Critics Often Claim That The United States Was Founded As A Secular Nation, Because The Constitution Doesn’t Mention God

This objection—that the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly mention God, therefore it is a “secular” or “godless” document—rests on a category error. It misunderstands both the nature of law and the purpose of a written constitution. When examined carefully, the absence of an explicit reference to God does not diminish the divine origin of the moral principles embedded within the Constitution. In fact, it confirms the framers’ deeper reliance on transcendent law rather than sectarian assertion.

The Constitution was never intended to create moral law. Its purpose was to recognize, restrain, and channel political power in light of moral truths already understood to exist. The framers assumed that law does not originate with governments but with God, and that governments are accountable to a higher authority. This assumption is made explicit in the Declaration of Independence, which stands as the philosophical preamble to the Constitution. The Declaration affirms that human beings are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” and that governments exist to secure those rights. The Constitution presupposes this moral framework and provides the machinery to protect it.

Law, in the classical tradition inherited by the American founders, is grounded in natural law. Natural law is not human opinion, social consensus, or legislative fiat; it is moral order woven into reality itself by God. From Cicero to Aquinas to Blackstone, the consistent teaching is that true law reflects eternal law. Sir William Blackstone—by far the most cited legal authority among the founders—was unequivocal: no human law has validity if it contradicts the law of God. American law was built on this premise long before the Constitution was drafted.

Because the Constitution operates within this natural-law framework, it does not need to restate God’s authority any more than mathematics needs to mention the mathematician.

Moral truths do not become divine by declaration; they are divine by nature. The prohibition of murder, the protection of property, the demand for due process, the recognition of human dignity, and the limitation of governmental power all arise from God’s moral order. These principles are not religious inventions; they are moral realities accessible to reason but grounded in the Creator.

The framers deliberately avoided embedding explicit theological language in the Constitution, not because they rejected God, but because they understood the danger of politicizing Him. By grounding law in natural rights rather than ecclesiastical authority, they prevented the state from claiming divine prerogatives for itself. Ironically, explicitly invoking God within the constitutional text could have enabled future rulers to weaponize God’s name to justify tyranny. The framers chose restraint precisely because they believed God’s authority was higher than the state, not subject to it.

The structure of the Constitution reflects biblical anthropology. It assumes that human beings are fallen, prone to corruption, and dangerous when concentrated power is unchecked. This view is not Enlightenment optimism; it is thoroughly Judeo-Christian. The separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, and limited government are all institutional expressions of the biblical doctrine of human sinfulness. A document that presumes the moral failure of rulers and restrains them accordingly is not secular in substance, regardless of its language.

Even the concept of rights in the Constitution is inseparable from God. Rights that come from the government can be revoked by the government. The founders explicitly rejected this view. Rights are pre-political, meaning they exist before governments do. If rights are pre-political, they must come from a source higher than politics—namely, God. The Constitution protects rights; it does not grant them. That distinction alone places the document firmly within a theistic worldview.

Finally, it must be emphasized that the Constitution was never meant to stand alone. It was designed to function within a moral culture shaped by biblical values. John Adams famously stated that the Constitution was made only for a “moral and religious people” and is wholly inadequate for any other. The framers understood that no legal document, however well crafted, can preserve liberty without a populace governed by conscience—and conscience, in their worldview, is accountable to God.

The absence of God’s name in the Constitution is irrelevant to the question of its moral authority. The laws and principles it embodies are unmistakably derived from God’s natural law, mediated through centuries of Judeo-Christian legal thought. The Constitution does not need to name God because it stands on His law.

• The Words of 52 Christian Men Who Founded the United States of America
• United States Supreme Court Decision: Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. (2022)
• Did God Cause America To Exist?
• The Stunning Evidence Of Americas Moral Decline
• When America Abandons God: The Signs And The Consequences
• The Founding of America as a Christian Nation
• The Sovereignty Of God In American Politics
• Blackstones Commentary on the Law
• 125 Biblical Laws That Are The Foundation Of Our Legal System

Sources and Citations

The Constitution Presupposes the Declaration’s Theistic Framework
Primary Source

Declaration of Independence (1776), Key affirmations:

• “The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
• “All men are created equal.”
• “Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

Authoritative Interpretation: The Declaration establishes:

• God as the source of rights
• Rights as pre-political
• Government as a servant, not a grantor, of rights

Scholarly Sources

• Carl L. Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (Vintage, 1958)
• John C. Eastman, “The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 28 (2005)

The Constitution does not redefine the source of rights; it assumes the Declaration’s theological anthropology.

Natural Law as the Foundation of American Law

Blackstone (Primary Legal Authority): Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)

“This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God Himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.”

• Blackstone was the most cited legal authority among the founders
• His books were required reading in colonial law schools
• Blackstone is often quoted extensively by early American courts

Scholarly Sources:

• Daniel J. Boorstin, The Mysterious Science of the Law (Harvard, 1958)
• Jefferson Powell, The Moral Tradition of American Constitutionalism (Duke University Press, 1993)

Key Point:
American constitutional law is a derivative system, dependent on God’s moral order.

3. The Constitution Does Not Grant Rights — It Protects Them
Founders’ Statements

James Madison

“Government is instituted to protect property of every sort… This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.”
(Essay on Property, 1792)

Thomas Jefferson

“The liberties of a nation be secure only so long as the people retain a spirit of resistance.”
(Letter to William Stephens Smith, 1787)

Legal Scholarship

• Randy E. Barnett, Restoring the Lost Constitution (Princeton, 2004)
• Hadley Arkes, First Things (Princeton, 1986)

Rights exist prior to government—logically requiring a transcendent source.

Biblical Anthropology and the Separation of Powers

Biblical Sources:

• Jeremiah 17:9 – “The heart is deceitful above all things”
• Romans 3:23 – “All have sinned”
• Ecclesiastes 8:9 – Abuse of power harms others

Founder Acknowledgments

James Madison: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
(Federalist No. 51)

This statement assumes that Humans are prone to  moral fallibility, which makes the necessity of restraints on government power

Scholarly Sources

• Donald Lutz, The Origins of American Constitutionalism (LSU Press, 1988)
• Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum (Kansas, 1985)

Checks and balances reflect biblical realism, not Enlightenment optimism.

Why God Is Not Explicitly Named in the Constitution: Historical Context

1. Avoidance of sectarian conflict
2. Rejection of state-controlled religion
3. Preservation of God’s authority above government

Founder Commentary

Benjamin Rush: “The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion.”
(Of the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic, 1786)

George Washington: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”
(Farewell Address, 1796)

Scholarly Sources

• Mark David Hall, Did America Have a Christian Founding? (Nelson, 2019)
• Philip Hamburger, Separation of Church and State (Harvard, 2002)

The omission of God’s name is an act of constitutional humility, not secular rebellion.

The Constitution Requires a Moral and Religious People: John Adams (Definitive Statement)

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (Letter to the Massachusetts Militia, 1798)

Sources:

• Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order (ISI Books, 2003)
• Ellis Sandoz, A Government of Laws (LSU Press, 1990)

The Constitution assumes external moral restraint grounded in God.

Early American Courts Affirmed God as the Source of Law: Judicial Precedent

• Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892): “This is a Christian nation.”
• People v. Ruggles (New York, 1811): “Christianity is part of the common law.”

Scholarly Sources

• Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States
• Michael W. McConnell, “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise,” Harvard Law Review (1990)

Early Legal scholarship explicitly recognized Gos as a moral foundation for a successful nation

• The Constitution’s authority does not depend on naming God explicitly. Its legitimacy rests on: Natural law is derived from God
• Rights endowed by the Creator
• Biblical anthropology shaping political structure
• Moral accountability beyond the state
• The Constitution stands under God’s law, not over it—and that distinction is the very reason liberty endured.

Categories: Robert Clifton Robinson