Letter: Founders’ beliefs rooted in deism

Monday, July 19, 2004 | 9:19 a.m.

This is in response to Marsha Norton's July 9 letter concerning the Declaration of Independence being signed by men who admitted a dependence on "divine Providence."

Obviously Ms. Norton has read the Declaration, yet she failed to also research the historical context within which it was signed. Many of the leading men who signed the Declaration were deists. Deism was a form of religious belief prevalent during the Enlightenment. It professed that God formed the world according to rational laws and then created rational beings able to independently understand those laws. Once this was done, God then stood back from his masterpiece and let human life proceed on its own.

Many today call this humanism. As such, when Jefferson -- a deist-- wrote in the Declaration about the protection of divine providence, he was referring to an ability to depend on the rationality of the world, not about dependence on a supernatural being.

The founders further proved their faith in rationality when they kept religion out of the original Constitution and approved a legal wall separating religious dogma from the rational rules of government in the first amendment.

SONDRA COSGROVE