hippo records that in his time there was a dispute over the ages of the men before the flood. It seems that the Hebrew copies of the Scripture disagreed with the Greek and Latin copies on the age at which the men before the flood begat their first recorded sons. Augustine described the discrepancy in this manner:
“For the very first man, Adam, before he begot his son Seth, is in our manuscripts found to have lived 230 years, but in the Hebrew manuscripts 130. But after he begot Seth, our copies read that he lived 700 years, while the Hebrew give 800. And thus, when the two periods are taken together, the sum agrees. And so throughout the succeeding generations, the period before the father begets a son is always made shorter by 100 years in the Hebrew, but the period after his son is begotten is longer by 100 years in the Hebrew than in our copies. And thus, taking the two periods together, the result is the same in both.”[58]
Mr. Frazer claims that his own Christianity depends on his acceptance of the entire Bible as the inspired and authoritative Word of God. This places him in the unenviable position of having to decide which of these two groups of manuscripts represents the true Bible. If he chooses incorrectly, then he is in danger of losing his Christianity, for he will have ceased to accept the real Bible as God’s inspired Word. Fortunately, for Mr. Frazer, Augustine recorded a solution to this discrepancy and revealed to us that the Hebrew copies are correct. Here is his conclusion:
“In this case, in which during so many consecutive generations 100 years are added in one manuscript where they are not reckoned in the other, and then, after the birth of the son and successor, the years which were wanting are added, it is obvious that the copyist who contrived this arrangement designed to insinuate that the antediluvians lived an excessive number of years only because each year was excessively brief, and that he tried to draw the attention to this fact by his statement of their age of puberty at which they became able to beget children. For, lest the incredulous might stumble at the difficulty of so long a lifetime, he insinuated that 100 of their years equalled but ten of ours; and this insinuation he conveyed by adding 100 years whenever he found the age below 160 years or thereabouts, deducting these years again from the period after the son's birth, that the total might harmonize. By this means he intended to ascribe the generation of offspring to a fit age, without diminishing the total sum of years ascribed to the lifetime of the individuals. And the very fact that in the sixth generation he departed from this uniform practice, inclines us all the rather to believe that when the circumstance we have referred to required his alterations, he made them; seeing that when this circumstance did not exist, he made no alteration. For in the same generation he found in the Hebrew manuscript, that Jared lived before he begot Enoch 162 years, which, according to the short year computation, is sixteen years and somewhat less than two months, an age capable of procreation; and therefore it was not necessary to add 100 short years, and so make the age twenty-six years of the usual length; and of course it was not necessary to deduct, after the son's birth, years which he had not added before it. And thus it comes to pass that in this instance there is no variation between the two manuscripts.”[59]
By providing this explanation, Augustine did Mr. Frazer a great service. He relieved him of the difficult task of determining which of these texts must be believed to be the Word of God in order for him to be a Christian. In doing so, however, Augustine placed Mr. Frazer into a quandary of a different sort, for he did not rely on any revelation from God to tell him which copy of the Bible was correct. Augustine and all those who agree with him are forced to rely on human reasoning alone to determine what is and what is not the Word of God. This, according to Mr. Frazer, marks Augustine, Mr. Frazer himself and nearly every Christian that has ever lived as Theistic Rationalists.
Additionally, lest anyone think that the above examples are inconclusive, let me point out further that Mr. Frazer uses a Bible which either adds to or subtracts from the ending of the Gospel of Mark depending on which Greek text it is compared to. Some of the texts end chapter sixteen of Mark’s Gospel with verse eight, others extend it to verse twenty and still others include an additional statement at the end of verse twenty. There is no passage of Scripture which informs us of which ending is correct. Therefore, Mr. Frazer has no hope of solving this discrepancy without being guilty of using his own reason to decide what is and what is not the true, inspired and authoritative Word of God. Regardless of where he decides that the Gospel of Mark should end, he will still be guilty of elevating human reason above revelation.
In a sermon presented at the Master’s College, Mr. Frazer made the following statement about the founding fathers:
“These guys had the audacity to decide which parts of the Bible were revelation from God and which weren't on the basis of their own reason.”[60]
We have now seen several examples of Mr. Frazer exhibiting this same audacity. Thus, if measured by his own standards, Mr. Frazer would be considered a Theistic Rationalist and not a Christian. Fortunately, God does not judge us according to Mr. Frazer’s standards but rather according to the teachings of His Word which assures us that the gospel is the only thing necessary to be believed in order for someone to be a Christian.
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[1] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), ix.
[2] Ibid., 14.
[3] Ibid., 15.
[4] Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, (1966) s.v. “natural religion.”
[5] Wilkins, John, Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion (London: R. Chifwell, 1710), 39. [http://books.google.com/books?id=E9c0HuEK3l0C&pg=PA39]
[6] Eliot, Andrew, A Discourse on Natural Religion (Boston: Daniel Kneeland, 1771), 22. [http://books.google.com/books?id=JfUqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR22]
[7] Heathcote, Ralph, The Use of Reason Asserted in Matters of Religion: or Natural Religion the Foundation of Revealed (London: Thomas Payne, 1756), 11. [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZtdbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA11]
[8] Ibid., 29-30. [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZtdbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA29]
[9] Romans 1:20
[10] Romans 2:15
[11] Witherspoon, John, Lectures on Moral Philosophy (Philadelphia: William W. Woodford, 1822), 48. [http://books.google.com/books?id=V7fOeZGrRFsC&pg=PA48]
[12] Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, (1966) s.v. “naturalism.”
[13] Heathcote, Ralph, The Use of Reason Asserted in Matters of Religion: or Natural Religion the Foundation of Revealed (London: Thomas Payne, 1756), 40. [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZtdbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA40]
[14] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 17.
[15] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders - Part I (Sun Valley, CA, Grace Community Church, August 5, 2012) [http://www.gracechurch.org/media/7133/the_religious_beliefs_of_america39s_founders_part_i]
[16] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 19.
[17] Waterworth, J., The Cannons and Decrees of the Sacred and Ecumenical Council of Trent (London: C. Dolman, 1848), 16-17 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA16]
[18] Ibid., 22-24 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA22]
[19] Ibid., 34-35 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA34]
[20] Ibid., 42 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA42]
[21] Ibid., 48 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA48]
[22] Ibid., 232-233 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA232]
[23] Ibid., 18-19 [http://books.google.com/books?id=mTGD-xEkmB8C&pg=PA18]
[24] The Philadelphia Association, Confession of Faith (Philadelphia: The Tract Depository, 1829), 12-13 [http://books.google.com/books?id=jqc9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA12]
[25] Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop of Sarum, An Exposition of the XXXIX Articles of the Church of England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1805), 119 [http://books.google.com/books?id=2CUBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA119]
[26] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 18.
[27] Ibid., 19.
[28] Gillette, A. D., Minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association from A.D. 1707, to A.D. 1807 (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1851), 60-61. [http://books.google.com/books?id=Z777vn-7mlAC&pg=PA60]
[29] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 15-18.
[30] Thinking in Public, “What Did America’s Founders Really Believe? A Conversation with Historian Gregg Frazer,” Albert Mohler and Gregg Frazer, September 10, 2012, transcript, http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/09/10/what-did-america%E2%80%99s-founders-really-believe-a-conversation-with-historian-gregg-frazer-transcript (accessed February 06, 2013)
[31] Acts 11:26
[32] Acts 9:1
[33] Acts 1:15
[34] Acts 2:47
[35] Romans 1:16
[36] I Corinthians 15:1-4
[37] Hebrews 4:2
[38] Romans 1:16
[39] II Thessalonians 1:8
[40] Schott, Christian Heinrich, The Unaltered Augsburg Confession (New York: H. Ludwig & Co., 1848), 83. [http://books.google.com/books?id=1BRMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA83]
[41] Welchman, Edward, The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1842), 31. [http://books.google.com/books?id=XHgrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA31]
[42] The Philadelphia Association, Confession of Faith (Philadelphia: The Tract Depository, 1829), 33-34. [http://books.google.com/books?id=jqc9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA33]
[43] McGlothlin, W. J., Baptist Confessions of Faith (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1911), 113. [http://books.google.com/books?id=-jMXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA113]
[44] Galatians 1:9
[45] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 14.
[46] Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, (1966) s.v. “rationalism.”
[47] Romans 2:15
[48] II Peter 2:19
[49] Isaiah 1:18
[50] I Samuel 12:7
[51] Acts 17:2
[52] Acts 18:4
[53] Acts 24:25
[54] Proverbs 8:22
[55] Proverbs 8:36
[56] Frazer, Gregg L., The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2012), 14.
[57]Ibid., 110.
[58] Dods, Marcus, The Works of Aurelius Augustine vol II, (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1871), 65. [http://books.google.com/books?id=--owAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA65]
[59] Ibid., 71-72 [http://books.google.com/books?id=--owAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA71]
[60] Frazer, Gregg, Seminar 3: The Religious Beliefs of America's Founders - Reasons, Revelation, Revolution (Santa Clarita, CA, The Master’s College, January 18, 2013) [http://www2.masters.edu/pulpit/files/2013/Truth-and-Life-13/20130118-GreggFrazer-mp3]
