Rational deism is a religious philosophy that arose during the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century in response to the Scientific Revolution. Although it accepted the idea of a supernatural creator, it rejected the idea of ongoing supernatural intervention in the world. To the rational deist, God was the First Cause, the one who set the world into motion in accordance to understandable principles. For God to have to continually intervene in his creation was to suggest that his original act of creation was somehow faulty.

Frequently you will hear the statement that "America was founded as a Christian country." As proof, the person making the statement will then point at the references in the Declaration of Independence to the Creator.

However, the Creator of the Declaration of Independence is not the active, intervening God of the Evangelical Protestants. Thomas Jefferson is known to have been a rational deist, and to have openly rejected the idea of an active, intercessory god. When he wrote of a Creator, he was speaking of the Watchmaker God of the deists, not the crucified god incarnate.