Nature’s God: Exposing The Declaration’s Greatest Myth

It is time to dispel the myth that the Declaration of Independence referenced the Christian God.

Every American Independence Day it is not uncommon to hear politicians and commentators gleefully recall that the United States is a nation “under God” with the Declaration of Independence cited as proof. But who is this God that so many Americans claim to be under?

Is this God the Trinitarian Christian God, of which the second person of this Holy Trinity, is Our Lord, the King of Kings, Jesus Christ?

The founding legal document of what became the United States of America, the Declaration of Independence, indeed refers to a god. But is it the Christian God?

The Declaration states:

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and 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.

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 (emphasis added).”

Who, or what, is this “Nature’s God” and this “Creator” referred to in the Declaration?

He will be quite disappointed if one searches the Holy Scriptures for this phrase. If one searches the writings of the Church Fathers and even later scholastics, one will come up empty as well. Even Protestant preachers at the time and before 1776 were wont to use such a term as “Nature’s God” or simply refer to the Christian God as “the Creator.”

Modern philosopher and author, Matthew Stewart, wrote a comprehensive book Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic, on this topic from a secular point of view and his research will be drawn upon heavily in this article.

My goal is not to restate Stewart’s findings, but to tackle this subject from a more faithful point of view with an eye towards how a Christ-loving Christian should view the Declaration’s god. Then, I will draw important implications from the final conclusion, which is that this mysterious Nature’s God, is NOT the Trinitarian Christian God. It is something much different, and much more sinister.

These implications should not only dramatically affect how we view the essence of the United States of America, but also how we understand what is currently happening in the Catholic Church, presently suffering under the Modernist heresy of Americanism.

Deism and Pantheism

To understand where this mysterious “Nature’s God” comes from, we must understand a little about the religious ideas of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly those non-Christian ideas that were become more popular: deism and pantheism.

Deism was a natural consequence of the consistent attack on revealed religion, particularly the Catholic Church. Following on the heels of the Protestant revolt against the Church, the notion of “private judgment” and independence from a hierarchical guardian of revealed Truth was well on its course towards a complete rejection of any and all types of revealed religion.

With the advent of the so-called Enlightenment, by the time of the seventeenth century, the notion of rationalistic free thought gripped the intellectual world in various degrees. One can view Deism as having passed through various degrees of development.

One phase became critical of the notion of religion, in general. This included the notion of religious “tolerance” and individual freedom concerning belief. John Toland (1670-1722) and Antony Collins (1676-1729) typified this phase in deistic thought.[1]

A second phase moved more aggressively against revealed religion, particularly against the idea that personal choices made in this earthly life would play a role in eternal judgment in the next life.

Antony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), has been cited as representing this phase of deistic thought. Matthew Tindal (1657-1733) with his Christianity as Old as Creation essentially substituted revealed Truth with natural reason.[2] According to this view, unaided human reason became the only means by which truth could be known, rendering the Christian religion either superfluous or potentially harmful.

With this groundwork laid, it was a short step to reduce the idea of God to a simple “creator” of the universe lacking any direct role in the events of the world. While remaining distinct from his creation, the deistic god nevertheless remains aloof and uninterested in the happenings of the world and allows his creation, including man, to proceed through time without any specific guidance or moral constraints. Any such constraints, according to the Deists, are discoverable using unaided reason.

Unlike Deism, which at least acknowledges a “creator” beyond and distinct from the material world, the Pantheists believed their god and the material world were one in the same. Of course, how and why this god manifests himself in various different forms that we can perceive opened the door for much philosophical speculation.

And while many variations and answers would be offered over the next two centuries, Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza laid much of the groundwork that was to come.

Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632-1677)

Born into a Jewish family, Spinoza’s philosophical ideas eventually led to his expulsion from his Jewish community. Significantly, Spinoza rejected the idea that there is a personal god who created a separate and distinct material world. Consequently, he also rejected the idea that any god would offer mankind divine revelation, such as through Holy Scripture, so that we may come to know the divine and worship properly.

Spinoza argued that there is only one substance that is both infinite and divine, which he identified with “Nature.” While acknowledging the general concept of “a god,” he denied revelation concerning this god’s essence.

While not heavily reliant on any one philosophical school, it is evident Rene Decartes influenced Spinoza as well as Jewish mystical and Kabalistic writers.[3]

Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was another potential influence on Spinoza. I say potential because there is no direct evidence that Spinoza borrowed from Bruno. As a former Catholic priest, Calvinist and Lutheran, Bruno was eventually burned at the stake for spreading heresies. Among such heretical ideas, Bruno argued that Christ was not God but a skilled magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, and that the Devil will be saved.[4]

Like what Spinoza would later teach, Bruno believed that God and the world were one. He maintained that all matter is made up of the same elements and contains a “soul.” It is a reasonable inference that much of Spinoza’s ideas concerning a pantheistic god were borrowed and developed from Bruno.

As noted above, Spinoza was apt to equate this pantheistic god with nature itself. Spinoza in this Ethics, Part IV preface, he clearly equates God with Nature:

“For the eternal and infinite Being, which we call God or Nature, acts by the same necessity as that whereby it exists. For we have shown, that by the same necessity of its nature, whereby it exists, it likewise works (I. xvi.). The reason or cause why God or Nature exists, and the reason why he acts, are one and the same.”[5]

For Spinoza, then, there is one, unique and infinite substance that he called God or Nature—Deus sive Natura. God and Nature, in his conception, are interchangeable terms. How can this be?

Spinoza thought the scholastics misunderstood the notions of infinite being and substance. Significantly, Spinoza proposed:

“Whatsoever is, is in God, and without God nothing can be, or be conceived.”[6]

The key to understanding this position is found in his premise that God is not only a thinking being but an extended being.[7] By extension, he means taking up space. If material substances existed other than God, then God could not be infinite, according to Spinoza. Consequently, if God is defined as an infinite being then there cannot be any other substances distinct from God.[8] And this is how Spinoza concluded that all material, nature, cannot be distinct from God.

But the scholastics had an answer to this. According to Copleston,

“Their answer was that though the creation of finite things adds to the number of beings (the term ‘being’ was understood analogically) it does not increase, so to speak, the amount of being. God and finite things are incommensurable, in the sense that their existence adds nothing to the infinite divine being and perfection.”[9]

In other words, material creation cannot be compared to the divine nature. Yet, Spinoza assigns attributes of a material-created world, including extension, to God. In this way, it can be deduced that if God is infinite, no other substances (material) could exist that would not at the same time be considered God.

The point, here, is that Spinoza equated the material world, that is nature, with God. They were one and the same for him. For this opinion, among others, Spinoza became extremely controversial because his ideas constituted an open rejection of the personal Christian God. And yet, his ideas would remain influential among philosophers that followed him—even those who claimed to be Christian.

John Locke (1632-1704)

It is well established that one of the greatest influences on Thomas Jefferson, especially in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, was John Locke. Many go so far as to claim Jefferson copied Locke.[10] A more complicated and quite interesting question is who influenced Locke?

Locke and Spinoza were contemporaries. Both Collins and the third Earl of Shaftesbury were Locke’s students. And yet, philosophy historians consider Collins and Shaftesbury Spinozists at heart.[11]

Toland, as well, was a disciple of Locke. But Toland’s writing also reflected Spinoza’s influence. Consequently, Toland became associated in the English philosophical circles with both Spinoza and Locke. This made Locke nervous.[12]

This is because Locke’s genuine religious views remain nebulous to this day, despite a plethora of historians and commentators either defending his Christian beliefs or condemning him as a deist or atheist. Some even claimed Locke was deceitful in his expression of religiosity. William Carroll, a contemporary of Locke’s, accused him of pursuing a “double View, double Design, intended to fool the pious while promoting Spinozism.”[13]

An example of this duplicity, or at best inconsistency, is one Professor Leo Strauss mentions when contrasting Locke’s claim that the entire law of nature can be found in Holy Scripture, and yet Locke grounds his entire political philosophy on the premise of a “state of nature,” which is nowhere to be found in the scriptures.[14]

After providing other examples of such inconsistencies, Strauss advises us to consider the following facts:

“The accepted interpretation of Locke’s teaching leads to the consequence that ‘Locke is full of illogical and inconsistencies,’ of inconsistencies, we add, which are so obvious that they cannot have escaped the notice of a man of his rank and sobriety.”[15]

While we may never know Locke’s true opinions on religion, we do know he lived at a time when Spinoza’s popularity in philosophical circles reached its peak and that he read Spinoza. We also know Spinoza represents the radical side of enlightenment-based political philosophy, while Locke is commonly designated its moderate spokesman. In part, this is likely due to his positive references to Christianity and the avoidance of politically dangerous statements for the times more commonly found among the works of the radicals. And yet,

“The duality of Locke’s legacy, however, serves to illustrate that the radical and moderate Enlightenments are really just two sides of a single body of thought. Spinoza is the principal architect of the radical political philosophy that achieves its ultimate expression in the American Republic, and Locke is its acceptable face. So-called Lockean liberalism is really just Spinozistic radicalism adapted to the limitations of the common understanding of things.”[16]

While Locke carefully avoids using Spinozian terminology that would make a direct connection obvious, Locke’s students do no such thing. The third Earl of Shaftesbury, for example, states:

“is there any difficulty in fancying the universe to be one thing…All things cohere and conspire; all things are in one, and are comprehended in the nature of the universe…Everything that happens is from the same nature (the nature of the whole), and, therefore, to be dissatisfied with what happens, is to be dissatisfied with nature.”[17]

Now, recall, that Spinoza admitted that God was both a thinking being and an extended being. Locke accepted this as well, which on the surface could be squared with Christian doctrine. But for Spinoza, God’s intellect and those things understood by God are the same thing.

Locke used Spinoza’s logic but assigned different names to these attributes of God. Instead of “thinking” and “extension,” Locke used “cognitive” and “incogitive” attributes of God in the same sense. In this way, Locke agrees with Spinoza concerning God’s infinite attributes, including his extension into the material world, while manages to avoid the question of how this squares with the Christian belief that God created the material world (as distinct from Himself.[18]

Ultimately, it was left up to Locke’s students, and philosophical descendants, such as Thomas Jefferson, to try and clean up these Lockean problems.

Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

Before discussing Jefferson, it is necessary to show how Spinoza’s ideas, apparently adopted by Locke and certainly his students, became manifest in popular literature. It was through the English poet, Alexander Pope, that the phrase “Nature’s God” came to prominence, and did so with all the Spinozian baggage it could carry.

Alexander Pope was born in 1688 to English Catholic parents, and he remained a Catholic his entire life. To some extent, the English penal laws against Catholics curbed Pope’s professional opportunities, but he nevertheless found satisfaction as a poet. While a complete biography and list of his works is not necessary to recount here, it suffices to say that by the 1720s, Pope became a popular writer and financially secure.

During the course of his career, Pope came under the influence of Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke was also a student of Locke, and like Locke’s other students, used Lockean ideas to reach conclusions Locke was too timid to state publicly. While stopping short of outright rejecting Christianity, Bolingbroke reduced Christian belief to a natural religion. Any aspect of Christianity such as Christ’s redeeming work on the Cross, was simply an unnecessary accretion in theological thought.[19]

Bolingbroke becomes important because he provides the link between Spinoza’s naturalism and Pope. It was through their intimate correspondence that Bolingbroke influenced Pope with this natural religion.[20] In fact, the phrase “Nature’s God” appears in one of the letters Bolingbroke sent to Pope, long before Pope’s Essay on Man was published.[21]

But it was Pope’s Essay on Man where the phrase “Nature’s God” was first popularly published between 1732 and 1734. The poem itself consists of four letters addressed to Bolingbroke. With his essay, Pope intended to expound on a system of philosophy that some contend he did not fully understand. This is because it was entirely laced with naturalistic religion, which Pope walked back several years later after being accused of being a Spinozian.[22]

Pope’s naturalism comes through in the first epistle:

“All are but parts of one stupendous whole, / Whose body Nature is, and God the soul; / That, changed through all, and yet in all the same; / Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame; / Warms in the sun, / refreshes in the breeze, / Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees, / Lives through all life, extends through all extent, / Spreads undivided, operates unspent; / Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, / As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart[.]” [23]

Philosophy historian, Matthew Stewart, helps us draw the connection between Pope’s lines and Spinoza’s natural religion. We have seen Pope’s concept of monism, or unity between God and nature (“one stupendous whole,) which reflects Nature’s two attributes of extension (“extends through all extent”) and thinking soul (“breathes in our soul”) and manifests in the sun, breeze, stars, and trees.[24]

While this first epistle sets the stage, we see the introduction of “Nature’s God” in the fourth epistle:

“Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, / But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God; / Pursues that chain which links the immense design, / Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine;”[25]

In other words, only through scientific study of nature, not through any particular religious sect, can one come to know the divine.[26]

Not unlike modern popular culture where catchphrases become popular through famous entertainers or authors, the phrase “Nature’s God” now entered the English-speaking lexicon and its meaning could not be clearer to those who understood Spinoza’s natural philosophy, which equated the natural material world with the divine.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

Like Locke, Thomas Jefferson’s true opinions on religion are the subject of much speculation. What can be gleaned from his writings is that he was not, in any way shape, or form, a Christian in the sense that he subscribed to the traditional teachings of either Trinitarian protestant or Catholic notions of Christianity.

Jefferson referred to himself as an Epicurean. Up to this point, the Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus has not been mentioned, but now is a good time to introduce him because his philosophy underlies much of the materialist thinking driving enlightenment philosophy, and certainly Jefferson’s.

In modern philosophical circles, Epicurus is labeled as an Atomist. According to this idea, there is an infinite number of indivisible units, which are called atoms, that move around in space. These atoms would collide with one another and join together to form larger units of matter. From these interactions among atoms, the basic elements of fire, water, air and earth are formed. For the Greek atomists, the atoms simply moved on their own and there was no “mover” to speak of that caused motion—an omission Aristotle would later criticize.[27]

The Atomist philosophy is nothing more than a precursor to the Enlightenment notion of materialism. Materialism “regards matter as the only reality in the world, which undertakes to explain every event in the universe as resulting from the conditions and activity of matter, and which thus denies the existence of God and the soul.”[28]

In other words, existence results from random movements of matter that over time come together to form the things we know in the world.

Giordano Bruno adopted the philosophy of atomistic materialism, who as noted above influenced Spinoza. The circle now can be completed with Jefferson. In Jefferson’s 1819 letter to William Short he writes,

“As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean…Epictetus & Epicurus give us laws for governing ourselves, Jesus a supplement of the duties & charities we owe to others. the establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent Moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems*, invented by Ultra-Christian sects, unauthorised by a single word ever uttered by him is a most desirable object…*[Jefferson’s footnote in original letter:] “e.g. the immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection & visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy Etc.”[29]

We gather from this rare glimpse into Jefferson’s views on religion, that he views the material world as providing the natural laws by which humanity is governed, while the very human Jesus of Nazareth, supplements these laws of nature with good moral principles. Traditional Christian ideas, such as the Trinity and Original Sin, are nothing more than myths resulting from “artificial systems,” by which he most certainly means to include the Catholic Church.

If there was any doubt about this, Jefferson’s letter to Mrs. Samuel H. Smith Monticello in 1816 should clear this up. Jefferson writes,

“My opinion is that there would never have been an infidel, if there had never been a priest. The artificial structures they have built on the purest of all moral systems, for the purpose of deriving from it pence and power, revolts those who think for themselves, and who read in that system only what is really there.”[30]

It seems that Jefferson recognized Christ only insofar as acknowledging his existence in history and for providing a pleasing moral and ethical code for guiding individual personal lives. The notion of a corporate ecclesiastical structure, such as the Catholic Church, established by Christ Himself to hand down the dogmatic teachings of the faith such as the Trinity and Original Sin, is nothing more than a sham designed to enslave and con an unsuspecting populace.

But if one were tempted to conclude Jefferson’s anti-Catholicism reflects his acceptance of a protestant version of Christianity, that also would be a grave error. As noted above, Jefferson considered himself a materialist. This meant that any notion of the supernatural, such as miracles in the Bible, was also nothing more than false and misleading myths. We see this with Jefferson’s effort to edit out references to the supernatural in the Bible, such as miracles like the Resurrection of Christ, and republish it as a sort of handbook of moral principles.[31]

Nature’s God in the Declaration of Independence

With Jefferson’s philosophical heritage in mind, in addition to Jefferson’s own thoughts and words on the subject of religion and materialism, we can now gather a clearer view of what exactly he intended by his inclusion of the concept of “Nature’s God” in the Declaration of Independence.

Jefferson was one member of a committee of five selected to draft the Declaration by the Continental Congress. He was charged with writing the original draft, upon which other members of the committee would make edits and additions.

Jefferson’s initial draft of the Declaration included the sentence:

“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have hitherto remained, & to assume among the powers of the earth the equal & independant station to which the laws of nature & 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 change.”

Notable here is that Jefferson’s original draft, before others made any edits or additions, referenced “laws of nature & nature’s god.” This harkens back to and fits squarely within Jefferson’s Epicurean notion that nature, not the God of Christianity, gave us laws by which we must follow.

The reference to “god,” as we have seen, also fits squarely within the Spinozian and Lockean traditions of equating the material world with a god in a pantheistic way. It would not be unusual or out of place for Jefferson to include such a phrase, one already well-known within Enlightenment-based philosophical circles.

Another clue as to Jefferson’s intentions requires us to look at the very next sentence in his original draft:

“We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness[.]”

Compare this to the final draft of the same sentence:

“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.”

The reference to the “Creator,” was not included in Jefferson’s original draft. Other members of the committee tasked with drafting the Declaration included John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. It is evident from a history of the available draft copies that Jefferson submitted his original draft first to Adams and Franklin for editing, and in doing so, made changes to his original draft.

Carl Becker, the well-known history of the Declaration, surmises the addition of the term “Creator” was nothing more than a stylistic change that made for a better flowing sentence.[32] There is no indication the addition of Creator, in exchange for “that equal creation” was intended to imply any religious significance whatsoever. Unfortunately, there is no record of any formal or informal discussion over this specific change.

Summary and Implications

As shown above, the reference to Nature’s God in the Declaration of Independence is directly related to a pantheistic belief that the material world is equivalent to the divine nature. This connection logically excludes the possibility that Nature’s God is equivalent to the Christian God of the Bible. The Declaration of Independence, most certainly, is not a Christian document.

This reference to “Nature’s God”, an odd phrase for a Christian to use then and now, makes sense if one considers the natural world (Nature) as possessing a divine element (God). Those well-versed in seventeenth and eighteenth-century philosophy would easily have recognized this phrase, which became popular in the literature of the day. It also makes sense that Jefferson would have used such a phrase in the Declaration to give a transcendent flavor of support to an act of sheer rebellion, while not directly acknowledging the Christian God, which it cannot be argued, he rejected.

Franklin and Adams’ addition of the phrase “Creator” to the beginning of the Declaration does not help us much because the idea of a divine creator setting in motion the material world is consistent with the Deistic influence also popular at the time, an idea also incompatible with Christianity.

Of course, we cannot know what was in the hearts and minds of each person who signed the Declaration of Independence, and whether they intended to make a statement to the world concerning religious belief, or lack thereof. Like so many moderns today, ignorant of the philosophical heritage of this phrase, no doubt many at the time were unaware as well.

So, what does all this mean for us today? At a minimum, we can dispel the entrenched American myth that our founding documents grounded our existence as a nation in the authority of the One True God, and declared in any way, our political submission to the Kingship of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps more importantly, if we can acknowledge our Declaration of Independence from England was not based on any direct appeal to Our Lord Jesus Christ or Christian principles, we can take the next step in exposing what those founding principles actually were and who was responsible for implementing them in the new nation.

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[1] Aveling, F. (1908). Deism. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04679b.htm

[2] Ibid.

[3] Copleston, Frederick Charles. History of Philosophy. Image, 1993, 205-209.

[4] Turner, W. (1908). Giordano Bruno. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved June 29, 2023 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03016a.htm

[5] De Spinoza, Benedictus. On the Improvement of the Understanding: The Ethics ; Correspondence. Courier Corporation, 1955, 188 (Part IV, preface).

[6] Ibid, 55 (Part I, Prop. XV).

[7] Ibid, 84 (Part II, Prop II).

[8] Copleston, 217.

[9] Ibid, 217, footnote.

[10] Stewart, Matthew. Nature’s God: The Heretical Origins Of The American Republic. National Geographic Books, 2015, 141.

[11] Ibid., 141-43.

[12] Ibid., 145.

[13] Ibid., 146.

[14] Strauss, Leo. Natural Right and History. University of Chicago Press, 1965, 214-16.

[15] Ibid., 220.

[16] Stewart, 147-48.

[17] Ibid., 152.

[18] Ibid., 164-65.

[19] Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy. Vol. 5. Image, 1964, 175-176.

[20] Lennox, P. (1911). Alexander Pope. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12258c.htm

[21] Stewart, 183.

[22] Lennox, P. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12258c.htm

[23] Pope, Alexander. Essay on Man. Epistle I. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2428/2428-h/2428-h.htm

[24] Stewart, 182.

[25] Pope, Epistle IV.

[26] Stewart, 183.

[27] Copleston, A History of Philosophy. Vol. 1, Image, 1993, 72-75.

[28] Gutberlet, Constantin. “Materialism.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10041b.htm

[29] University of Virginia Press. “Founders Online: Thomas Jefferson to William Short, 31 October 1819,” n.d. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-15-02-0141-0001#X95D3AAB8-5F8A-4153-92B5-D04B2EC08D08

[30] “To Mrs. Samuel H. Smith Monticello, August 6, 1816 < The Letters of Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826 < Thomas Jefferson < Presidents < American History From Revolution To Reconstruction and Beyond,” n.d. http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl247.php

[31] See Jefferson, Thomas. The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals Of. A & D Publishing, 2007.

[32] Becker, Carl L. Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas. Vintage, 1970, 198-99.