Self-Evident Truths

Joe Biden:

And we are a spiritual nation. We are a nation that was founded upon — the only nation I can think that was founded upon the notion that there is a — a — that there is a God. We hold these truths self-evident, that all men are created equal, et cetera.

Andrew retorts:

Isn't the point of self-evident truths that we do not need God to perceive them?

Maybe so, but in the specific document that Biden was attempting, with characteristic grace, to cite as support for his point - the Declaration of Independence, that is - the existence of God is itself taken to be self-evident, and the principle of human equality is grounded on what the authors describe as the self-evident truth that human beings are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." No doubt many of them thought of this Creator as a watchmaker God or some similarly impersonal Designer, rather than the Judeo-Christian Deity, and of course one can attempt to ground the principle of human equality on something other than endowments from a Creator. But the fact remains that insofar as the Declaration should be considered the founding document of the United States of America (which is a whole separate debate), Biden's comments about America being founded on the notion that there is a God seem inarguably - one might even say self-evidently - correct.