[Peter Debelak]

I wanted to share a little thought regarding the Founder's and their appeal to God (most evident in the the Declaration that "all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable right").

This point will also shed light on why I think some appeals to God are okay, or at least less problematic to me.

I have argued here that, in debates regarding human government, it is critical that the parties who are in debate share their premises. If I appeal to God to an athiest, I don't have a chance of persuading them. So, if I actually have any chance of persuading them, I need to appeal to a foundation I share with them....

There is a big debate in legal scholarship about the "source authority" for any given legal system. If you aim to ultimately alter the legal system, you have to reference your arguments in terms of that "source authority."

The Founders were attempting to make a legal/moral argument to the British about why they were justified in separating and even in revolution. What was the "source authority" for the British monarchy? God. The king was directly commissioned by God in the British system (to be sure, later "sovereignty" would reside in parliament). If a group was to make a clear argument for justifiable separation from the British government, it would have to be based on an argument from the British "source authority." In this case, that was God.

A lot of Tories (Americans sympathetic to the British) were still attached to Britian because of religious beliefs about the monarchy and "God's government" (I can get sources for this, if that's a point of contention).

By appealing to the "source authority" of the British argument, the revolutionaries could meet the "doubters" where they were at.

The "doubters" were inclined to agree with the "God-approved" monarch. The founder's argued that liberty - which was being trampled by that monarch - was a God-given right. If the monarch was of God, it certainly wasn't following God's way.

The invocation of God was pragmatic.

Similarly with MLK. The "toughest" audience for him was the South, which was statistically mostly Christian. An appeal to the Bible was instrumentally effective. That is not to say MLK didn't believe in his appeal to God and the Bible. Its obvious he did. But he was also trying to connect to a population who shared his belief in God and the Bible.

Importantly, however, these are instrumental arguments. NOT arguments about "universal truth" or "God's will." So I would still argue that they are out of place.

Does that make sense?

Peter

P.S. This is the same concept that drove some GLA leaders to root their arguments against LSM in WL and WN. I remember one blog post of Kerry Robiceaux's where he took Nigel Tomes to task. Nigel argued that one publication was against the teaching in the Bible. But he didn't elaborate. Instead, he made his argument by reference to Watchman Nee's arguments. This was an attempt to appeal to a perceived common "source authority." Kerry called him out (rightly, in my opinion) on why he chose to appeal to WN rather than the Bible - since that was, at least theoretically, a common source authroity among Christians. That said, Nigel likely recognized what Kerry didn't acknowledge: if you want to convinces LCers of something, you can't just appeal to the Bible - you have to appeal their "de facto" "source authority" - WL or WN....