Self-Evident Truth: A Common Sense View of Equality and Rights in the Declaration

November-29-2018

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Duplessis, c1785.

1 When American Founder Benjamin Franklin edited Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the United States’ Declaration of Independence, he changed the wording of one important phrase from “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” to “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” The notion of “self-evident” truth is the idea that some truths do not require complex reasoning or evidence to prove. Such truths are simply understood by basic, original evidence and man’s innate moral or common sense. They are often called “first principles” upon which other truths and arguments are based. The Declaration of Independence of 1776 conveys the principle of self-evident truth in stating, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This principle of self-evident truth contributes to the American understanding of and justification for a Creator God, the Law of Nature, and the equality and natural rights of mankind. While self-evident truth may hold value from a purely secular, scientific and rational standpoint, many God-oriented thinkers also find it to be compatible with biblical, Christian teaching. Franklin likely knew this.

2 The support for self-evident truth is found among influential Christian thinkers throughout history. Augustine of Hippo in the 400s, John of Damascus in the 700s, Thomas Aquinas in the 1200s, and John Calvin and Richard Hooker in the 1500s all expressed ideas related to self-evident truth. The concept was later supported by God-oriented Enlightenment-era thinkers including John Locke in the late 1600s and, ultimately, by the American Founders in the 1700s.

3 In his 1265-1274 Summa Theologica, Italian theologian Thomas Aquinas acknowledged that some truths are “naturally implanted” in human beings and are therefore self-evident. Such truths, he believed, include the existence of God and God’s universal moral law–or the Law of Nature. With this assertion, Aquinas essentially affirmed Romans 2:14-15 in which the Apostle Paul says that God’s moral law is written on human hearts. Paul states:

When the Gentiles [non-Jews], who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the [moral] law, they are a law for themselves…. They show that the requirements of the [moral] law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them. (NIV)

Drawing from John of Damascus in Orthodox Faith, Aquinas writes about the self-evident existence of God: “These things are said to be self-evident to us, the knowledge of which is naturally implanted in us, as we can see in regard to first principles. [John] the Damascene says that the knowledge of God is naturally implanted in all. Therefore, the existence of God is self-evident.”¹Aquinas further asserted that the two Great Commandments in the Bible to love God and others, as found in Matthew 22, are also self-evident to mankind. These principles of God’s universal moral law, he writes, “need no further promulgation after being once imprinted on the natural reason to which they are self-evident; as, for instance, that one should do evil to no man.”²

4 French religious reformer John Calvin expounded on the existence of God based on self-evident truth in his 1536 Institutes of the Christian Religion, writing about “the knowledge of God naturally implanted in the human mind.”³ Firstly, he draws from Romans 1:18-20 in which the Apostle Paul writes about the evidence of God in creation. Paul states,

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people who suppress the truth…, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (NIV)

Calvin consequently affirms that “the knowledge of God being manifested to all” means that every person is “without excuse.” Secondly, Calvin asserts that the knowledge of God is self-evidently manifested through a person’s inward moral sense or conscience. Alluding to Romans 2:14-15 and God’s moral law written on human hearts, Calvin explains,

That there exists in the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of Deity, we hold to be beyond dispute, since God Himself, to prevent any man from pretending ignorance, has endued all men with some idea of His Godhead, the memory of which He constantly renews and occasionally enlarges, that all to a man being aware that there is a God, and that He is their Maker, may be condemned by their own conscience when they neither worship Him nor consecrate their lives to His service. … There is no nation so barbarous, no race so brutish, as not to be imbued with the conviction that there is a God. …so thoroughly has this common conviction possessed the mind, so firmly is it stamped on the breasts of all men. Since, then, there never has been, from the very first, any quarter of the globe, any city, any household even, without religion, this amounts to a tacit confession, that a sense of Deity is inscribed on every heart.⁴

5 English theologian Richard Hooker, influenced by Augustine and Aquinas, also acknowledged self-evident truth. He explains in his 1594-1597 Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity that “to make nothing evident of itself to man’s understanding were to take away all possibility of knowing anything.” Hooker believed, in line with Romans 2:14-15, that a universal moral law or Law of Nature among humanity is self-evident. He pointed out from Augustine that some truths are “universally agreed upon” and that from these truths the “greatest moral duties we owe towards God or man may without any great difficulty be concluded.”⁵

6 British philosopher John Locke, influenced by Calvin and Hooker, recognized self-evident truths that do not require complex reasoning to understand. He asserts in his 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, “There are a sort of propositions, which under the name of maxims or axioms, have passed for principles of science; and because they are self-evident, have been supposed innate.”⁶ Locke affirmed the existence of a Creator God as self-evident based on natural creation. Citing Romans 1:20, he expresses, “I judge it as certain and clear a truth, as can anywhere be delivered, that ‘the invisible things of God are clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the things that are made.’”⁷

7 Like Benjamin Franklin, the American Founders recognized self-evident truths, calling them common sense and first principles. Echoing Hooker and Locke, Founder James Wilson expounds on this idea in his 1790-1791 Lectures on Law:

Let us embrace the philosophy which dwells with common sense. This philosophy will teach us that first principles are in themselves apparent; that to make nothing self-evident is to take away all possibility of knowing anything; that without first principles, there can be neither reason nor reasoning; that all sound reasoning must rest ultimately on the principles of common sense—principles supported by original and intuitive evidence.⁸

8 With their inclusion of the principle of self-evident truth in the Declaration of Independence, the American Founders affirmed common sense on the matter of mankind’s equality and natural rights. Recognized in secular science and reason as well as in the Bible, this principle was historically acknowledged by Christian thinkers who believed that the Creator God and His universal moral law were in many ways self-evident to mankind. These thinkers aligned with or cited Romans 1:18-20 to support the existence of God by evidence of creation, and Romans 2:14-15 to support man’s innate moral sense. In a similar way, the Founders asserted that if God exists as creation evidences, if mankind is made in God’s image as the Bible and nature show, and if mankind is subject to a Law of Nature as man’s conscience confirms; then all human beings possess dignity, equality, and natural rights. It is from this philosophy and simple line of reasoning that the Founders asserted some basic, common sense truths in the Declaration–that all human beings are “created equal” and that their Creator bestows on them the rights to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Founders believed that the principle of self-evident truth strengthens the American argument and defense for man’s dignity, equality, and rights.

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[1] Fathers of the English Dominican Province, trans., The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 2 (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1911), 19-20.

[2] Fathers of the English Dominican Province, trans., The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, Part 2 (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1915), 118.

[3] Henry Beveridge, ed., The Institute of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, Vol, 1 (Edinburgh: Printed for the Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 55.

[4] Beveridge, ed., Institute of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, 55-56.

[5] Henry Morley, ed., The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Books I-IV, by Richard Hooker, Book 1 (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1888), 82, 87. See also Essays on the Law of Nature by John Locke (Leyden: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1954), 36.

[6] John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book 4, 27^th ed., (London: Printed for T. Tegg and Son, 1836), 453, 455, 457.

[7] Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book 4, 476.

[8] Bird Wilson, ed., Lectures on Law by James Wilson, 1790-1791, Part 1 (Philadelphia: Lorenzo Press, Printed for Bronson and Chauncey, 1804), 256-257.

Contributed by AHEF and Angela E. Kamrath.

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Sources for more information:
Kamrath, Angela E. The Miracle of America: The Influence of the Bible on the Founding History and Principles of the United States of America for a People of Every Belief. Second Edition. Houston, TX: American Heritage Education Foundation, 2014, 2015.

Calvin, John. The Institutes of the Christian Religion: A New Translation. Vol. 1, Book 1, Ch. 3. Translated by Henry Beveridge. Edinburgh, Scotland: Printed for Calvin Translation Society, 1845. pp. 55-56. Google Books.

Poster: Declaration of Independence

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Activity: The Miracle of America High School Teacher Course Guide, Unit 7, Part 2, Activity 3: Unalienable Rights in the Declaration, p. 252, 318-319. MS-HS.

Unalienable Rights in the Declaration (Revised)

Purpose/Objective: Students learn key principles from the Declaration of Independence including self-evident truth, natural or unalienable rights, and how influential thinkers like Locke and Sidney as well as early Americans justified these rights and connected them with the Bible and other principles.

Suggested Readings:
1) Chapter 7 of Miracle of America reference/text. Students read sections 7.1-7.17, 7.23, & pp. 236-237.
2) Essay/Handout: Principles of the Declaration of Independence by Angela E. Kamrath found in the “Supporting Resources” of the Miracle of America HS Teacher Course Guide, pp. 362-364, or in the “Miracle of America Snapshots” handout under member resources (see Miracle of America articles) at americanheritage.org.
3) Related blogs/videos (see above).

KWL Chart (Revised):
1. At the outset of the lesson, ask students to write anything they know about unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence on a 3-column KWL Chart under the “K” column for “what I know.”
2. Students will then respond to the question, “What do you want to know about unalienable rights?” Students will write this information under the “W” column of their chart for “what I want to know.” The teacher will then lead students in a reading, analysis, and discussion of unalienable rights and the self-evident truth philosophy that justifies them in the Declaration.
3. As the lesson concludes, students will add new information they have learned under the “L” column of their chart for “what I’ve learned.”

(See KWL Chart in the “Supporting Resources” section of the Miracle of America HS Teacher Course Guide, pp. 318-319.)

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To download this whole unit, sign up as an AHEF member (no cost) to access the “resources” page on americanheritage.org. To order the printed binder format of the course guide with all the units, go to the AHEF bookstore.

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Self-Evident Truth: A Common Sense View of Equality and Rights in the Declaration