We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident

On Independence Day, it's appropriate to review the sources of our rights as citizens. There is one source that is more basic than any other, yet that receives less than the attention it deserves. I refer to the idea that there is an intelligent creator who can be known by reason from nature, a key tenet underlying the Declaration of Independence -- as well as, curiously, the modern theory of intelligent design.

The birth of our republic was announced in the Declaration through the pen of Th...