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Symbols
Thoreau uses God as a symbol in two ways. First, he uses God as a symbol of morality and justice—things that he believes the American government lacks. He questions how government supporters can claim that their unjust laws are “the will of God,” when those laws go against Christian ideas of morality. Second, Thoreau also uses God as a symbol of an enlightened higher power. It is this higher power that he encourages his audience to serve, rather than the American government. To Thoreau, God’s moral teachings—that is, morality itself—must come before any government’s laws, especially the American government’s unjust ones. He pleads with his audience that it is better “[to] have God on their side,” rather than behaving immorally in service to the government. Thus, Thoreau uses God in a symbolic sense as a way of strengthening his call to the American people to abandon their desire to be dutiful citizens, and instead join him in rejecting the American government and its actions by practicing civil disobedience.
God Quotes in Civil Disobedience
The Civil Disobedience quotes below all refer to the symbol of God. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Civil Disobedience
Quotes
They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.
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God Symbol Timeline in Civil Disobedience
The timeline below shows where the symbol God appears in Civil Disobedience. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Civil Disobedience
...do because, even if they don’t have the government on their side, they will have God on their side, and that is more important.
(full context)
...they are currently being treated, while wrongly claiming that this treatment is the “will of God.”
(full context)
...see the American government’s failures. He also wonders what the government must look like from God’s vantage point, the “highest” vantage point.
(full context)
...way they deem best according to the constitution, “laws of propriety, humanity, justice, and to God.” He critiques those “who know of no purer sources of truth” and stand stubbornly “by...
(full context)
