Was Frankenstein Really Uncle Sam? Vol Ix: Notes on the State of the Declaration of Independence

By Richard J. Rolwing

This is one of the ten volumes on the Declaration. The first four volumes of this series contain each 365 essays. These last six contain about 36 essays each.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 18, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462809929

Richard J. Rolwing

Richard J. Rolwing, a retired theologian, taught philosophy, world religions, Christianity, and politics at small colleges and large universities. He was a supermarket manager, arbitrator, insurance agent, mortgage broker, stockbroker, registered financial planner, and executive VP for several corporations, which drilled oil/gas wells, marketed business equipment internationally, and bought and operated a gold mine in California. He has rehabbed dozens of homes all over his city, spoken before business groups all over his state, and lectured before professional groups all over the nation. He has published four volumes on the philosophy behind the US Constitution. A recent work was Digging Up Darwin in Ohio Without Holding Your Nose.

Book preview

Was Frankenstein

Really Uncle Sam?

Vol. IX

Notes on the State of the

Declaration of Independence

Richard J. Rolwing

President of

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR THE

STUDY OF THE DECLARATION OF

INDEPENDENCE

Columbus, Ohio

Copyright © 2008 by Richard J. Rolwing.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Recognizing and Respecting Limits Is Submission to God

Yahweh and Allah

All Men

Lady Justice

Lincoln

Reception of the Declaration¹⁶

The ACLU Wins Even When It Loses

The Declaration’s Rights

Limited Government

Misunderstanding or Distortion?

Non Serviam

Integralism

Naturalism and Rationalism

Lincoln’s History

Declaration Still Relevant

God

A Movie Can Make You Think

God Self-evident?

A Patriot

Too Much

American Constitutional Law

The Closing of the American Mind

What It’s All About

The Original Type?

Religious Freedom

No Comment

Take It Or Leave It

The Declaration and God

Participating in Divine Authority

Compatibility

The Nature of a State

Jews and the Declaration of Independence

Patriotism

Non Existent Neutrality

Irony?

The Theme is Freedom

The White House

The State of the World

Endnotes

Recognizing and Respecting Limits

Is Submission to God

"It was wrong when Supreme Court Judges on the Right side of politics ignored or distorted the text of the Constitution in the cases of Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson. It is wrong today when far-left secularist groups seek to win in a court of law that which they cannot win in the court of public opinion, at the ballot box. They seek new rights never contemplated by our Founders and not sanctioned by the [Constitution’s] Amendment Process.

The Framers of our Constitution gave us a government deeply committed to the ‘rule of law.’¹ The Declaration listed dozens of ways King George had violated laws. And it did not excuse him on any basis that English imperial laws and/or American colonial laws were only human laws and therefore breakable by humans at will. There was something profoundly not right, not just illegal, about the King’s illegalities. They were unjust, as the laws he had violated had been laid down by ancestors to express justice. So, since the King was deaf to colonial criticisms and continued his course, the Founders concluded they were justified in completely throwing off the King’s authority over the colonies. That justification was a metaphysical and moral action and its Declaration professed such. It was a transcendent act.

Justice is truly a transcendent concept. As the 19th century Italian priest philosopher, Antonio Rosmini, put it, Justice is not manufactured by human beings, nor can human beings dismantle it. It is prior to laws made by human beings; such laws can only be an expression of justice. Justice is the essence of all laws to such an extent that Augustine had no hesitation in refusing to name as ‘law’ anything which lacked justice. Nor does authority exist except as a servant of justice. Justice is the very essence of authority itself: ‘Through justice rulers rule.’²

"The ‘rule of law’ requires first that the law be clearly understood and second that those bound by the law know in advance what the law requires. The reason for these two requirements is quite simple: those who are bound by the law need to know in advance what is expected. The concept of an evolving Constitution [or as Dershowitz maintains, an evolving Declaration—because we give its words different meanings today] violates both of these fundamental principles. One cannot ‘clearly understand’ that which is still undetermined. One cannot know ‘in advance’ what has yet to be articulated. A ‘living,’ ‘mystery,’ constitution does not conform to the rule of law and provides little assurance of consistency—no more than that of a king or a dictator without any constitution.

Our Founders formed our government based on two premises: the worth of each individual person—‘all men are created equal’—and the imperfection of man, even kings… [These are already expressed in the Declaration] They recognized the necessity of checks and balances, and so divided ruling power into three branches "to prevent any of the independent and co-equal branches of government from engaging in excesses… [and] carefully limited the powers of each branch.³

The structure of governance [based on those two premises from the Declaration] given to us by our Founders is more important that the Bill of Rights. Without the structure [of limits, division into three limited branches], without the safeguards, the Bill of Rights is an illusion, not a reality, no more than a politician’s promise. When the Court exceeds the structure given the Judiciary, and goes beyond the Constitution, it threatens the Bill of Rights—and all our rights. The constitution of the now defunct Soviet Union promised grandiose rights, but they did not exist because they had no carefully crafted system of checks and balances, no ‘rule of law.’⁴

Leftist secularists advocate a living, changing, evolving constitution under the tutelage of a judiciary which loves to rely on the famous 1803 Marbury V. Madison decision that established ‘judicial supremacy,’ proclaiming that the Supreme Court is authorized by the Constitution to determine its meaning, and so it can judge that an executive or a legislative act is unconstitutional. But they and their leftist judges ignore the rest of the Marbury story, actually, most of it.

That court decision itself engaged in judicial restraint, even an act of self-sacrifice, by deciding that a Congressional statute which extended the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction beyond the range which the Constitution provided, was unconstitutional! It refused an offer, a promotion, which one would expect it would accept. Instead it saluted both the Declaration and the Constitution. That was a submission to God.

Chief Justice Marshall explained. It is a well established principle that the people have an original right to establish for their future government, such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness. That had been formally established in the Declaration of 1776. Marshall might have been more explicit as to his reference, except for the fact that one could not not know that this principle of the natural law was as old as mankind. This was the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected. The exercise of this original right [adopting the Constitution] is a very great exertion… the principles, therefore, so established, are deemed fundamental… and as derived from the supreme authority—the people—they are designed to be permanent.

We know not how fabric gets erected, yet we do know that what is permanent is not evolving.⁵

Marshall extolled the Constitution as superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, saying that if the Constitution is alterable when the legislature [now we would say, the judiciary] shall please to alter it… then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power, in its own nature illimitable.⁶ Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation and it is to be considered by this court as such.⁷

Those who controvert the principle that the constitution is to be considered, in court, as a paramount law, Marshall continued, would subvert the very foundation of all written constitutions [the very meaning of a constitution as a constitution—and you cannot be more revolutionary or anti-government, disloyal, than that] and they reduce to nothing what we have deemed the greatest improvement on political institutions—a written constitution. Marshall even waxed rhetorical and detailed in this argument, speaking to the audience as if it was even today’s.

Because of the separation of powers, Marshall said his Court would not consider questions which are, by the constitution and laws, submitted to the executive . . . nor to the legislature, for questions in their nature political… can never be made in this Court.

But that has been going on for several generations in which the majority of the Court "seizes upon the Marbury pronouncement of judicial supremacy to interpret the Constitution, while ignoring the declaration that the Constitution is a permanent written document, side-stepping its pronouncement that the Court is not to enter the realm of politics, failing to heed its unequivocal recognition that the judiciary is bound by our written Constitution, disregarding its proclamation of the separation of powers doctrine, and leaving in shambles the system of checks and balances carefully crafted by our Founders."⁸

Yahweh and Allah

The Declaration of Independence refers to God as the source of the universe’s being and operation, and as its government fully exercising all three governing functions, legislative, executive, and judicial. Of course, those functions are as transcendent or metaphysical as God’s very being and action are. There is only an analogy between human and divine government. God’s is infinitely different and yet somewhat the same. While God is infinitely mysterious, He is not utterly beyond all possible knowability. He is not a surd, an absurd, a bottomless black hole. In the natural law tradition upon which the Declaration relies, reality is intelligible, the universe is investigatable, philosophy is comprehensible, science is possible, and limited technology is desirable. There is a correlation between the human mind’s reason and the world’s rational character. A meeting and mating is always waiting. That’s how concepts or conceptions occur. The question, What’s it all about, Alfie? was only the question’s birth, for it had been growing from the beginning.

As philosophy, the natural law tradition analyzed structures of things, leaving their history to the experience of time. It took no note of historical events as to whether God ever involved Himself in any one event or series of events more than just transcendently, by way of a revelation, inspiration, miracle, angel, or prophetical personification. It was in no position to determine whether the Jews’ Yahweh or the Arabs’ Allah communicated divine truth, much less without any human error, although it was open to either possibility. Its fingers were not jamming its ears.

Barry Rubin, from the Global Research in International Affairs (Gloria) Center in Herzliya, Israel, complained to the Claremont Review of Books that Robert Reilly misunderstood radical Islam in his article (summer, 07) Winning the War of Ideas.

"He writes that the U.S. must export the universal truths of the Declaration of Independence. Reilly takes for granted that someone from a different religious tradition is going to see life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as ‘God-given inalienable rights.’ If you speak with a Muslim about God-given rights, he is going to ask to see the appropriate Koran verses. Islam itself means submission to the will of God—the opposite of liberty."

But no believing Jew would see submission to the will of God as the opposite of liberty. No American who pledges allegiance to the prime nation of liberty—with liberty and justice for all—under God, as Washington, Lincoln, and most Presidents have expressed it, has seen submission to the will of God as the opposite of liberty. Rubin’s view of God is that of a tyrant whose will is arbitrary and irrational.⁹

We have offered arguments that people of all historical epochs in all locations, whatever their religions and philosophies, have experienced indignation (their dignity violated) toward those who attack them to take their life, their liberty, their property, and their pursuit of happiness as they envision it. They know they possess inalienable rights because they all possess the dignity of human persons. That is self-evident to human consciousness. The source of their dignity, and rights is a theoretical question. Whether the Koran or the Bible address that question in those precise words is secondary. Both the Bible and the Koran certainly speak of the source of all, the Creator and Governor of the world. Whatever exists comes from and depends upon the Creator.

But if there is no precise Biblical claim that all men have inalienable God-given rights, then Christians should have as much difficulty with that proposition as Muslims. Yet We know of no Christian church in America or anywhere else that has repudiated the words of the Declaration’s claim.

Over the centuries Christians have adopted a respect for rational thought or reasoned philosophy, as well as for much of modern science. (Reilly is a Catholic) Our Founders called upon that tradition of philosophy. Islam, too, through many centuries, developed a tradition of respect for philosophy, even though, it often suffered from many Muslims who opposed any reliance upon philosophy. Christianity has often suffered the same from some of its own who disrespected human reason and philosophy, or even science. In an earlier volume we extensively reflected upon a contemporary Muslim who uses faith-based Islamic theology and law along with reason-based (Arabic) philosophy to uncover in Muslim sources a wealth of theoretical thought that can easily drink our Declaration of Independence without even a hiccup.

We take issue, however, also with Reilly who responded, because Islam does not contain the teaching that all men are created equal, I would hardly think it is naturally receptive to the notion of God-Given inalienable rights. But Islam does contain the teaching in other words, although along with plenty of words that make discrimination between believers and infidels almost more significant. We say only ‘almost’, because Islam considers all men capable of submission, for that is why non-submission is evil.

Rubin apparently thinks that if you don’t have or know certain specific words, you can not know that which they are about, or embrace their meaning (if explained in other words). He has a cramped idea of human consciousness. He also has a cramped idea of the meaning of God and of the meaning of liberty. For him, human freedom is the autonomy of the unencumbered self, who is determiner of his own laws, beholden to no one. He also thinks of God as just another finite being, so that submission to God is tantamount to voluntary slavery. He does not grasp the possibility that a man could be eminently free and also, in fact, precisely because he is, sublimely submissive to God. But that failure is somewhat understandable since it is Christians who believe that of Jesus of Nazareth. We cannot say to what extent traditional Islamic theology and philosophy explain if, and that, submission to Allah truly makes one free.

But we can say that for Rubin, if he is consistent, the phrase ‘religious liberty’ must be an oxymoron. If he favors religious liberty he must be willing to leave people free to forfeit their liberty by being religious. People who are religious, at least in a monotheistic sense, submit to God’s will and therefore become voluntary slaves, always rescindable.

Rubin’s first complaint is that Reilly misunderstands man (and Muslims). His second complaint is that Reilly misunderstands Islam’s Allah. Here Rubin and Reilly use the idea of respect for reason in different senses.

Second, Reilly writes: ‘Radical Islamists reduce God to His omnipotence, concentrating exclusively on His unlimited power, as against His reason. God’s reasons are unknowable by man. God rules as He pleases. There is no rational order invested in the universe upon which one can rely, only the second-to-second manifestation of God’s will. This view results in anti-rationalism which, in turn, nourishes irrational behavior.’

We admit that this view is contrary to the Declaration of Independence because it means that there are no laws of nature, there is only nature’s God. It almost makes both natural history and human history a puppet show.¹⁰ The effect of this view has helped to abort early Islam’s respect for Greek philosophy and any later significant development of the world of science and technology.¹¹

Rubin, however, misunderstands Reilly here. This is shockingly ignorant about Islam. Whether or not the inner, secret reasons of God are possible to know [and Rubin thinks they are not, even from a study of God’s products, the world and man], the Islamic tradition lays down a complete program of laws—forbidden, permitted, advisable, inadvisable things to do. [Rubin shockingly ignores or forgets that the same is sayable of the Jewish Torah and Talmud.] "The idea that Islamists are anarchists who think anyone can interpret God as he wishes is nonsense. They believe there is rational order, God ordained it, and they know it. They define the other side [emphasis added] in anarchial terms because its bases itself on human reason, which they regard as inferior and thus irrational."

Rubin in one sense is correct. Islamic Jihadist teaching has said that all human regimes of governments deserve to be destroyed because they are creations of human reason alone and therefore contrary to faith. They exemplify a rationalism that confines the human mind and heart to only what can be known naturally. Such rationalism opposes all claims to any supernatural revelation from any God. Such a view was the apex of the European Enlightenment. It is rationalism with its fingers jammed into its ears. It will not hear, much less listen for, a possible Divine revelation. Islam rightly regards human reason considered that way as inferior [to faith, and even contrary to it] and thus irrational.

Such enlightenment rationalism was, not surprisingly, condemned by the First Vatican Council of the Catholic Church in the 19th century for exaggerating the sufficiency of reason and repudiating any and all religious faith as contrary to reason. And Islam is quite right, then, in condemning such hubris, such a metaphysical arrogance about human reason. Unfortunately Qtub’s Islam goes too far itself in opposing faith and reason. It sees all human creations and social constructions as the opposite of faith/submissions.

The Jihadist tradition cannot grasp a humanly and rationally constructed government which claims to be, and wants to remain, under God as the American government does, according to its Declaration of Independence, Pledge of Allegiance, and monies. Not only is America’s reason submissive to God but it even leaves open its citizens’ ears to listen for a Divine revelation if they desire. It is a natural rational system not closed to the supra-rational. It does not consider human government or any human institution as necessarily opposed to being submissive to God, even to a possible revelation from God.

Reilly is correct in thinking of reason in another sense. He points to an Islamic repudiation of reason altogether. It considers faith as so great that there is no place or need for reason either by man, or, almost at all, in God. (In fact, a good deal of the Christian Protestant tradition has thought so.)

As to [Rubin’s] second point, says Reilly, I suggest he revisit the 9th century suppression of the rationalist Mu’tazilites [by the caliph], and then re-read Al-Ghazali, whose works were the bedside reading of al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Ghazali’s embrace of irrationality, along with the denial of causality and thus, necessarily, of secondary [finite] causes (laws of nature), has its roots in a theology that holds God to be pure will, unconstrained by reason. God is not only above reason; he is without it. In this view, there may be an order in the universe but it is certainly not ‘rational’. (At the same time, Rubin seems to be saying that Islamists think human reason is irrational. How then can they know, as he suggests they do, that ‘there is a rational order.’?")

However, Rubin only means that for Islam, reliance upon human reason alone is irrational because it is closed to any possible revelation. He does not mean to say that, for Islam, human reason is altogether irrational, but only ultimately irrational. There is such a thing as a mad genius.

Islam, Reilly says, "is a religion of laws. I see no contradiction between a god of pure will and his laying down a lot of rules. Pure will gets to do anything it wants to, even if inconsistent [and so, undependable]. But what is the status of those laws in their relationship to reason? As the current chief ideologue, Sayyid Qutb, observed, ‘Every time the Qur’an states a definite promise or constant law, it follows it with a statement implying that the Divine will is free of all limitations and restrictions, even those based on a promise from Allah or a law of His. For His will is absolute beyond any promise or law.’ In other words, arbitrary.

Rubin is right, Reilly says, "in saying that radical Islamists do not think that just ‘anyone’ can interpret the Koran, but he fails to point out that they think only they are given that privilege in the exercise of ijtihad (effort), with which they sweep aside generations of tradition and Islamic jurisprudence that speak against their novel program of suicide bombings and slaughter of civilians. In that sense, they are anarchists."¹²

We added the emphasis above to indicate that we think Reilly’s contrast goes too far. Yes, some liberals have attributed radical Islamists’ suicide bombings of civilians to an outgrowth of western anarchistic, and nihilistic, thought that grew up in 19th century Russia. They say it is foreign to Islam. But all Jihads through the centuries slaughtered civilians, at least males of age, and not just soldiers. And anyone who resisted was killed whether they wore uniforms or not.

The modern Laws of War, which legalize the attacking of soldiers and not civilians, were, of course, developed from the western world’s tradition of the natural law, upon which our Declaration of Independence relied. Neither the Bible nor the Koran demand such a distinction and difference of treatment. Traditionally, any war fought by Muslims, offensive or defensive, was considered just by them, at least against non-Muslims. Islam never had much truck with any natural moral law, although, of course, since the natural law itself is universally unavoidable, plenty of the Koran and much of the Hadith implicitly recognize such without realizing it, which is the case, incidentally, with everyone everywhere at all times.

We have been discussing a controversy between a believing Catholic Christian and a non-believing Jew about what Muslims, at least radical Muslims, believe. We have done so under the general title of this essay, Yahweh and Allah, but we have not considered what ancient Hebrews believed about Yahweh. And we will not here.