Our Declaration of Dependence

(This essay originally appeared on Sunday, July 2, 2000, in the Op/Ed section of the Long Beach, California Press-Telegram.)

The Declaration of Independence can just as appropriately be titled the “Declaration of Dependence.” This majestic document, arguably the most masterful state paper of Western civilization, displays a dependence on God foundational to its claim for independence from England.

Even a casual reading of this document impresses us with the role God plays in the course of human events.

God is first acknowledged as lawgiver. The “laws of nature and of nature’s God” entitle the colonies to sever their tie with England and assume a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth.

Second, God is creator. As such, he endows humanity with “unalienable rights” including the rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Governments cannot bestow these rights—they don’t belong to government in the first place. Government is instituted to protect these rights. If instead it becomes destructive to these principles, the people are free to abolish that government and institute a new one that will uphold the principles.

Thomas Jefferson was the principle author of the Declaration. His later metaphor on the “wall of separation” between church and state is often brandished about as an instrument to keep religious expression out of public life. But Jefferson thought both institutions were necessary. Contemporary secularists who desire a constricted role for religion and an expansive role for government would do themselves a favor to see how he regarded the nature and role of both.

In his “First Inaugural Address” (1801) he said that religions teach “honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude and the love of man.” But one more blessing is needed to “make us a happy and prosperous people.” That blessing is a “wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” For our values we turn to religion. For the protection of those values and for our own protection and freedom (and little else) we look to government.

A third reference to God acknowledges him as “supreme judge of the world.” The framers of the declaration appeal to God, that he might judge the “rectitude of our intentions” as these representatives of the colonies declared them to be “free and independent states.”

Finally, God is protector. The framers acknowledged and relied upon his divine providence as they bonded themselves together with a pledge of their lives, fortunes and sacred honor.

No one can claim that Jefferson’s concept of deity is completely congruent with the God confessed in the Christian faith. Jefferson was not hesitant to take his scissors to Holy Scripture. Enlightenment man that he was, he saw God and his values as accessible to all people through the avenue of reason, not just to a few people through an avenue of special revelation.

At the same time, not every concept of God could provide a proper foundation for the Declaration. Polytheism could not work, for the principles of human rights this document confesses have authority the world around and all humanity is answerable to the “supreme judge of the world” in how the principles are honored. Nor will modern non-theistic naturalism work, for no fundamental standards of human rights or of right and wrong can emerge from naturalism.

And the God of many of our founding documents is neither a deterministic God nor one who coerces human behavior. The freedom of conscience in matters of religion (so important to Jefferson) arises from the fact that an almighty God could have coerced our minds had he chosen to do so. But God chose to leave our minds free, and so man must not coerce the mind either.

Seventeen centuries before Jefferson, a Christian thinker known to us as “the Apostle Paul” offered thoughts on God similar to those in the Declaration as he dialogued with philosophers in ancient Athens. There is a God who “made the world and everything in it” including “every nation.” We are “his offspring” and he gives to everyone “life and breath and everything else.” While he allows us to walk in the ways of our own choosing, he has “set a day when he will judge the world with justice.” (Acts 17:24-31)

As we celebrate our nation’s rich heritage we should be appreciative of the sacrifice and insight of those who framed our Declaration of Independence. We should also give thanks to the Creator and Judge of the earth whose moral principles provided our country with its foundation. And we should dedicate ourselves to the realization of our fundamental principles, which beckon each American generation to fulfill them afresh.

© 2000 Donald P. Shoemaker

Grace Community Church

138 8^th Street

Seal Beach, CA

shoemaker@grace-sealbeach.org