It is not at all inconsitent or illogical for an enlightened 18th century intellectual to believe in the existence of a Creator. After all, the universe is a complex and wonderful place, and even if it operated solely on knowable mathematical and physical principles, as Newton suggested, the existence of a God who set it all in motion was by no means an unreasonable hypothesis, given the observable and mutually agreed-upon facts. Even after other scientists (like Darwin) demonstrated how the apparently miraculous could be explained as the result of purely stochastic processes constrained by physical law, the God hypothesis is still a perfectly reasonable one, and might even turn out to be right after all.

The question of the existence of a God of some kind is far from being settled. But it is my opinion that the assertion that men can have intimate, precise and certain knowledge of God, his history, and his alleged plans for us and the universe, is just plain wrong. And furthermore, I have trouble taking anyone who makes such a claim very seriously. I also believe Mr Jefferson and many of his celebrated contemporaries would have agreed with me on this.