By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
There are four instances of explicit God-talk in the Declaration of Independence:
1. in the first paragraph: the use of the term "God" in saying that "the laws of nature and of nature's God" entitle a people that has dissolved its political bands with another to assume a separate and equal station among the powers of the earth;
2. in the second paragraph: the use of the term "Creator" in saying that "all men are created equal" and that "they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights";
3. in the first sentence of the last paragraph: the use of the term "the Supreme Judge of the world" in appealing to such for "the rectitude of our intentions"; and
4. in the last sentence of the last paragraph: the use of the term "Divine Providence" in processing "a firm reliance on the protection" thereof.
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