I recently mentioned some of John Adams’ speculations about life on other planets and whether their inhabitants needed a different Savior to pay for their sins. Adams’ religious views are relevant to whether the Declaration is a biblical document because of his involvement in the Continental Congress and the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration committee (John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston) initially assumed that Adams would write the first draft of the Declaration. But Adams insisted Jefferson write it:
Reason first—You are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second—I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third—You can write ten times better than I can.
In Congress, Adams led the Declaration debate, firmly advocating for independence.
Born in 1735, Adams was raised in a strict Puritan family and trained on the Bible and the “New England Primer.” He wrote that his parents “held every Species of libertinage in such Contempt and Horror.” His observation of immorality in France convinced him his parents were right. His diary as a youth reveals regular church attendance at several different churches on Sunday morning and evening, and considerable discussion of the sermons he heard and the Scriptures he read. His entry for June 10, 1753, is typical:
At Colledge a clear morning. Heard Mr. Appleton expound those words in I. Cor. 12 Chapt. 7 first verses, and in the afternoon heard him preach from those words in 26 of Matthew 41 verse, watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation.
On Feb. 17, 1777, he wrote:
Yesterday, heard Dr. Witherspoon [a Scottish Presbyterian member of Congress] upon redeeming Time. An excellent Sermon. I find that I understand the Dr. better, since I have heard him so much in Conversation, and in the Senate [referring to Witherspoon’s Scottish brogue].
As Adams wrote shortly before assuming the presidency:
The Christian religion is, above all the Religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern Times, The Religion of Wisdom, Virtue, Equity and Humanity, let the Blackguard Paine say what he will. It is Resignation to God—it is Goodness itself to Man.
Like many of that day, Adams later expressed doubts about the doctrine of the Trinity, that God was three Persons but one Essence, even questioning the divinity of Christ. He considered himself a Christian, but he believed (wrongly) that the Bible doesn’t teach Trinitarian doctrine.
“Ask me not, then, whether I am a Catholic or Protestant, Calvinist or Arminian,” he wrote to Benjamin Rush in 1810. “As far as they are Christians, I wish to be a fellow-disciple with them all.”
He further told Rush that Christianity “will hold its ground in some degree as long as human nature shall have anything moral or intellectual left in it.” He continued:
The Christian religion as I understand it, is the brightness of the glory and the express portrait of the character of the eternal, self-existent, independent, benevolent, all powerful and all merciful creator, preserver, and father of the universe, the first good, first perfect, and first fair. It will last as long as the world.
But when we ask whether the Declaration of Independence was a biblical document, what matters is not what men like Adams believed in 1820, but what they believed in 1776 and 1787.
Even though Adams may have doubted some aspects of Christian doctrine, he was very critical of the anti-Christian philosophers of his day, as the books in his library demonstrate. In a book by French philosopher Condorcet, which praises the Greeks, Adams wrote: “As much as I love, esteem, and admire the Greeks, I believe the Hebrews have done more to enlighten and civilize the world. Moses did more than all their legislators and philosophers.” When Condorcet complained that genius had been suppressed by religious superstition, Adams retorted: “But was there no genius among the Hebrews? None among the Christians, nor Mahometans? I understand you, Condorcet. It is atheistical genius alone that you would honor or tolerate.”
In another book in which the liberal Mary Wollstonecraft praised David Hume, Adams called Hume a “blockhead,” adding: “If ever there existed a wise fool, a learned idiot, a profound deep-thinking coxcomb, it was David. Hume. As much worse than Voltaire and Rousseau as a sober decent libertine is worse than a rake.”
Adams also believed that Christian morality was essential to a well-ordered society, writing: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”
Surveying the wreckage of the French Revolution, he asked Jefferson:
Let me ask you very seriously, my friend, where are now in 1813 the perfection and perfectibility in human nature: Where is now the progress of the human mind? Where is the amelioration of society? Where the augmentation of human comforts? Where the diminution of human pains and miseries?
Even in old age, Adams held to the ideal he expressed around age 20:
Suppose a nation in some distant Region, should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited. Every member would be obliged in Conscience to temperance and frugality and industry, to justice and kindness and Charity towards his fellow men, and to Piety and Love and reverence toward almighty God. In this Commonwealth, no man would impair his health by Gluttony, drunkenness, or Lust–no man would sacrifice his most precious time to cards, or to any other trifling and mean amusement–no man would steal or lie or any way defraud his neighbor, but would live in peace and good will with all men–no man would blaspheme his maker or profane his worship, but a rational and manly, a sincere and unaffected Piety and devotion, would reign in all hearts. What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be.
On July 4, 1826 – 50 years after the Declaration – the 90-year-old Adams attended an Independence Day celebration. Asked to give a toast, he declared, “Independence forever!” Adams died later that day, declaring, “Jefferson still survives,” not knowing that Jefferson had died three hours earlier.
That day saw more than the deaths of two presidents and two founding fathers. It saw the end of the founding era.
Let us resolve that the spirit of the Declaration will live on in the hearts of American patriots.
Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy (obcl.edu), as Senior Counsel for the Foundation for American Law (morallaw.org), and as Chairman of the Board of the Plymouth Rock Society (plymrock.org). He lives in rural Pike Road, Alabama, and may be contacted for speaking engagements at [email protected].
