Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

In light of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, much ink is being spilled

over the document's significance. For example, John West, vice president of the Discovery Institute,

is suggesting in his new book,

which is titled endowed by our creator, the Bible Science and the Battle for America's Soul,

that one way we should understand the declaration is through the lens of science.

West argues that the founding fathers largely believed in a coherence

between the teachings of the Bible and the discoveries of science,

with science affirming an intelligent design of the created order. The language of the

Declaration, of course, clearly exhibits this. In declaring that all men are created equal,

the founders were articulating, a view of humanity, that they were created by God and

endowed by him with certain rights.

John Adams, who assisted in drafting the Declaration of Independence, once explained what he thought

it meant to be equal, quote, we are all of the same species, made by the same God,

possessed of minds and bodies alike in essence, end quote.

As West explained, the leading founders understood science as recognizing and affirming the truths of the Bible, not challenging or controverting them. Operating from a worldview that

was undergirded by the truths of Christianity, the founders understood that because humans

were created equal,

they were distinct from animals. Humans, unlike animals, were created by God with natural rights,

with reason and the ability to speak. And yet, unlike God, humans are fallible and prone to selfishness.

As James Madison famously put it in the Federalist papers, if men were angels,

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