The Declaration itself derived its authority from inalienable rights endowed by a Creator.

A while ago I heard about a man named Michael Newdow filing a suit to have “under God” removed from the Pledge of Allegiance. He argued that it violated the principle of separation of church and state.

I’m not sure this was the original intent of the Founding Fathers. The Founding Fathers were mostly Christians and Deists. Adherents of both systems believed God existed, but at that time Deism was considered to be secular.

Most people think of Deism as the idea that God wound up the universe like a clock and then let it go, but Deists are still religious, as they believe in the existence of a God. If you look into it, this belief about God’s part in the universe is part of what Deism said, but Deism itself was much more involved than that.

Properly understood, Deists believed in what was called “natural religion.” That is, although they thought that specific religious doctrines might not be provable, they did think religion in the generic sense could be objectively demonstrated and, as such, was applicable in a secular setting. Although this might sound strange today, it was simply a sort of secular belief in the existence of God.

How do I know that they thought this? Well if you look closely at the Declaration of Independence it states as much.

The Declaration says, “...all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...” If you look at the phrasing before this it says this truth was held to be “self-evident.” This would imply they viewed the existence of a Creator, even a Deist Creator, as also self-evident.

The Declaration was predicated on the Constitution, which was predicated on the Bill of Rights, and thereby the principle of separation of church and state. The Declaration itself derived its authority from inalienable rights endowed by a Creator.

Since the concept of separating church and state found in the First Amendment derives its authority from the principles in the Declaration, the separation concept would be groundless outside of these principles.

As such, the founders would not have viewed the idea of America being a theistic nation as incompatible with the separation of church and state. This wouldn’t mean it would be under one specific religion – only that it would be under God and thereby be at least minimally theistic, as opposed to non-theistic.

Though I personally believe God exists, the argument I just presented is probably not convincing to an atheist.

If you are an atheist, you are probably not convinced that belief in God could be considered secular anymore, and therefore the idea of America being one nation under God would be a violation of the separation of church and state.

If this describes you, let me provide a non-theistic argument for why a theistic society is objectively preferable to a secular (by today’s standards) society.

The state’s function is to enforce the law. However, the state is not always feared the way it ought to be, as laws are bent, broken or otherwise disregarded.

Without a spectacular state to fear, people have a propensity towards anarchy. Since the state is not always strong enough to enforce the law like it ought to, it’s in the state’s interest to promote ideologies that promote the ends of the state when the state cannot do this directly.

If the state isn’t scary enough to ensure its laws are respected, it can call on a Higher Power that will be scary enough to get the job done. The state is finite, so people can get away with disrespecting it.

However, those same people might think twice about ignoring a unitary executive in the sky. Objectively speaking, people will have a larger incentive to obey the law in a theistic nation than under one that is non-theistic.

Even if you look at it from an atheistic perspective, a society that is viewed as being “under God” is preferable to one that is not viewed as theistic.

Besides that, as can be seen in the Declaration, the Founders clearly envisioned America as being under God. Let’s keep this in mind next time the separation of church and state is brought up in political discourse. God bless you, and God bless America.

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