George Washington was no skeptic. He was no religion-hater. He had a vision for religious tolerance and respect for all, despite creed. He had no desire to violate anyone’s conscience. Furthermore, he saw religion as playing a key role in society. Note what he said to the Synod of the Dutch Reformed Churches in North America (October 9, 1789): “While just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support.”113 That’s quite an affirmation for an alleged Deist to make.
TWENTY NINE
Washington and the Doctrine of Providence
“While I sincerely condole with you on the loss of your good father; you will permit me to remind you, as an inexhaustible subject of consolation, that there is a good Providence which will never fail to take care of his Children: and be assured, Sir, it will always give me real satisfaction to find that prosperity and felicity have been attendant on all your steps.”
George Washington, 1788
1
Modern skeptics argue that George Washington was a Deist and not a Christian. We believe they are wrong, but no one on any side of the debate can argue that George Washington did not believe in Providence. As a repeated theme in his collected works, he refers constantly and consistently to Providence in his personal letters and public addresses.
Historian James Flexner admitted this fact when he summarized his claim that Washington and our other founding fathers were Deists:
Washington subscribed to the religious faith of the Enlightenment: like Franklin and Jefferson, he was a deist. Although not believing in the doctrines of the churches, he was convinced that a divine force, impossible to define, ruled the universe, and that this “Providence” was good. With what passion he now turned for reassurance and guidance to this force is revealed by the inaugural address he delivered with trembling voice and trembling hands on April 30, 1789, to a joint meeting of the houses of Congress. The religious passages took up almost a third of the address. Speaking not for conventional effect but from his own heart, he avoided, as was his deist custom, the word “God.”2
But what exactly did Washington mean by the term? Did Providence mean essentially the God of the Bible or was it rather some impersonal force? In this chapter, we explore what Washington said about Providence. As we do, we shall see that he was consciously referring to God in a biblical and Christian way.
WASHINGTON’S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE
We have already related the remarkable survival of young Colonel Washington in the deadly fire of Braddock’s defeat. Of this event, he wrote to his brother that by a “miracle of Providence” he was still alive. Washington had learned of Providence years earlier in his childhood training in the Anglican Church. Given his fame from the French and Indian War, years later, when the army was established in 1775, George Washington was the unanimous choice of the colonies as the leader for the effort. He proved to be a great military leader, doing much with few resources and little backing.
There were different times during the war when the hand of God seemed, in Washington’s mind, to protect the new nation during the struggle for independence. For example, during one of the battles in 1776, Washington and his men were trapped on Brooklyn Heights, Long Island. If the British had chosen to, they could have easily crushed the American army which, in fact, they planned to do the next day. This could have spelled the end of the war and would have been a disastrous end to the conflict.
However, Washington engaged in a bold move born of desperation. Under the cover of a black foggy night, he evacuated all of his troops. He used every ship available, from fishing vessels to rowboats. When morning came, it is reported that the fog remained longer than normal and lifted just in time for the British army to see the last American boat crossing the Delaware River to safety, just beyond reach of their guns. Events such as this were the evidence for Washington that God’s Providence favored the American cause.
Ironically, at the battle of Yorktown, British General Charles Cornwallis tried to repeat Washington’s nighttime escape strategy. But instead of fog to hide their attempts to escape by boats, the British experienced a terrible storm and churning seas that thwarted their plans. No wonder George Washington marveled at God’s help during the war.3
HUMANLY SPEAKING, AMERICA SHOULD HAVE LOST THE WAR
The Reverend Dr. Donald Binder currently serves as the rector for Pohick Church, one of George Washington’s most frequented churches. Here’s what Dr. Binder says about Washington and Providence when we asked him if our first president was a Deist.
It’s quite evident from Jefferson’s writings that he [ Jefferson] was a Deist, and that’s sometimes laid at Washington’s feet because he was fairly quiet and introverted about his faith, but he had this great belief in Divine Providence and really saw, especially, the coming together—-he called it a “concatenation of events”—-with the Revolutionary War. There was no way we should have won that war. The odds were so highly stacked against us that the very fact that they were able to sustain themselves for the longest war in American history, and then achieve a victory over the greatest force on the planet at that time, was for him a miracle. And he always attributed that to God’s Divine Providence. Now that clashes with one of the tenets of Deism, which [is that] God is sort of behind [the scenes and] sort of sets the world off and spins it into motion and doesn’t have any type of interactivity with it. But the whole notion of Divine Providence, which Washington espoused, clashes totally with that. He saw God’s hand in bringing him the victories and in sustaining him and his troops throughout the war.4
Washington would have agreed. In 1776 he wrote to his brother John Augustine,
I think the game is pretty near up... You can form no Idea of the perplexity of my Situation. No Man, I believe, ever had a greater choice of difficulties and less means to extricate himself from them. However under a full persuasion of the justice of our Cause I cannot but think the prospect will brighten, although for a wise purpose it is, at present hid under a cloud...5
Amazingly, five years later, he recognized that God’s Providence came through again and again, bringing hope of victory,
We have, as you very justly observe, abundant reason to thank providence for its many favourable interpositions in our behalf. It has, at times been my only dependence for all other resources seemed to have fail’d us.6
DID WASHINGTON BELIEVE IN AN IMPERSONAL PROVIDENCE?
As already noted, Washington spoke of Providence some 270 times in both his public utterances and private writings. Some modern writers imply that to Washington, Providence was not the God of the Bible per se, but rather some impersonal force. However, it is clear that Providence was not impersonal for Washington. In writing to Pierre Charles L’Enfant in 1788 Washington noted: “While I sincerely condole with you on the loss of your good father; you will permit me to remind you, as an inexhaustible subject of consolation, that there is a good Providence which will never fail to take care of his Children: and be assured, Sir, it will always give me real satisfaction to find that prosperity and felicity have been attendant on all your steps.”7 Clearly, if Providence can be “good” and “never fail to take care of his children,” it cannot be an impersonal force.
Was Providence an impersonal “it,” a force, but not the God of the churches? It can be argued that at times, Washington uses “Providence” as the impersonal power of God at work in history that can properly be described as an “it.”8 Similarly, Washington uses impersonal relative pronouns to describe this providential agency, such as “which”9 or “that.”10 This impersonality is suggested again by simply referring to it as an “agency of a Providence.”11
This however is only part of the story. Although sometimes impersonal, he frequently desires to personify this Providential power as seen in his frequent use of “smiles,”12 “hand,”13 finger,”14 and “arm,”15 with respect to this force. In his desire to reflect his delight in this divine Providential reality, he sometimes refers to Providence as “she,”16 and “her.”17
A further response to the question of the alleged impersonal force for Providence in Washington’s mind is seen in the fact that he frequently used his words for Deity in tandem with the word Providence. When Washington did this, he consistently spoke of God in personal terms, and then distinguished Providence as the actions that God took. This then explains why he spoke of Providence at times in an impersonal way. God the person acts through his decrees or interpositions. Actions are not personal, but they reflect the personality of the person who does, in fact, act.
This then not only explains the impersonal references to Providence, but it also accounts for the personal references that Washington used with respect to Providence. These personal occurrences of Providence, however, cannot be accounted for if Washington viewed Providence as an impersonal force that was intended to take the place of the God of the church.
Thus, we find in Washington’s writings and speeches that Providence is also used in a personal way with the masculine personal pronoun “he”18 as well as with the personal relative pronoun “who” and “whose.”19 Providence is not just an impersonal force, but a “Being.”20 Providence is constantly associated with Deity by being defined as “Divine Providence” and as “Divine Government.”21 Moreover, Washington never refers directly to God as an “it,” as he does occasionally with Providence. God is personal, while Providence in itself is not, unless the term is being used figuratively for Deity.
Parallel to this, Washington’s use of “Heaven” follows a similar pattern. Heaven is a place and thus is impersonal. But since it is the place of God’s dwelling, by figurative language and association, heaven takes on the personality of God.22 Because of Washington’s identification of the impersonal actions of Providence with the Divine Agent behind Providence, in Washington’s mind, Providence becomes a legitimate object of divine adoration.23
THE BIBLICAL SOURCE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON’S UNDERSTANDING OF PROVIDENCE
Is there a Rosetta Stone or a translation in Washington’s own words, where he defines what he means by Providence? We believe the answer is, yes. It is found in a letter he wrote in response to the Hebrew congregation of Savannah, Georgia. He said this:
May the same wonder-working Deity, who long since delivering the Hebrews from their Egyptian Oppressors planted them in the promised land—whose Providential Agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent Nation—still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.24
The significance of this letter is that it confirms that when George Washington referred to Providence, he was thinking in terms of the God of the Bible. By saying that the same God who delivered the ancient Hebrews in the exodus from Egypt was the same God who delivered America, and by calling him the “Providential Agency,” Washington is giving us his translation of the term Providence. For Washington, Providence is the work of Jehovah, the God of the Bible.
Likewise, when we met with Mary Thompson, research specialist at Mount Vernon, we asked her opinion about Washington and his faith. She explained that Washington’s beliefs were not those of a Deist. Here’s what she said:
For about the last 40 years the standard interpretation has been that George Washington was a Deist. I started research about seven years ago on his religious beliefs in order to answer an inquiry from a visitor. And what I found very early on was that this was a man who believed that God took an active role in the founding of the United States, a man who believed that God took an active interest in people’s lives, and that the way a person behaved in reference to God would influence how God related to him. And that’s not the belief of a Deist.
She adds this comment in reference to George Washington and Providence:
I would think that God and Providence are synonymous in Washington’s mind. When you look at a number of the letters, it becomes obvious that he feels that Providence is all-knowing, all-wise, that Providence is involved in what happens in the world.25
