The Godless Constitution and the Providential Republic

by Steven D. Smith

Overview

Were America's founding ideals religious or secular?
 
In this timely and well-researched book, law scholar Steven D. Smith makes the case that the United States of America was founded on a providentialist view—the belief that God actively directs the destinies not only of individuals but of nations. Smith shows how this providentialist perspective was pervasively, officially, and unapologetically expressed in essential public documents like the Declaration of Independence and by presidents from Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln to modern presidents including FDR, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Obama. A crucial point in Smith's argument is that the Constitution neither prescribed nor forbade this providentialist understanding; it was like an agnostic parent who allowed their children the freedom to follow a religious or nonreligious path, as they wished. 
 
In modern times, by contrast, the courts and the legal and academic communities have frequently misinterpreted the Constitution as mandating governance that is completely secular. In so doing, they have effectively banished the providentialist perspective from American public philosophy. The consequences of this banishment have been deeply disruptive, contributing to dangerous polarization and lack of trust in government and other public institutions. 
 
Smith's compelling study is an essential resource for making sense of current debates about the place of religion in American public life. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of the extent to which secular neutrality is not mandated by the Constitution but rather is a modern invention with little grounding in the nation's history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467469746
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	07/01/2025
Series:	Emory University Studies in Law and Religion (EUSLR)
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	250
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Steven D. Smith is the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, where he also codirects the Institute for Law and Philosophy and the Institute for Law and Religion. He won the 2022 Notre Dame Religious Liberty Initiative Scholarship Award for his accomplishments in the field of law and religion. His publications include Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac and The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom.
Steven D. Smith is the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of San Diego, where he also codirects the Institute for Law and Philosophy and the Institute for Law and Religion. He won the 2022 Notre Dame Religious Liberty Initiative Scholarship Award for his accomplishments in the field of law and religion. His publications include The Godless Constitution and the Providential Republic, Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac, and The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents
Prologue: Atheism and the Constitution
Part 1: A Godless Document?
1. Atheist or Agnostic?
2. The Establishment Clause in the Godless Constitution
Part 2: The Providential Republic and Its (Official) Demise
3. Providentialism in America
4. Civil Religion and Its Discontents
5. Providence Banished
Part 3: Providentialism and the Travails of Liberalism
6. Liberalism without Foundations
7. Canceling the American Past?
Epilogue: "Only a God Can Save Us"
Index

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
“Effectively interweaving legal and philosophical analysis, the author provides a fresh challenge to standard constitutional discourse, with implications for such issues as free speech, individualism, and religious freedom. This is sure to spark debate.”

“Steven D. Smith is one of the nation’s best students of religion’s role in American public life. In this excellent and timely book, he argues persuasively that the United States was founded on the providentialist view that God actively directs the destiny of nations. In doing so, he demonstrates that the Constitution is not a godless document, that the First Amendment does not require a religion-free public square, and that providentialism remained pervasive until the mid-twentieth century.”
—Mark David Hall, Regent University 
 
“Steven D. Smith is arguably the most important scholar on religion and American Constitutional Law today. With the disposition of Socrates or Lieutenant Columbo, Smith interrogates—with wit, insight, and good humor—the platitudes, just-so stories, and truisms that have dominated law and religion scholarship and Supreme Court jurisprudence since the middle of the twentieth century. Although The Godless Constitution and the Providential Republic has much to commend it as a work of scholarship, it is also accessible for anyone interested in the relationship between religion and the Constitution in both history and the courts.”
—Francis J. Beckwith, Baylor University 
 
“This book offers a penetrating assessment of the history, recent judicial decisions, and deeper considerations attending the intersection of American law and belief in God. Its conclusion, that ‘only a god can save us’ from contemporary confusions, is persuasively argued. Even more compelling is the exacting care with which the book parses the crucial but contested phrases describing that intersection: neutrality, pluralism, agnostic atheism, agnostic theism, secularism, providentialism, public atheism, liberalism, and more.”
 —Mark A. Noll, University of Notre Dame
 
“Could I assign required reading for America’s religious leaders, Steven D. Smith’s The Godless Constitution and the Providential Republic might top the list. His is the critical insight so often missing in discussions of religion in America. Nowhere else will readers find a more insightful (and readable) account of how a historically Providence-oriented America morphed into the secular society we now inhabit, and what this profound transition may bode for the nation’s future.”
—Duane Litfin, Wheaton College 
 
“Here is Steven D. Smith’s interim (one hopes) report on his career-long inquiry into the relationship between secular rationality and providentialism—the idea that we are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a supreme being. In a brisk, witty and yet learned style, Smith demonstrates how difficult and unrewarding it is to erase the vision and hope of a United States marching under God’s banner.”
—Stanley Fish, Florida International University

From the Publisher