Reflections on Religion, the Divine, and the Constitution

George Anastaplo is currently Lecturer in the Liberal Arts at the University of Chicago, Professor of Law at Loyola University of Chicago, and Professor Emeritus of Political Science and of Philosophy at Dominican University.

This work is the fifth in a proposed ten-volume set of essays that Anastaplo seeks to author. The previous volumes are Reflections on Constitutional Law (2007), Reflections on Freedom of Speech and the First Amendment (2007), Reflections on Life and Death and the Constitution (2009), and Reflections on Slavery and the Constitution (2012). The first half of the current work consists of 13 essays that run the gamut from Euripedes to Socrates and El Greco to Hobbes, with a concluding chapter on the human sacrifices by the Aztecs and Mayans. The second half examines unorthodox religious movements in the US such as the Mormons and the 'I Am' movement. Thirteen appendixes include the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and a number of lesser-known essays and reflections by Anastaplo and others. Although the breadth of coverage in this work is expansive, the author ties all the topics together with religion and the divine by asking, as did Hamlet, 'Who's there?' Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and research faculty.

• Preface Part One1.Euripides on the Use and Abuse of Revelation in the Service of the Political Order2.The Divine, an Unsettling Duality, and the Conduct of One’s Life: Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannos Revisited3.On Aristophanes’ Clouds4.Socrates’ Dangerous Piety5.Plato on the Divine in Human Affairs6.Maimonides and Others on Faith, Philosophy, and Governing Principles7.Conscience and Citizenship8.El Greco and His Successors9.Miguel de Cervantes on Death, the Divine, andthe Proper Ordering of Human Affairs10.Thomas Hobbes on Church and State11.John Milton’s Paradise Epics and the Divinely-OrdainedRedemption of the Human Race12.Challenges Posed by the Aztecs13.The Holocaust and the Divine Ordering of Human Affairsii. Part Two1.Nature and the Divine in the Declaration of Independence2.Benedict Arnold, Providence, and the Fates of Citizens and of Nations3.Benjamin Franklin and the Workings of the Divine – At Least in America4.“In the Year of [What] Lord?”5.Political Symbols and the Sacred in the United States6.Thomas Jefferson and Religious Liberty7.Abraham Lincoln and the Almighty8.Presidential Invocations of the Divine9.Presidential Farewell Addresses10.Revelation, Human Understanding, and the Ordering of the Good Life: The “Mormon” Movement11.Revelation and the Use of the United States Postal System: The “I Am” Movement12.An Earth Elsewhere?13.Yearnings for the Divine and the Natural Animation of MatterAppendices A. The Declaration of Independence (1776) <>B. The United States Constitution (1787)C. The Amendments to the United States Constitution (1791–1992)D. On the “Destiny” of the Jews in Eastern Europe (1939–1945)D (1) God, Please Choose Somebody Else (2000)D (2) In Eastern Europe, Anti-Semitism Is a Kind of Religion (2000)E. Martin E. Marty, George Anastaplo on the Christian Heritage (2010)F. George Anastaplo, On the Human Soul and Eternity (2010)G. Christopher A. Colmo, George Anastaplo’s Appeal to Nature (2012)H. George Anastaplo, Reflections upon Any Trial for Impiety Not Only of Socrates But Also of Us (2013)I. George Anastaplo, Life and Death in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (2013)J. Harry V. Jaffa, Foreword for George Anastaplo’s Further Thoughts on Abraham Lincoln: Discourse on Chance and Public Life (2013)K. Roger H. Hildebrand, On the Use by Physicists of Life-like Words (2013)L. John Van Doren, Silence at Delphi (2013)M. Roster of Cases Drawn On About the Author