Back around the 4th of July Chuck gave a really good sermon demonstrating the biblical influence on the founding of our country. But there were other influences as well, such as the political system of republican Rome, Magna Carta, etc, and Aristotle. This is a personal opinion of mine, but I think we benefited from some wonderful timing. As I've said before, I agree with Churchill, that democracy is the worst form of government there is, except for all the rest that have been tried by men (paraphrased, of course). In the new heaven and new earth there isn't going to be democracy. It is going to be Christ ruling over his kingdom, as king. But human kings left a lot to be desired. The American revolution benefited from the Enlightenment and the ideas that came along with it that did away with things like the divine right of kings. But modernity hadn't fully taken over yet either. Just a few years later in France they had a revolution that was very different from ours. They were fully modern and rejected God.
Part of the heritage of the western world that the Enlightenment had not yet swept away, at least in this country, was Aristotle. George Washington said in his first inaugural address, "there is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness." Back then it was obvious, but today needs to be pointed out, that 'virtue' and 'happiness' are words closely associated with Aristotle. This next quote is from Harry Jaffa, as quoted in a post on the Liberal Fascism blog at nationalreview.com. It is in regard to that quote from Washington above:
"The pursuit of happiness is thus understood as the pursuit of virtue. It is difficult to imagine a more forthright Aristotelianism in Hooker or Aquinas..."
There is more to quote, but I think that makes the point. Honestly, I don't know who Hooker is, but I'll look it up. But the link between Aquinas and Aristotle deserves a post all its own. Later.
A major influence of Aristotle on our founding fathers was the idea that happiness is related to goodness. That is consistent with a Biblical view of real freedom as well. When we are really free we are not free to do what we want, but free to do what we ought. It is not just freedom from something (although freedom from tyranny is part of it) but freedom for something. True freedom is to be a slave of Christ. That is different from the way the world views freedom, ie freedom to do whatever I fancy or fancy to do it with at the time. Aristotle didn't know Christ, but he did know that we were created for a certain end or purpose.
Peter Kreeft sums this up well:
Making Sense Out of Suffering, Peter Kreeft (Servant Books, Ann Arbor, MI) 1986
P64
“But the meaning of the word happiness has changed since Aristotle’s time. We usually mean by it today something wholly subjective, a feeling. If you feel happy, you are happy. But Aristotle, and nearly all premodern writers, meant that happiness was an objective state first of all, not merely a subjective feeling. The Greek word for happiness, eudaimonia, literally means good spirit, or good soul. To be happy is to be good. By definition, Job on his dung heap is happy. Socrates unjustly condemned to die is happy. Hitler exulting over the conquest of France is not happy. Happiness is not a warm puppy. Happiness is goodness.
At issue here is more than the use of a word. At issue is the most important question in the world. What is the greatest good? What gives our lives meaning? What is our end? Modernity answers, feeling good. The ancients answer, being good. Feeling good is not compatible with suffering; being good is. Therefore the fact of suffering threatens modernity much more than it threatened the ancients.”
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