The Declaration’s “Laws of Nature & Nature’s God”

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them …

Admittedly, the chosen wording above by Jefferson is peculiar to most contemporary Americans.  To the Revolutionary founders, however, as well as the average citizen of the original thirteen colonies, the “laws of nature” phrasing was familiar and well-known.

For example, regarding the Stamp Act of 1765, the assembly of Massachusetts Bay said there were “certain essential rights of the British Constitution of government, which are founded in the law of God and nature, and are the common rights of mankind.”   Just a few months later, the Connecticut Resolution referred to “their natural rights and the authority the laws of nature and of God have vested them with.” 

This was common language back then, and there was good reason it was:  early Americans were steeped in both classical philosophy and biblical theology, which consistently sharpened this two-edged sword.  To Plato, law (nomos) represented a rational paradigm that mirrored the order of the cosmos, which was inspired by divine reason (nous).  For Aristotle, similarly, law was ordered by divine intelligence and deemed rational with nature as its source. Cicero’s law also believed reason corresponded with nature, which was ultimately governed by God. 

Concurrently, the deeply Christian roots of early Americans gave the parallelism of this phrase even deeper meaning.  Augustine taught about the rationality of laws that both reflected divine revelation and was comprehended by human reason.  Aquinas viewed the law as rooted in eternal verities and the human reason that perceived them.  John Locke wrote of “the Laws of God and Nature” to which all power is subject.  And in his Discourses on Government, Algernon Sidney saw the universal law of God and law of nature as synonymous.  Additionally, jurist Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, wrote about “the laws of nature and the law of God.”

So this was not invented or novel language for the Founding Fathers or early Americans.  Moreover, as both a philosophical and theological doctrine that was part of their regular political lexicon, they possessed a strong parallel vision of the laws of the universe as being simultaneously rational and divine.

Additionally, understanding the context of the times via their religious roots and history helps animate the phrase as something more than mere esoteric lingo or poetic rhetoric. 

The backdrop was the pervasive religious intolerance across Europe. After the Reformation and its divisions between Catholics and Protestants, England became a hotbed for religious persecution in the 1500’s.  King Henry VIII broke from Rome and subsequently trashed Catholic churches.  His daughter Mary was determined to protect Catholics, and did so by killing Protestants. Queen Elizabeth in turn punished both Catholics and Puritans in favor of the Church of England and required strict conformity to the same.  Then you had Charles I (a Protestant) marry a Catholic princess, bringing on more conflict. And on it went, until James II (a Catholic) was removed during the Brit’s “Glorious Revolution” and William and Mary (Protestants) were installed.

This is the environment that spurred our forebears to leave their homeland and emigrate to the New World, desperately seeking religious freedom.  The pain, memories and trauma ran deep, but these were people of deep faith, which made the prospects of worshiping according to their conscience all the more precious.  Though it is almost impossible for us to relate, the more we try, the better we might understand how big this move to America was for them.  More than anything, they wanted to practice their religious faith without state interference or forced doctrinal conformity.  Preventing the religious wars of Europe and prohibiting the state from taking sides without extinguishing the presence of faith in our society was their passion and priority.

So in 1620, you had the Puritan Pilgrims establish the New England Plymouth Colony. In 1632, Maryland was founded to provide Roman Catholics a haven free from persecution. And in 1636, William Penn settled in Pennsylvania, declaring that all believers “shall, in no ways, be molested or prejudiced for their religious persuasion …”  

Jewish immigrants went to places like New York, Philadelphia and South Carolina. New England was filled with Congregationalists, New York with Presbyterians and Dutch Reformed.  The South attracted Anglicans, Quakers and Baptists. One historian described how “the main churches in America grew at an astonishingly rapid rate … Scholars estimate that throughout the 1770’s, some 70-80 percent of the population attended church on a regular basis.” (The Making of the American Mind, p. 85)

So this was not a secular society, and “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” had profound implications for America’s future model of governance. But what were those implications, and how significant were they?  The answer to both questions hinges on the meaning of one key word in the Declaration, and that word is “nature” … stay tuned.

Brian Schroeder is the former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction, an ordained minister and founder/president of The ChrisCorps Commission (bschroeder081858@gmail.com) 

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