Is God Mentioned in the Declaration of Independence?

Is God mentioned in the Declaration of Independence?

A lot of people like t say that America is a Christian nation, and a lot of other people like to argue against this. These views sometimes lead to discussions about the presence of God in America’s founding documents, i.e., the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

So, what do these works have to say about God?

God appears four times in the Declaration of Independence. It first refers to Nature’s God. Then it asserts that men are endowed with rights by their Creator. The writers then assert that they are protected by Divine Providence, and later they affirm the existence of sacred honor.

So the Declaration of Independence refers to God four times. The Constitution does not. However, the Constitution is only valid if the Declaration is valid, and the Declaration affirms the existence of God, so the Constitution requires belief in God.

Now, below we’ll explore what the Declaration of Independence has to say about God.

Tag: Is God Mentioned in the Declaration of Independence?

The First Mention of God

“…TO ASSUME AMONG THE POWERS OF THE EARTH, THE SEPARATE AND EQUAL STATION TO WHICH THE LAWS OF NATURE AND OF NATURE’S GOD ENTITLE THEM, A DECENT RESPECT TO THE OPINIONS OF MANKIND REQUIRES THAT THEY SHOULD DECLARE THE CAUSES WHICH IMPEL THEM TO THE SEPARATION.”


Now, that is a pretty rambling sentence, but if you focus on the middle part, then you’ll see the reference to Nature’s God.

The people who wrote those words were all Christians and Deists, and they were living in a nation of devout men. So they clearly knew what the Christian God was, and they were aware that they could insert the word Christian instead of Nature.

Yet they did not do so. They chose to avoid mentioning the Christian God within the nation’s founding text. So the claim that America is a Christian nation is not supported by the Declaration.

Now, many of the people involved with the nation’s birth were Christians, and most of the Declaration’s signatories belonged to the faith, so they clearly understood the God of Nature to be the God of Abraham.

Yet their choice to use one word and not another leaves some leeway for interpreting the nature of the God whom America’s founders invoked in order to justify their actions.

The Second Mention

“WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT, THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.”


So, here’s the most famous statement from the document. The Founders assert that men are endowed with rights by their creator. The fact that these rights comes from a god means that man may not overturn them.

And the rights, of course, are to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (private property).

Now, many people believe that rights come from the government. They prove this belief when they say things like,

“The government gives you the right to…”

Now, this is both un-American and an impossibility. The founding document of America affirms that rights come from the Creator and, therefore, not from government.

Moreover, no right could ever come from the government anyway.

If the government gives you a right, then it may also take that right away.

And if the government can take your rights away, then they’re not really rights. Instead, they would simply be things that you were allowed to have at the moment. So if your rights came from the government, then you would only get to keep them for as long as that same government decided to permit.

So we should consider ourselves fortunate that the government does not give rights. If this were not the case, then our continued possession of those rights would be subject to the whims of whichever politicians happened to be in power at the moment.

The Third Mention

“…WITH A FIRM RELIANCE ON THE PROTECTION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE”


Here,the founders affirm that Divine Providence exists. Divine Providence is a form of divine intervention, and it allows us to discern the nature of the god whom the Founders believed in.

First, it shows that the god knew about mankind and cared about its activities. If this were not the case, then that god would not bother to provide anything.

And the thing which they assert that god provides is protection. So the god of the founders must know about the fallibility of man and the dangers he faces on account of his nature. God’s knowledge of mankind must also be advanced enough so that He could be able to provide protection which is to their benefit.

And the Founders’ assert that they possess a firm reliance on God’s Providence. This indicates that they believed God behaved with some consistency. If God’s acts were random, then one could not rely on them at all.

And the Fourth

“…WE MUTUALLY PLEDGE TO EACH OTHER OUR LIVES, OUR FORTUNES AND OUR SACRED HONOR.”


Here they hint affirm the existence of a God, and they ascribe a certain quality to Him. The founding Fathers assert that they possess a sacred honor.

Now, in order for a thing to be sacred, something must sanctify it.

That something is God. God is necessary in order for a thing to be sacred.

So the writers of the Declaration of Independence both affirmed the existence of a God and believed that the God of Nature had an interest in human attributes and bestowed some type of blessing upon them.

Tag: Is God Mentioned in the Declaration of Independence?

Gene Botkin

Gene is the director of the Theosis Christian Project. He studied physics and military science before founding the Project. Gene is currently pursuing his doctorate in systems engineering at an engineering college in the Ozarks. The Theosis Christian Project is his attempt to expand Holy Orthodoxy in America.

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