July 21, 2025 • 17 mins
The influences on the Declaration of Independence extend far beyond John Locke to encompass a complex tapestry of philosophical traditions, religious thought, and legal principles. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams crafted a document that uniquely blends Enlightenment rationality with Protestant theology, Scottish moral philosophy, and English common law.
• Both Jefferson and Adams received extensive liberal arts educations that exposed them to diverse philosophical traditions
• The Declaration represents distinctly American "both/and" thinking rather than "either/or" philosophical approaches
• References to "laws of nature and nature's God" reflect natural law traditions from classical through medieval Christian philosophy
• Montesquieu may be more influential than Locke when considering the Declaration as a complete document
• The Scottish Enlightenment contributed concepts like "self-evident" truths through thinkers like Francis Hutchison
• Protestant covenant theology influenced the Declaration's blending of liberty with religious principles
• English common law shaped the structure of the Declaration's indictments against King George III
• The document's complexity requires careful reading and discussion to fully appreciate its philosophical foundations
Join us for future episodes as we continue exploring the Declaration of Independence and its enduring significance.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
My name is Ryan, from Michigan, and I teach AP, us
Government and Politics.
My students want to know whatEnlightenment thinkers
influenced the ideas in theDeclaration.
Welcome back everyone.
We again are joined by DrCarice, and in previous episodes
we talked about the Declaration.
You've heard terms or you'veheard people mentioned, like
(00:24):
maybe Montesquieu or John Locke,and so today we're really going
to look at who are theenlightenment thinkers that
influence the ideas of thedeclaration, because Thomas
Jefferson did not just sit downone day and put all of this on a
piece of paper.
He definitely was somebody whowas very thoughtful, he studied
a lot.
So, dr Kreis, what can you tellus about the Enlightenment
(00:45):
thinkers that influence theideas in the Declaration?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thank you, liz.
As I've mentioned in otherepisodes, have the text handy,
because I'm going to makereference to the text of the
Declaration to point out somephrases and words which suggest
the influence of a particularphilosopher from the
Enlightenment period.
I'm going to go so, in a way,go beyond the Enlightenment to
talk about some other influenceson the Declaration.
(01:11):
So I want to make a generalprinciple first and invoke
Abraham Lincoln.
Why does this question matter?
Who cares what philosophers,which philosophers or ways of
thinking, or even theologiansmay have influenced the
Declaration of Independence?
And again to invoke Lincoln,lincoln says there's a
philosophy embedded in theDeclaration of Independence.
(01:35):
This is not a merelyrevolutionary or merely
political document.
You don't need to talk aboutthe laws of nature and nature's
God, or the unalienable rightsof all human beings and a
creator who has endowed allcreatures, human creatures, with
(01:58):
these unalienable rights.
You don't need to do that,lincoln says, in order to
declare independence and keepfighting a war.
You're already fighting, right,but the Americans decide to do
it that way because that's whatAmerica means and stands for
these larger philosophical ideas.
So then that raises thesereally big questions.
Well, the Declaration has bigideas in it, as we've been
(02:18):
talking about and all of themeanings of the ideas aren't
obviously evident when you firstread, or read for the 50th time
, the Declaration and it raisesquestions about just what does
that word mean or where did it?
That raises the next questionwhen did it come from?
Maybe Right?
(02:38):
And we know that the fivemembers of the committee in the
second Continental Congress,including the three most
important who had a hand in theDeclaration, are very well
educated and the two mostimportant I'll say Thomas
Jefferson and John Adams areextremely well educated in
what's called a liberal artseducation related to the word
(03:02):
for liberty, liberal arts, right, free people.
How they should be educatedJohn Adams at Harvard, thomas
Jefferson at the College ofWilliam and Mary in Virginia.
So we know they've read a rangeof philosophers from the
Enlightenment period, thismodern period, in the sort of
starting in the late 1600s andgoing through the 1700s and
(03:24):
maybe a bit into the 18thcentury.
We know they read classicalGreek and Roman philosophers and
also medieval philosophy andthought.
We also knew they knew theBible.
They're Protestants and theyknow some Christian theology.
And they're both educated inthe law.
John Adams really is apracticing lawyer, jefferson
(03:46):
knowing the law, not ever reallypracticing it as a profession.
I want to suggest all of thoseare influencing the Declaration
of Independence.
The most important are theEnlightenment philosophers, and
I'll mention a few of them, butI want to say more than these
enlightenment thinkers.
Another way of putting it isthe enlightenment thinkers that
(04:09):
are the most complex are theones we should be most
interested in, the enlightenmentthinkers who mix ideas from
seemingly different traditions.
So one way of thinking aboutthe declaration and american
political thought generally isto think about the common phrase
.
We use either or or, the othercommon phrase, both and Right.
(04:34):
And I want to say that theDeclaration of Independence and
the rest of American politicalthought is complex in its
thinking.
The Americans are both andkinds of thinkers single-minded,
thinking it's got to be thisway and everything else is
(04:59):
completely wrong, or nothingelse fits except this and we've
got either or thinking in ourpolitical life and beyond
politics.
But American thought tends tobe this both end kind of
thinking category.
So to me let's start at thebeginning with laws of nature
and nature's God, to assert thatas the foundational principle
(05:25):
in the first paragraph of theDeclaration of Independence to
me suggests awareness of naturallaw thinking which extends from
Greek and Roman thought throughmedieval Christian philosophy,
say Thomas Aquinas, to theEnlightenment, to Locke, english
philosopher writing in the 17thcentury, and Montesquieu,
(05:48):
french philosopher writing inthe 18th century.
They all know of this naturallaw tradition of thinking.
Laws of nature and nature ofGod is a more rational way of
phrasing divinity as a source oflaws.
It's less overtly sort ofChristian or based on a faith or
a revelation that you believeby faith Laws of nature and
(06:11):
nature's God.
But if you put it together withthe other references to a
divinity in the Declaration ofIndependence a creator but also
the supreme judge of the worldin the final paragraph and
relying on the protection ofdivine providence, that suggests
a broader view of the naturallaw tradition that's friendlier
(06:35):
to Christianity.
So I think that suggests to uswe want to be looking to
Enlightenment philosophers whoare a little more openly
friendly to Christianity andincorporated into their
political philosophy, and that'swhy I'm going to point to the
Frenchman Montesquieu.
Now, this is an unusual way ofthinking.
(06:56):
When you ask the question whatEnlightenment thinkers
influenced the Declaration ofIndependence, the first name
that comes to everybody's mind,so to speak, is John Locke,
because in a way the openingparagraph, but definitely the
second paragraph.
Right, the individual naturalrights equally held in all human
beings life and liberty.
(07:16):
The first two, this is.
And a right of revolution,let's not forget.
Right, a right to overthrowgovernment if it's violating
rights.
That's John Locke's philosophyin the Second Treatise of
Government.
Right, I want to step back andsay the four corners of the
Declaration of Independencecan't be explained.
What's in the document as awhole can't be explained only by
(07:36):
Locke's philosophy.
Am I saying John Locke is notimportant for the Declaration?
No, I am not saying John Lockeis not important for the
Declaration.
I'm just saying it's Locke plusit's both, and that's the
American way of thinking, yousee, in the Declaration of
Independence.
So if we have to take the lawsof nature and nature's God and a
(07:57):
creator and the other tworeferences as important
foundations for the view ofjustice in the Declaration,
we're looking to Montesquieumore than to Locke.
Montesquieu incorporatesChristianity into his account of
what a just and decent form ofgovernment is, whether it's a
constitutional monarchy, acomplex monarchy or it's a
(08:19):
republic.
Whether it's a constitutionalmonarchy, a complex monarchy or
it's a republic, democraticrepublic, it's there in the
fabric and the tissue of themain work that Maltescu writes.
That's the most importantinfluential work on American
thinking from the 1760s onward.
It's called the Spirit of Lawsand Christianity is an important
part of that book, the Spiritof Laws.
Another influence is theScottish Enlightenment Lord
(08:41):
Kames, francis Hutchison, adamSmith, those are the three I'm
going to mention philosophers ofthe Scottish Enlightenment.
So in an earlier episode whenwe talked about self-evident,
what that means.
Right, we hold these truths tobe self-evident.
Probably Francis Hutchison ismaybe the leading thinker,
philosopher that the Americansmight have had in mind when
invoking that phrase in relationto principles of justice and
(09:06):
government.
But again, that principle goesway back to classical philosophy
and medieval philosophy,christian ideas, into the mix
with rational enlightenmentideas, so to speak, of
philosophy about what justice is.
(09:26):
Then I also want to mention theProtestant Christian tradition.
If you think back to theMayflower Compact Right 1620,
when the declaration is beingdrafted in July of 1770, june
and July of 1776.
This is after 150 years ofAmerican practice of
self-government.
And when Alexis de Tocqueville,french philosopher, very
(09:49):
influenced by Montesquieu, hecomes in around 1830 to visit
America and he's here on theground for nine months to visit
America, and he's here on theground for nine months.
He says the Americans have astheir first founding the
Puritans and the Mayfair Compactand New England government,
which blends the spirit ofliberty and the spirit of
(10:09):
religion, and I think you cansee that in the Declaration of
Independence, this blending ofrational philosophical argument
about liberty, with Christianitysupporting this idea of liberty
.
So the Mayfair Compact isarguing about how we will govern
ourselves by reason as well asChristians, under a particular
(10:32):
religious belief and tradition.
So this is called the covenanttradition in Protestant theology
and so you could see thatinfluencing the Declaration of
Independence.
It's also part of how you couldget pursuit of happiness as one
of the three not exhaustivelythree, but the three unalienable
rights listed.
And also sacred honor.
(10:52):
At the end of the Declarationof Independence we mutually
pledged to each other not justour lives, not just our fortunes
, but our sacred capital, h,honor.
And then again, I don't want toforget Locke right, individual,
equal, natural rights, redRevolution.
(11:13):
But I think this document goesbeyond social contract to
something like compact orcovenant.
Thinking is the American flavorof this, so Locke is in the mix
.
And then, finally, I want tomention the common law and the
rule of law.
We don't think of that asenlightenment thought, but it's
influential in British andAnglo-American thought all the
(11:36):
way through the period ofenlightenment and still today.
Right, as I mentioned in otherepisodes, the bulk of the
Declaration is the list ofcharges right, let facts be
submitted to a candid world.
At the end of the secondparagraph.
Well, the bulk of the documentthat follows is a bill of
indictment.
The King and the Parliamenthave violated this principle of
(11:57):
the common law, this principleof the common law, this
principle of the common law.
So then, I'll finish with thisthat Montesquieu, as a
philosopher, the scholars haveshown he's the single most cited
European philosopher from 1760to 1800, the whole period of the
(12:18):
American founding, more thanLocke, more than Blackstone,
this important English commonlaw jurist, but Blackstone
himself is very deeplyinfluenced by Montesquieu.
Montesquieu is this both-andkind of thinker.
He's this complex kind ofthinker.
He fits together abstractprinciples of reason and
philosophy with Christianity,with history, with the English
(12:41):
common law he's a big fan of theEnglish common law and the
common law itself fits togetherpractices of law going back
hundreds of years withinvocations of Christianity,
with ideas of natural law.
The common law itself is acomplex kind of thinking with
ideas of natural law.
The common law itself is acomplex kind of thinking.
(13:02):
So I think Montesquieu and thecommon law are hugely important
for the Declaration ofIndependence as a whole.
They fit in Enlightenmentphilosophers, including
Montesquieu, himself anEnlightenment philosopher.
Locke an Enlightenmentphilosopher and that's a
controversial argument I'mmaking that Locke is not the
single most important orinfluential philosopher for
(13:24):
understanding the Declaration ofIndependence as a whole, but I
think it's worth thinking aboutthat.
We need to look to Montesquieuand the common law and
Protestant covenant theology,scottish Enlightenment this
range of influences tounderstand the Declaration of
Independence and why it matters.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
You've given us a lot to think about, especially
considering, you know, the twomain authors of the Declaration,
how they themselves wereinfluenced, you know, by their
time in law, their collegeeducation, even their travels,
because they both, you know,traveled to France and England
Just France, I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
You know, liz, I'm not sure if before 1776, either
Adams or Jefferson had traveledoutside America.
I think they may not have.
I think their travels may havebeen in diplomatic service to
the United States of America,once it's launched as the United
States of America.
(14:29):
Well, so John Locke is important, but he's not the only
important one when we talk aboutthe Declaration of Independence
, yes, yeah, and, as we'vementioned in other episodes,
it's just another sign of howthis document is worth reading
carefully and rereading and thenjoining other people to talk
(14:53):
about it.
Whether it's in a formal classthat you're taking for some
credit, or it's in a discussiongroup or it's in some other way,
it helps to have other peopleto talk with.
If you're reading and rereadingthis and then thinking through
gee, what does that phrase mean?
But how does that idea fittogether with this other idea?
(15:14):
They seem not to fit together.
Just individual, equal naturalrights.
How does that fit together withsacred honor?
And how does that fit togetherwith looking to God as a
protector in divine providence?
If I'm focused on my individualnatural rights, how do I fit
together that with these largerideas?
(15:34):
Very important to talk throughand think through?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yes, thank you so much, Dr Grace.
I know we're gonna be talkingto you in further episodes, so
we really appreciate yourexpertise.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Thank you, Liz.
My name is Ryan, from Michigan, and I teach AP, us
Government and Politics.
My students want to know whatEnlightenment thinkers
influenced the ideas in theDeclaration.
Welcome back everyone.
We again are joined by DrCarice, and in previous episodes
we talked about the Declaration.
You've heard terms or you'veheard people mentioned, like
(00:24):
maybe Montesquieu or John Locke,and so today we're really going
to look at who are theenlightenment thinkers that
influence the ideas of thedeclaration, because Thomas
Jefferson did not just sit downone day and put all of this on a
piece of paper.
He definitely was somebody whowas very thoughtful, he studied
a lot.
So, dr Kreis, what can you tellus about the Enlightenment
(00:45):
thinkers that influence theideas in the Declaration?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Thank you, liz.
As I've mentioned in otherepisodes, have the text handy,
because I'm going to makereference to the text of the
Declaration to point out somephrases and words which suggest
the influence of a particularphilosopher from the
Enlightenment period.
I'm going to go so, in a way,go beyond the Enlightenment to
talk about some other influenceson the Declaration.
(01:11):
So I want to make a generalprinciple first and invoke
Abraham Lincoln.
Why does this question matter?
Who cares what philosophers,which philosophers or ways of
thinking, or even theologiansmay have influenced the
Declaration of Independence?
And again to invoke Lincoln,lincoln says there's a
philosophy embedded in theDeclaration of Independence.
(01:35):
This is not a merelyrevolutionary or merely
political document.
You don't need to talk aboutthe laws of nature and nature's
God, or the unalienable rightsof all human beings and a
creator who has endowed allcreatures, human creatures, with
(01:58):
these unalienable rights.
You don't need to do that,lincoln says, in order to
declare independence and keepfighting a war.
You're already fighting, right,but the Americans decide to do
it that way because that's whatAmerica means and stands for
these larger philosophical ideas.
So then that raises thesereally big questions.
Well, the Declaration has bigideas in it, as we've been
(02:18):
talking about and all of themeanings of the ideas aren't
obviously evident when you firstread, or read for the 50th time
, the Declaration and it raisesquestions about just what does
that word mean or where did it?
That raises the next questionwhen did it come from?
Maybe Right?
(02:38):
And we know that the fivemembers of the committee in the
second Continental Congress,including the three most
important who had a hand in theDeclaration, are very well
educated and the two mostimportant I'll say Thomas
Jefferson and John Adams areextremely well educated in
what's called a liberal artseducation related to the word
(03:02):
for liberty, liberal arts, right, free people.
How they should be educatedJohn Adams at Harvard, thomas
Jefferson at the College ofWilliam and Mary in Virginia.
So we know they've read a rangeof philosophers from the
Enlightenment period, thismodern period, in the sort of
starting in the late 1600s andgoing through the 1700s and
(03:24):
maybe a bit into the 18thcentury.
We know they read classicalGreek and Roman philosophers and
also medieval philosophy andthought.
We also knew they knew theBible.
They're Protestants and theyknow some Christian theology.
And they're both educated inthe law.
John Adams really is apracticing lawyer, jefferson
(03:46):
knowing the law, not ever reallypracticing it as a profession.
I want to suggest all of thoseare influencing the Declaration
of Independence.
The most important are theEnlightenment philosophers, and
I'll mention a few of them, butI want to say more than these
enlightenment thinkers.
Another way of putting it isthe enlightenment thinkers that
(04:09):
are the most complex are theones we should be most
interested in, the enlightenmentthinkers who mix ideas from
seemingly different traditions.
So one way of thinking aboutthe declaration and american
political thought generally isto think about the common phrase
.
We use either or or, the othercommon phrase, both and Right.
(04:34):
And I want to say that theDeclaration of Independence and
the rest of American politicalthought is complex in its
thinking.
The Americans are both andkinds of thinkers single-minded,
thinking it's got to be thisway and everything else is
(04:59):
completely wrong, or nothingelse fits except this and we've
got either or thinking in ourpolitical life and beyond
politics.
But American thought tends tobe this both end kind of
thinking category.
So to me let's start at thebeginning with laws of nature
and nature's God, to assert thatas the foundational principle
(05:25):
in the first paragraph of theDeclaration of Independence to
me suggests awareness of naturallaw thinking which extends from
Greek and Roman thought throughmedieval Christian philosophy,
say Thomas Aquinas, to theEnlightenment, to Locke, english
philosopher writing in the 17thcentury, and Montesquieu,
(05:48):
french philosopher writing inthe 18th century.
They all know of this naturallaw tradition of thinking.
Laws of nature and nature ofGod is a more rational way of
phrasing divinity as a source oflaws.
It's less overtly sort ofChristian or based on a faith or
a revelation that you believeby faith Laws of nature and
(06:11):
nature's God.
But if you put it together withthe other references to a
divinity in the Declaration ofIndependence a creator but also
the supreme judge of the worldin the final paragraph and
relying on the protection ofdivine providence, that suggests
a broader view of the naturallaw tradition that's friendlier
(06:35):
to Christianity.
So I think that suggests to uswe want to be looking to
Enlightenment philosophers whoare a little more openly
friendly to Christianity andincorporated into their
political philosophy, and that'swhy I'm going to point to the
Frenchman Montesquieu.
Now, this is an unusual way ofthinking.
(06:56):
When you ask the question whatEnlightenment thinkers
influenced the Declaration ofIndependence, the first name
that comes to everybody's mind,so to speak, is John Locke,
because in a way the openingparagraph, but definitely the
second paragraph.
Right, the individual naturalrights equally held in all human
beings life and liberty.
(07:16):
The first two, this is.
And a right of revolution,let's not forget.
Right, a right to overthrowgovernment if it's violating
rights.
That's John Locke's philosophyin the Second Treatise of
Government.
Right, I want to step back andsay the four corners of the
Declaration of Independencecan't be explained.
What's in the document as awhole can't be explained only by
(07:36):
Locke's philosophy.
Am I saying John Locke is notimportant for the Declaration?
No, I am not saying John Lockeis not important for the
Declaration.
I'm just saying it's Locke plusit's both, and that's the
American way of thinking, yousee, in the Declaration of
Independence.
So if we have to take the lawsof nature and nature's God and a
(07:57):
creator and the other tworeferences as important
foundations for the view ofjustice in the Declaration,
we're looking to Montesquieumore than to Locke.
Montesquieu incorporatesChristianity into his account of
what a just and decent form ofgovernment is, whether it's a
constitutional monarchy, acomplex monarchy or it's a
(08:19):
republic.
Whether it's a constitutionalmonarchy, a complex monarchy or
it's a republic, democraticrepublic, it's there in the
fabric and the tissue of themain work that Maltescu writes.
That's the most importantinfluential work on American
thinking from the 1760s onward.
It's called the Spirit of Lawsand Christianity is an important
part of that book, the Spiritof Laws.
Another influence is theScottish Enlightenment Lord
(08:41):
Kames, francis Hutchison, adamSmith, those are the three I'm
going to mention philosophers ofthe Scottish Enlightenment.
So in an earlier episode whenwe talked about self-evident,
what that means.
Right, we hold these truths tobe self-evident.
Probably Francis Hutchison ismaybe the leading thinker,
philosopher that the Americansmight have had in mind when
invoking that phrase in relationto principles of justice and
(09:06):
government.
But again, that principle goesway back to classical philosophy
and medieval philosophy,christian ideas, into the mix
with rational enlightenmentideas, so to speak, of
philosophy about what justice is.
(09:26):
Then I also want to mention theProtestant Christian tradition.
If you think back to theMayflower Compact Right 1620,
when the declaration is beingdrafted in July of 1770, june
and July of 1776.
This is after 150 years ofAmerican practice of
self-government.
And when Alexis de Tocqueville,french philosopher, very
(09:49):
influenced by Montesquieu, hecomes in around 1830 to visit
America and he's here on theground for nine months to visit
America, and he's here on theground for nine months.
He says the Americans have astheir first founding the
Puritans and the Mayfair Compactand New England government,
which blends the spirit ofliberty and the spirit of
(10:09):
religion, and I think you cansee that in the Declaration of
Independence, this blending ofrational philosophical argument
about liberty, with Christianitysupporting this idea of liberty
.
So the Mayfair Compact isarguing about how we will govern
ourselves by reason as well asChristians, under a particular
(10:32):
religious belief and tradition.
So this is called the covenanttradition in Protestant theology
and so you could see thatinfluencing the Declaration of
Independence.
It's also part of how you couldget pursuit of happiness as one
of the three not exhaustivelythree, but the three unalienable
rights listed.
And also sacred honor.
(10:52):
At the end of the Declarationof Independence we mutually
pledged to each other not justour lives, not just our fortunes
, but our sacred capital, h,honor.
And then again, I don't want toforget Locke right, individual,
equal, natural rights, redRevolution.
(11:13):
But I think this document goesbeyond social contract to
something like compact orcovenant.
Thinking is the American flavorof this, so Locke is in the mix
.
And then, finally, I want tomention the common law and the
rule of law.
We don't think of that asenlightenment thought, but it's
influential in British andAnglo-American thought all the
(11:36):
way through the period ofenlightenment and still today.
Right, as I mentioned in otherepisodes, the bulk of the
Declaration is the list ofcharges right, let facts be
submitted to a candid world.
At the end of the secondparagraph.
Well, the bulk of the documentthat follows is a bill of
indictment.
The King and the Parliamenthave violated this principle of
(11:57):
the common law, this principleof the common law, this
principle of the common law.
So then, I'll finish with thisthat Montesquieu, as a
philosopher, the scholars haveshown he's the single most cited
European philosopher from 1760to 1800, the whole period of the
(12:18):
American founding, more thanLocke, more than Blackstone,
this important English commonlaw jurist, but Blackstone
himself is very deeplyinfluenced by Montesquieu.
Montesquieu is this both-andkind of thinker.
He's this complex kind ofthinker.
He fits together abstractprinciples of reason and
philosophy with Christianity,with history, with the English
(12:41):
common law he's a big fan of theEnglish common law and the
common law itself fits togetherpractices of law going back
hundreds of years withinvocations of Christianity,
with ideas of natural law.
The common law itself is acomplex kind of thinking with
ideas of natural law.
The common law itself is acomplex kind of thinking.
(13:02):
So I think Montesquieu and thecommon law are hugely important
for the Declaration ofIndependence as a whole.
They fit in Enlightenmentphilosophers, including
Montesquieu, himself anEnlightenment philosopher.
Locke an Enlightenmentphilosopher and that's a
controversial argument I'mmaking that Locke is not the
single most important orinfluential philosopher for
(13:24):
understanding the Declaration ofIndependence as a whole, but I
think it's worth thinking aboutthat.
We need to look to Montesquieuand the common law and
Protestant covenant theology,scottish Enlightenment this
range of influences tounderstand the Declaration of
Independence and why it matters.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
You've given us a lot to think about, especially
considering, you know, the twomain authors of the Declaration,
how they themselves wereinfluenced, you know, by their
time in law, their collegeeducation, even their travels,
because they both, you know,traveled to France and England
Just France, I can't remember.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
You know, liz, I'm not sure if before 1776, either
Adams or Jefferson had traveledoutside America.
I think they may not have.
I think their travels may havebeen in diplomatic service to
the United States of America,once it's launched as the United
States of America.
(14:29):
Well, so John Locke is important, but he's not the only
important one when we talk aboutthe Declaration of Independence
, yes, yeah, and, as we'vementioned in other episodes,
it's just another sign of howthis document is worth reading
carefully and rereading and thenjoining other people to talk
(14:53):
about it.
Whether it's in a formal classthat you're taking for some
credit, or it's in a discussiongroup or it's in some other way,
it helps to have other peopleto talk with.
If you're reading and rereadingthis and then thinking through
gee, what does that phrase mean?
But how does that idea fittogether with this other idea?
(15:14):
They seem not to fit together.
Just individual, equal naturalrights.
How does that fit together withsacred honor?
And how does that fit togetherwith looking to God as a
protector in divine providence?
If I'm focused on my individualnatural rights, how do I fit
together that with these largerideas?
(15:34):
Very important to talk throughand think through?
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yes, thank you so much, Dr Grace.
I know we're gonna be talkingto you in further episodes, so
we really appreciate yourexpertise.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Thank you, Liz.
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