by David Barton
There is one other aspect of Jefferson’s philosophy toward religion in education that draws much attention from those who would paint him as an irreligious, atheistic man. In a highly publicized letter to his nephew Peter Carr, Jefferson tells him to “question with boldness even the existence of a God.”102 Taken out of context this admonition does seem condemning—which is why Deconstructionists and Minimalists have lifted just this one line from a very long Jefferson letter. They deliberately misrepresent the full letter in order to make it seem that Jefferson was recommending exactly the opposite of what he was actually telling his nephew.
Jefferson had raised Peter as the son he never had—his only son was stillborn in 1777. Peter’s father, Dabney, was Jefferson’s brother-in-law and one of Jefferson’s closest friends. While Peter was still a young boy, Dabney died and was buried on the grounds at Monticello. Jefferson then stepped in to help raise the young Peter.
In 1785, when Peter was fifteen years old and Jefferson was on an overseas assignment, he began to write Peter from Europe. He addressed the direction that the young man’s education should take, instructing him not only about the importance of character (“give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act”103) but also about diligently pursuing the study of history, philosophy, and poetry. He especially recommended that Peter read:
Virgil, Terence, Horace, Anacreon, Theocritus, Homer; read also Milton’s Paradise Lost, Shakespeare, Ossian, Pope’s and Swift’s works, in order to form your style in your own language. In morality, read Epictetus, Xenophontis Memorabilia, Plato’s Socratic dialogues, Cicero’s philosophies.104
The next year Peter was accepted to William and Mary (Jefferson’s alma mater). The following year, 1787, George Wythe agreed to tutor him in Latin and Greek.105 When Jefferson learned of this latter development, he was thrilled and told Peter: “I am sure you will find this to have been one of the most fortunate events of your life.”106 A year later Wythe accepted Peter as a law student, just as he had done with Jefferson some twenty-five years earlier.
The famous letter containing the phrase so abused today was written by Jefferson to his nephew in Peter’s second year at William and Mary. The letter contains recommendations to Peter about his studies in four areas: Italian, Spanish, moral philosophy, and religion. The fourth section on religion was by far the longest in the letter, and it is in that part of his extensive epistle that Jefferson advised Peter to “question with boldness even the existence of a God.”107
Secularist and antireligious authors have made this short phrase the sole focus of that long letter,108 but the rest of the letter makes abundantly clear that Jefferson was actually instructing Peter in apologetics. The term apologetics originated in 1733 and indicates an intelligent presentation and defense of major traditional elements of religious faith.109
Jefferson believed that the time had come for the seventeen-year-old Peter to know not just what he believed but why he believed it—and to be able to defend his beliefs. Peter believed in God and Christianity, but Jefferson urged him to examine both sides of the question of the existence of God, study opposing arguments, and then come to a conclusion he could ably defend. (This is exactly what the Bible advises in 1 Peter 3:15: to be able to get the reason for one’s belief.)
The Founding Fathers regularly encouraged their own children and other youth to learn and use apologetics, to learn both sides of a religious issue. This is apparent in many of their writings. For example, Elias Boudinot, a president of Congress and a framer of the Bill of Rights, wrote to his daughter, Susan, after Thomas Paine had attacked the Bible in his famous Age of Reason.110 He assured her that an open-minded examination of the evidence easily proved the existence of God and the truth of the Bible.
God in His infinite wisdom has given us sufficient evidence that the revelation of the Gospel is from Him. This is subject to rational inquiry and of conviction from the conclusive nature of the evidence; but when that fact is established, you are bound as a rational creature to show your full confidence in His unchangeable veracity and infinite wisdom by firmly believing the great truths so revealed.111
Founding Father John Witherspoon, a signer of the Declaration and the president of Princeton, agreed with the use of this type of apologetics.112 And the Reverend Ezra Stiles, a conservative theologian and the president of Yale who had served as a chaplain during the American Revolution, also encouraged direct challenges to traditional religious beliefs. He was fully convinced that through apologetics one could withstand and answer all attacks. As he acknowledged:
Religious liberty is peculiarly friendly to fair and generous disquisition [systematic inquiry]. Here, Deism will have its full chance; nor need Libertines [morally unrestrained individuals] more to complain of being overcome by any weapons but the gentle, the powerful ones of argument and truth. Revelation will be found to stand the test to the ten-thousandth examination.113
Jefferson, by telling his nephew Peter to “question with boldness even the existence of a God,” was doing exactly what the leading theologians and educators of his day similarly encouraged. Yet, for making the same recommendation made by prominent religious leaders, Jefferson is somehow proved today to be an antireligious secularist? Ridiculous.
Jefferson was thoroughly convinced that the existence of God was so self-evident and irrefutable that it could be easily proved even apart from the Scriptures.114 In fact, he believed that arguing the existence of God from a position of blind faith, without resort to the proofs of reason, actually hurt Christianity. As he explained:
I think that every Christian sect [denomination] gives a great handle to atheism by their general dogma that without a revelation there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a God. . . . So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligence and powerful Agent, that of the infinite numbers of men who have existed thro’ all time, they have believed in the proportion of a million at least to unit [i.e., a million to one] in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a Creator.115
Recall that Jefferson’s education took the Scottish Common Sense approach. It attacked European skepticism, praised the compatibility of reason and revelation, and demonstrated the superiority of evidence in all challenges. Jefferson had been trained in this vein of apologetics and it was in that same spirit that he challenged Peter to question—that is, to examine—the evidence of God’s existence. In light of this background, consider the now infamous section from Jefferson’s letter.
Note first that the controversial religious section in Jefferson’s letter to Peter is very lengthy. Therefore, in opposition to Minimalism (where everything is reduced to one-line platitudes that require no thought or reasoning), that portion of the letter will be fully presented here so that its context is clear. Second, notice that throughout the letter Jefferson attempted to take a neutral position on many religious issues. He set forth the popular arguments both for and against various religious doctrines, presenting the major arguments to which Peter would undoubtedly be subjected. Yet throughout the letter, Jefferson’s bias in favor of his belief in God clearly comes through, despite his well-intentioned attempt to be position neutral.
Here is the section of the letter in question, in its entirety.
4. Religion. Your reason is now mature enough to examine this object. In the first place, divest yourself of all bias in favor of novelty and singularity of opinion. Indulge them in any other subject rather than that of religion. It is too important, and the consequences of error may be too serious. On the other hand, shake off all the fears and servile prejudices under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because if there be One, He must more approve the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. You will naturally examine first the religion of your own country. Read the Bible then, as you would Livy or Tacitus. The facts which are within the ordin
ary course of nature, you will believe on the authority of the writer, as you do those of the same kind in Livy and Tacitus. The testimony of the writer weighs in their favor in one scale, and their not being against the laws of nature does not weigh against them. But those facts in the Bible which contradict the laws of nature must be examined with more care and under a variety of faces. Here you must recur to the pretensions [claims] of the writer to inspiration from God. Examine upon what evidence his pretensions are founded and whether that evidence is so strong as that its falsehood would be more improbable than a change of the laws of nature in the case he relates. For example, in the book of Joshua we are told the sun stood still several hours. Were we to read that fact in Livy or Tacitus, we should class it with their showers of blood, speaking of statues, beasts, &c. But it is said that the writer of that book was inspired. Examine, therefore, candidly what evidence there is of his having been inspired. The pretension [claim] is entitled to your inquiry, because millions believe it. On the other hand, you are astronomer enough to know how contrary it is to the law of nature that a body revolving on its axis, as the earth does, should have stopped, should not, by that sudden stoppage, have prostrated animals, trees, buildings, and should after a certain time have resumed its revolution, and that without a second general prostration. Is this arrest of the earth’s motion, or the evidence which affirms it, most within the law of probabilities? You will next read the New Testament. It is the history of personage called Jesus. Keep in your eye the opposite pretentions. 1. Of those who say He was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended and reversed the laws of nature at will, and ascended bodily into Heaven; and 2. Of those who say he was a man, of illegitimate birth, of a benevolent heart, enthusiastic mind, who set out without pretensions to Divinity, ended in believing them, and was punished capitally for sedition by being gibbeted according to the Roman law, which punished the first commission of that offence by whipping, and the second by exile or death in furca. See this law in the Digest, Lib. 48, tit. 19, 28. 3. and Lipsius, Lib. 2. De Cruce, cap. 2. These questions are examined in the books I have mentioned under the head of religion and several others. They will assist you in your inquiries, but keep your reason firmly on the watch in reading them all. Do not be frightened from this inquiry by any fear of its consequences. If it ends in a belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise, and the love of these which it will procure you. If you find reason to believe there is a God, a consciousness that you are acting under His eye and that He approves of you will be a vast additional incitement. If that there be a future state, the hope of a happy existence in that increases the appetite to deserve it; if that Jesus was also a God, you will be comforted by a belief of His aid and love. In fine, I repeat you must lay aside all prejudice on both sides, and neither believe nor reject anything because any other person or description of persons have rejected or believed it. Your own reason is the only oracle given you by Heaven, and you are answerable not for the rightness but uprightness of the decision. I forgot to observe when speaking of the New Testament that you should read all the histories of Christ, as well of those whom a council of ecclesiastics have decided for us to be pseudo-evangelists, as those they named Evangelists, because these pseudo-evangelists pretended to inspiration as much as the others, and you are to judge their pretensions by your own reason and not by the reason of those ecclesiastics. Most of these are lost. There are some, however, still extant, collected by Fabricius, which I will endeavor to get and send you.116
By way of note, Jefferson’s reference to the “pseudo-evangelists” and “Fabricius” is almost completely foreign to today’s Modernists and therefore is often wrongly assumed to be an attack on the Scriptures or the Epistles. It was not. The term evangelists was a concrete and well understood term in the Founding Era, often utilized in courts of law,117 and specifically meant the four Gospels as written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.118 So what does “pseudo-evangelists” mean? Does it mean the writings of the other Apostles such as Paul and Peter? And who is Fabricius?
In 397 AD the Synod of Carthage met and canonized the books that formed the inspired Scriptures.119 At that time many other books, including what were known as the Gnostic Gospels (such as the Gospel of Marcion, the Gospel of Apelles, the Gospel of Bardesanes, the Gospel of Basilides, and others) were rejected; it was determined that they were not Divinely inspired. They were thus considered to be written by “pseudo evangelists.” In 1713 and 1723 German scholar Johann Albert Fabricius made compilations of the Gnostic Gospels, and just as Jefferson urged Peter to read the canonized Scriptures, he also encouraged him to read and investigate noncanonized books (such as those compiled by Fabricius) in order to understand the debate over which parts of the Bible were actually inspired.
Jefferson was not being antireligious in his letter to Peter; he was simply trying to be neutral so as to encourage Peter to reach his own conclusions. As Jefferson scholar Dr. Mark Beliles accurately points out:
Since Jefferson used in the letter the words “some people believe” when expressing both orthodox and unorthodox opinions, it cannot be proven that he was personally in favor of either. Scholars often quote excerpts from it to prove his unorthodoxy, but one could just as easily quote Jefferson’s phrase from this letter which said “Jesus . . . was begotten by God, born of a virgin, suspended and reversed the laws of nature at will, and ascended bodily into heaven.”120
And Jefferson historian Robert Healey points out what he sees as a positive bias toward faith in the letter, explaining that “after saying to Peter Carr, ‘Question with boldness even the existence of a God,’ he writes a few lines further on, ‘Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven’” (emphasis added).121 Additionally, in the section of the letter immediately preceding his advice on religion, Jefferson told Peter:
He Who made us would have been a pitiful bungler if He had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. . . . The moral sense, or conscience, is as much a part of man, as his leg or arm.122
This is a clear declaration by Jefferson that man was created by God and endowed by Him with a conscience—two of the primary tenets of Scottish Common Sense. His statement that our reason was given us by Heaven is yet another of its four precepts. And, as already shown above, Jefferson had no personal doubts about the existence of God; to him, it was self-evident that God existed; it was also a belief held worldwide by what he called a margin of a million to one. So while Jefferson attempted to remain neutral in setting forth the possible options of belief to Peter (and largely succeeded), he definitely held a strong, personal, pro-God position.
Jefferson’s advice to Peter about discovering and confirming for himself the foundation for his religious beliefs might just as easily have come from today’s leading Christian apologists, whether Josh McDowell, Ray Comfort, Lee Strobel, or Ravi Zacharias. These apologists similarly advise Christians to know what they believe, why they believe it, and how to defend those beliefs.
In summary, Jefferson’s letter to Peter definitely does not prove irreligion on the part of Jefferson, nor can it be used to show Jefferson was promoting secular education among his own family members. Jefferson has a long record of deliberately, purposefully, and intentionally including religious instruction in all educational endeavors in which he took part, and this is especially true concerning his beloved University of Virginia.
LIE # 3
Thomas Jefferson Wrote His Own Bible and Edited Out the Things He Didn’t Agree With
The notion that Jefferson so disliked Christianity and the Scriptures that he made his own Bible is commonly bandied about in both secular and religious circles.
Hunched over his desk, penknife in hand, Thomas Jefferson sliced carefully at the pages of Holy Scripture, excising select passages and pasting them together to create a Bible more to his liking. The “Jefferson Bible.” A book he could feel comfortable with. What didn’t make it
into the Jefferson Bible was anything that conflicted with his personal worldview. Hell? It can’t be. The supernatural? Not even worth considering. God’s wrath against sin? I don’t think so. The very words of God regarded as leftover scraps.1
Jefferson . . . wrote his own Bible that excluded all references to miracles, wonders, signs, virgin birth, resurrection, the God-head, and whatever else conflicted with his own religious thought.2
Jefferson . . . rejected the superstitions and mysticism of Christianity and even went so far as to edit the Gospels, removing the miracles and mysticism of Jesus.3
Thomas Jefferson . . . actually took scissors to the Gospels and cut out all references to anything supernatural.4
Many others make similar claims.5 Are they accurate?
Logic would tell us that if Jefferson wrote his own Bible, he would do so only if he were thoroughly dissatisfied with the traditional Bible, especially its inclusion of the supernatural. Evidence definitively shows that this was not Jefferson’s view. As noted in previous chapters of this book, Jefferson made frequent, positive use of Bible references and passages in his own writings.6
Perhaps even more important, Jefferson was an active member of the Virginia Bible Society.7 This was an organization that distributed the full, unedited text of the Bible, including all its supernatural references. He also gave Bibles as gifts to members of his family, including his grandchildren,8 and contributed liberally to the distribution of the full Bible. In fact, during a period of personal economic crisis so severe that he arranged a personal loan9 and even offered to sell his own cherished private library to Congress to raise additional funds,10 he made a very generous contribution to the Virginia Bible Society, explaining:
