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In telling the story of the forgotten--if not deliberately ignored--role of faith in America's genesis, Michael Novak probes the innermost religious conviction of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and others who helped the American eagle take flight, including some of the lesser-known Founders whose reputation has dimmed with the passage of time. These founders were not "Deists," Novak shows, but shared an underlying "Hebrew metaphysics" of contingency, openness and liberty.
Michael Novak is the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at AEI.
Table of Contents
Preface: The Forgotten One Hundred
Jewish Metaphysics at the Founding
Two Beat as One: Plain Reason, Humble Faith
Immoral Man, Moral Society, Religious Liberty
A Religious Theory of Rights
Ten Questions About the Founding
You Wouldn't Pray to "Nature's God," Would You?
Wasn't the Religion of the Founders Merely Utilitarian?
"Common Sense" and "Faith" Have Many Meanings, No?
When and Why Did Legal Elites Become Hostile to Religion?
Does the Logic of the Founding Lead Inexorably to Relativism?
Is "Faith" the Same as "Natural Theology"?
Does America Subordinate Religion?
Why Do Scholars Today Clip "The Second Wing"?
If Aquinas Was the First Whig, Why Did a Regime of Religious Liberty Appear So Late?
