Jefferson was a devout theist, believing in a benevolent creator God to whom humans owed praise. Still, much can be said about Jefferson’s religion. telling a bereaved spouse that he/she might meet the departed in an afterlife may evidence empathy as much as theology). Jefferson insisted that such matters of dogma were not critical telling one correspondent that on these “I … reposed my head on that pillow of ignorance which a benevolent creator has made so soft for us, knowing how much we should be forced to use it.” Ĭare must also be taken in evaluating Jefferson’s statements on religion, both because he often defined terms in a rather idiosyncratic manner, and because many comments with literal religious significance must be understood in the context of social convention as much as theology (e.g. his belief that everything in the universe had a wholly material existence rather than there being both material and spiritual worlds. Yet, as with any human, some of Jefferson’s beliefs shifted over time and were marked by uncertainty, and he accepted that some of his less central beliefs might be wrong e.g. Jefferson was deeply committed to core beliefs - for example, the existence of a benevolent and just God. A man of the Enlightenment, he certainly applied to himself the advice which he gave to his nephew Peter Carr in 1787: "Question with boldness even the existence of a god because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Jefferson read broadly on the topic, including studying different religions, and while he often claimed that religion was a private matter “between Man & his God,” he frequently discussed religion. Jefferson took the issue of religion very seriously. Thomas Jefferson’s religious beliefs have long been a subject of public discussion, and were a critical topic in several of his important political campaigns as he was viciously and unfairly attacked for alleged atheism.
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