WAS THOMAS JEFFERSON A DEIST?
History revisionist and professor of constitutional law at Faulkner University,
While it must be admitted that the words "I am a Deist" are not recorded, the allegation is: "it was mentioned that you was a Deist" (Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 27:39).
Dumas Malone says the charge most often made against Jefferson was atheist: "it was not only made in the public press, it was hurled from pulpits in various places, most of all probably in Connecticut. ... Actually, he was a deist" (Jefferson and His Time, 3:481).
Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary (1952) includes in the definition of Deist: "One who believes in God but denies supernatural revelation." There is no question Jefferson rejected the Bible as divine revelation and rejected the divinity of Jesus. In the Declaration of Independence Jefferson's appeal was to the God of the Deist, "Nature's God," not specifically to the God of Christianity (see letter dated Sep. 14, 1813, to Jefferson from John Adams equating "Nature's God" with "the revelation from nature").
As President, Jefferson occasionally attended church services; but, he was not a communing member of any Christian church. Further, he refused to proclaim any national days of prayer or thanksgiving.
Jefferson says he was a "Materialist" (letter to Short, Apr. 13, 1820) and a "Unitarian" (letter to Waterhouse, Jan. 8, 1825). Jefferson rejected the Christian doctrine of the "Trinity" (letter to Derieux, Jul. 25, 1788), as well as the doctrine of an eternal Hell (letter to Van der Kemp, May 1, 1817). Further, Jefferson specifically named Joseph Priestly (English Unitarian who moved to America) and Conyers Middleton (English Deist) and said: "I rest on them ... as the basis of my own faith" (letter to Adams, Aug. 22, 1813). Therefore, without using the actual words, Jefferson issued an authentic statement claiming Deism as his faith. The 1971 (ninth edition) Encyclopedia Britannica, 7:183, states the following: "By the end of the 18th century deism had become a dominant religious attitude among upper-class Americans, and the first three presidents of the United States held this conviction, as is amply evidenced in their correspondence." Therefore, it is appropriate to quote the two following paragraphs from the correspondence of President Thomas Jefferson wherein he wrote specifically about deism, as taught by Jesus.
"In consequence of some conversation with Dr. Rush, in the year 1798-99, I had promised some day to write him a letter giving him my view of the Christian system. I have reflected often on it since, & even sketched the outlines in my own mind. I should first take a general view of the moral doctrines of the most remarkable of the antient [ancient] philosophers, of whose ethics we have sufficient information to make an estimate, . . . . I should then take a view of the deism and ethics of the Jews, and show in what a degraded state they were, and the necessity they presented of a reformation. I should proceed to a view of the life, character,& doctrines of Jesus, who sensible of incorrectness of their ideas of the Deity, and of morality, endeavored to bring them to the principles of a pure deism, and juster notions of the attributes of God, to reform their moral doctrines to the standard of reason, justice & philanthropy, and to inculcate the belief of a future state. This view would purposely omit the question of his divinity, & even his inspiration. To do him justice, it would be necessary to remark . . . that his system of morality was the most benevolent & sublime probably that has been ever taught, and consequently more perfect than those of any of the antient philosophers." (Ltr. to Joseph Priestly, Apr. 9, 1803.)
"I had believed that [Connecticut was] the last retreat of monkish darkness, bigotry, and abhorrence of those advances of the mind which had carried the other States a century ahead of them. ... I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character. If by religion we are to understand [i.e., to mean] sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.' But if the moral precepts, innate in man, and made a part of his physical constitution, as necessary for a social being, if the sublime doctrines of philanthropism and deism taught us by Jesus of Nazareth, in which all agree, constitute true religion, then, without it, this would be, as you again say, 'something not fit to be named even, indeed, a hell.'" (Ltr. to Adams, May 5, 1817,Writings,A.A.Lipscomb,15:108-109.)
