07/04/2026
🇺🇸 FOUNDING FACTS #7: THE FIVE APPEALS TO GOD IN OUR DECLARATION 🎆 by Duncan Brannan
It’s alleged these days that America’s Founding Fathers endeavored to keep God out of our government, but the truth is that the Founders framed our Declaration of Independence, its twenty-seven reasons for separating from Great Britain’s tyranny, our unalienable rights, and our Constitutional form of government on and around a belief in God. The evidence for this is right there in the Declaration itself. In its short 1,320 words, the Founders appealed to God no less than FIVE times. Let’s review them for a moment.
1.) “The Laws of Nature” is the Declaration’s first appeal to God. It’s a direct reference to Cicero’s work “Republic”, which argues that there is “one eternal and unchangeable law [that] will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge.”
2.) “Nature’s God” marks the Declaration’s second appeal to Him, and is a reference to Sir William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Law which describes both of these concepts and appeals to the Bible itself as their basis:
“[A]s Man depends absolutely upon his maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his makers will… This will of his maker is called the law of nature.
“These laws laid down by God are the eternal immutable laws of good and evil…. This law of nature dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this…
“The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures… [and] are found upon comparison to be really part of the original law of nature. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.“
3.) “The Creator” is the Declaration’s third appeal, and its most definitive statement on our rights:
“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 Founders, unlike other governments of the day, asserted God—not government—is the Author of human rights. If any human government is the source of human rights, then those rights are as transient and perishable as the empires of history. If rights originate with God, however, then they—like Him—are eternal and unalterable. Period.
4.) “The Supreme Judge of the world” is the fourth appeal to God in the Declaration, and the title by which the 13 colonies dissolved their allegiance to the British Crown and its tyranny over them.
“[I]n General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved….”
5.) “The protection of Divine Providence” is the final appeal to God, and it wasn’t just a religious flourish to complete the document. Founders like John Adams, along with the rest of the Continental Congress, repeatedly sought God’s protection leading into the Revolution, throughout, and afterward in the annals of the Continental Congress.
One of the Continental Congress’ most notable times of prayer was when Reverend Jacob Duché, pastor of Philadelphia’s Christ Church, led them in intercession for the city of Boston on September 6, 1774 as British troops were attacking. A national painting still exists depicting this moment with the Founders kneeling, looking to Heaven, and calling on God in this solemn moment.
Further, on July 20, 1775, as the war raged on, the Congress called for a General Fast throughout the 13 colonies. The truth then is well-seen. Men who founded our Republic were much wiser than us, and their thoughts on trying to silence and separate God and the Church from the public arena are best summed up in Washington’s Farewell Address. Washington debunked every secularist notion of keeping God and faith out of government and public affairs when he said:
“And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?”
Washington asserted that this line of secularist thinking is not only false, but that those who indulge in it are “shaking the foundation of the [social] fabric.” How? Because the exclusion of religious principle, he argued, eliminates an absolute right and wrong, leaving us on the shifting sands of moral relativism and the destruction which always follows it.
Like it or not, accept it or reject it, our Founders framed the Declaration and, hence, our Constitutional form of government upon the existence of God, His unchanging Nature, His just laws, and Sovereignty over human affairs. And, as we’ve seen, the proof is right there in the Declaration. The trouble is that most Americans have never bothered to read it. How long can our liberty endure if this remains the rule?
On America’s 248th birthday, let us adopt a new commitment to educating ourselves and the next generation about the truth of its founding. Only then will we keep the Republic that Franklin once warned was so easy to lose.
Happy birthday, America, and by God’s grace may there be many, many more! In Jesus’ Name, amen. 🎂♥️🎉🙏🏼
