Contemporary historiography frequently tends to interpret the American Founding through a strictly secularist lens, emphasizing the influence of John Locke and rationalist Enlightenment, while marginalizing the religiosity of the Founding Fathers, reducing it to a ceremonial and distant deism. In On Two Wings (2002), the Catholic philosopher and theologian Michael Novak challenges this hegemonic narrative.
Novak proposes a central metaphor: the American eagle needs two wings to fly. One wing represents common sense and the practical reason of the Enlightenment (specifically the Scottish Enlightenment); the other wing represents humble faith, rooted in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. Novak's thesis is that without one of these wings, the understanding of the American experiment becomes unstable and historically inaccurate. For the author, modernity attempted to "cut off one of the wings," resulting in a distorted view of political freedom (NOVAK, 2002).
🕍 The hebrew metaphysic and the conception of history
One of the most original and profound points of Novak's work is the identification of what he terms "Hebrew Metaphysic" as the intellectual substrate of the founders. Unlike the cyclical conception of time present in classical Greek philosophy, the Hebrew view introduces the notion of linear progress and historical narrative, where human actions possess moral significance under the judgment of Providence.
Novak argues that, although many founders were Christians (Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists), the political language they used was predominantly Old Testament. The Exodus narrative - liberation from tyranny and the covenant with God - served as the primordial archetype for the American Revolution.
"The language of Canaan was the lingua franca of the American founding. [...] They did not see themselves merely as philosophers building a rational republic, but as actors in a biblical drama." (Interpretive analysis based on NOVAK, 2002, p. 19-22).
For Novak, ignoring this metaphysic is failing to understand why American freedom differs from the freedom of the French Revolution. While the French strand tended toward militant atheism and human perfectibility through reason (a form of idolatry of reason), the American strand, informed by the Bible, maintained an acute awareness of human fallibility and divine sovereignty.
⚖️ Anthropology of sin and common sense
Deepening the intersection between the "two wings," Novak demonstrates how faith influenced the practical architecture of the State. The anthropology of the founders was not optimistic in the Rousseauian sense; it was realistic and biblical. The belief in original sin - or, in secular language, in the innate tendency of man toward selfishness and corruption - demanded a system of government that did not depend on the angelic virtue of its leaders.
Here enters the collaboration with the "Common Sense" of the Scottish Enlightenment (influenced by thinkers like Thomas Reid and Francis Hutcheson). Practical reason dictated that power should be divided to be controlled. In this dynamic, "Humble Faith" acts by recognizing that no man is God, therefore, no man should have absolute power; freedom is a divine gift, but must be exercised with moral responsibility. Simultaneously, "Common Sense" admits empirically that men abuse power. Thus, institutional engineering (checks and balances) becomes necessary to contain human vices and preserve ordered liberty.
Novak (2002) highlights that religion was not seen by the founders as a tool of oppression (as in European anti-clericalism), but as the indispensable bulwark of public morality necessary for self-governance. Quoting George Washington's Farewell Address, Novak reinforces that "reason and experience forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
🕊️ Interventionist providence vs. the watchmaker deism
A crucial contribution of Novak's deepening is the refutation of the simplistic categorization of the founders as "deists." Classical Deism presupposes a "Watchmaker God" who creates the universe and abandons it to its own mechanical laws.
Novak demonstrates, through an exhaustive documentary analysis of letters, speeches, and diaries of figures such as Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison, that they fervently believed in Providence. They prayed asking for intervention, believed that God acted in history (especially in the battles of the Revolution), and that nations were judged by their moral acts.
"For the founders, God was not a distant abstraction, but the Supreme Judge of the world and the patron of human freedom. Freedom was not the absence of constraints, but the freedom to fulfill duty before God." (Synthesis of Novak's argumentation, 2002, ch. 2).
This "Humble Faith" was not necessarily dogmatic or sectarian, but it was theistic and active. It provided the basis for human dignity: rights are inalienable precisely because they are granted by the Creator, and not by the State. If the source of rights were merely social consensus (pure reason), they could be revoked by a new consensus. By anchoring them in the Transcendent, the founders created a metaphysical barrier against tyranny.
⛪ Conclusion
In On Two Wings, Michael Novak does not propose a theocracy, nor does he deny the crucial importance of Enlightenment reason in the formation of the USA. His deepening lies in the demonstration that reason, by itself, was considered insufficient by the founders to sustain a free republic.
The work concludes that the vitality of the American experiment depends on maintaining the healthy tension between these two wings. The contemporary attempt to impose a radical secularism, removing the "wing of faith" from public discourse, is not an advance toward neutrality, but a mutilation of the very logic that generated human rights and political freedom in the United States. Novak reminds us that humble faith offers the moral horizon, while common sense offers the practical map; without both, the eagle's flight becomes erratic and dangerous.
📚 Bibliographic references
NOVAK, Michael. On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002.
MADISON, James. The Federalist No. 51. In: HAMILTON, Alexander; MADISON, James; JAY, John. The Federalist Papers. New York: Mentor, 1961 [1788].
WASHINGTON, George. Farewell Address. 1796. Available at: The Avalon Project, Yale Law School. Accessed in: Jan. 2025.