Creationism: The Worldview of the Founding Fathers
SPECIAL NOTICE: “Let An Association Be Formed’: Part Two” is coming soon!
The United States of America has a government and a society, which, despite its recent decadent trend, has been the marvel and the envy of the world. American historians in all generations have examined the lives of the Founders, the inception and progress of the American War for Independence, and the foundation of our constitutional form of government with unceasing astonishment. But at the same time that all this praise has been heaped on the Founders and despite all the marvel expressed by thousands of American scholars, a huge debate has ensued over the question of whether the ideas of creationism (also known as “intelligent design”) or evolution can more accurately, more scientifically, and more rationally explain the origin of life and the wonders of nature that we observe in the world around us.* Those who claim the side of evolution claim that they, and they only, promote the view of true science and rationality, and accuse (unjustly) their creationist counter-parts. Yet it is interesting to see in the most well-known writings of the Founding Fathers that their own side was undoubtedly with creationism; and what’s more, it was this worldview that gave them the whole basis for the blessings of a free republican government. Examining the creationist views of our Founders will not only help us to see the basis for their political belief system, but the subject may itself contribute to the creationism vs. evolution debate.
One of the most obvious, and one of the most interesting evidences of the Founders’ belief in creationism is found in America’s birth certificate — the first major and fundamental statement of our belief in political liberty — the Declaration of Independence. In its preamble, it makes the resounding statement “We hold these truths to be self-evident [or clear to everyone by common sense]: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
There is no mistake upon reading this statement that the Founders believed that men were created by (guess who) a Creator! The whole idea of evolution was conceived in order to combat the idea of any Creator or Supreme Being existing, or at least, responsible for creating life and the world we live in.
The Declaration makes a another statement that is further antithetical to evolution “… all men are created equal… and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Individual human rights did not come into existence as man supposedly evolved; those rights always existed! If they had evolved along with man, that means man has invented them as he invented other ways of improving the quality of his life. And if mankind has invented his own rights, then he may take them away (namely, the rights of other human beings) arbitrarily in order to “improve” the quality of his own life, especially after he has discovered how well fit he is to survive. The whole concept of individuals having inalienable rights, then, is not only made void, but it cuts its own throat, because men cannot have inalienable rights if those rights come from himself; those rights must come from a higher power (i.e. a Creator, God). Evolution certainly does not teach that all men are equal; it teaches that certain men are, because of their evolution, inferior to other men. For instance, according to evolutionary theory, humans with black, yellow, or red skin are inferior, evolutionarily-speaking, to humans with white skin. Humans with large jaw-bones are inferior to men with smaller jaw-bones. The rich, wealthy, and sophisticated are more fit to survive than the poor, uneducated man. The list goes on and on. Perhaps not all evolutionists are racists, or would consider themselves as racists, but if they are consistent with evolutionary logic, white men are more highly evolved than others. (By pure chance, of course, Darwin was a white man of aristocratic English birth). These whites, therefore (as long as they are evolutionist), have the right to rule over, control, and even exterminate other lower evolutionary races in order to speed up the evolutionary process of higher races and to prevent the lower races from contaminating the universal gene pool (Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton, founded the modern eugenics movement due to inspiration from reading Darwin’s books)(1).
The Declaration of Independence is not the only writing in which the Founders expressed their creationist worldview; several of their writings in defense of the cause of the American Revolution point powerfully toward their belief.
“If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave.” — Samuel Adams (“The Father of the American Revolution”), “The Rights of the Colonists” (1772)(2)
“Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind: the Supreme Being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beautifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which to discern and pursue such things as were consistent with his duty and interest; and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty and personal safety.
“Hence, in a state of nature, no man had any moral power to deprive another of his life, limbs, property, or liberty; nor the least authority to command or exact obedience from him, except that which arose from the ties of consanguinity.
“Hence, also, the origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact between the rulers and the ruled, and must be liable to such limitations as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter; for what original title can any man, or set of men, have to govern others, except their own consent? To usurp dominion over a people in their own despite, or to grasp at a more extensive power than they are willing to intrust, is to violate that law of nature which gives every man a right to his personal liberty, and can therefore confer no
obligation to obedience.” — Alexander Hamilton, “The Farmer Refuted” (1775)(3)
“RESOLVED: That there are 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; — therefore, RESOLVED, That the inhabitants of this Province are unalienably entitled to those essential rights in common with all men: and that no law of society can, consistent with the law of God and nature, divest them of those rights.” Samuel Adams, “Resolutions of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts, October 29, 1765″(4)
“The knowledge of God and his truths have from the beginning of the world been chiefly, if not entirely confined to those parts of the earth where some degree of liberty and political justice were to be seen, and great were the difficulties with which they had to struggle, from the imperfection of human society, and the unjust decisions of usurped authority. There is not a single instance in history, in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage.” — Reverend John Witherspoon (signer of the Declaration of Independence), “Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men” (1776) (5)
“That as the all wise dispensor of human blessings has favored no Nation of the Earth with more abundant, and substantial means of happiness than United America, that we may not be so ungrateful to our Creator; so wanting to ourselves; and so regardless of Posterity, as to dash the cup of beneficence which is thus bountifully offered to our acceptance.” — George Washington, “Farewell Address” (1796) (6)
“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them. This, sire, is our last, our determined resolution; and that you will be pleased to interpose with that efficacy which your earnest endeavours [sic] may ensure to procure redress of these our great grievances, to quiet the minds of your subjects in British America, against any apprehensions of future encroachment, to establish fraternal love and harmony through the whole empire, and that these may continue to the latest ages of time, is the fervent prayer of all British America!” — Thomas Jefferson, “A Summary of the Rights of British America” (1774) (7)
“The Creator has made the earth for the living, not the dead. Rights and powers can only belong to persons, not to things, not to mere matter, unendowed with will. The dead are not even things. The particles of matter which composed their bodies, make part now of the bodies of other animals, vegetables, or minerals, of a thousand forms. To what then are attached the rights and powers they held while in the form of men? A generation may bind itself as long as its majority continues in life; when that has disappeared, another majority is in place, holds all the rights and powers their predecessors once held, and may change their laws and institution to suit themselves. Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.” — Thomas Jefferson, “To Major John Cartwright, June 5, 1824″ (8)
Clearly, the Founding Fathers had a creationist worldview. Such a worldview did not result in silly religious superstition, but rather, in the form of a just government of law that we Americans enjoy today. Evolution, on the other hand, has given to mankind Communist dictatorships, the Nazi Party, the atom bomb, and the century in which Darwin’s theory has thrived the most has become the century of cruelty and mass murder such as never recorded before in the history of the world. Only a belief in a good, loving, and all-powerful God who created mankind can be the solid basis of the security of humankind’s rights.
*From my own observances of the arguments between creation and evolution, the debate between the elite scholars on both sides is not over which theory is more rational, more scientific, or more accurate; an objective look at the EVIDENCE leaves no room for evolution, except in the realm of IMAGINATION and exclusion of the FACTS. The most plausible explanation for something so intricately designed as living organisms is intelligent design, not random chance (for goodness’ sake, we can’t expect to spell intelligible four-letter words by chance; why expect the universe and life to come into existence by chance? — especially when there is nothing but evidence to the contrary!). The only reason why evolution is accepted by a large majority of the modern elite is that it gives them a basis for their unbelief in the Gospel and a “rationalized” excuse to sin. Evolution, whether Darwinian, Neo-Darwinian, or any other variation of evolution, is entirely philosophical; the only sure foundation of evolution is the sheer ASSUMPTION that God does not and cannot exist, except in the imagination or conception of silly men.
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