The Creator in the Declaration of Independence

People argue about whether the founders of the United States intended to create a secular society. One of the proof texts people point to is the Declaration of Independence, which posits inalienable rights, with which people are endowed by their Creator.

Some of the arguments are extremely bad -- claiming the word "Creator" must refer to God because it's capitalized. This is a bad argument because late 18th Century English had not yet dropped the German habit of capitalizing all nouns.  Thus, from the spelling of "Creator" with capital letters, we may only infer that it is a noun. (Look at the original document, or a facsimile, sometime.)

Eugene Volokh offers this, based on a close reading of the text:

A conversation I had today reminded me of something I meant to blog about: The Declaration of Independence, many argue, contemplates a Creator God, not a God who sets forth rules for human behavior, who judges such behavior, or who intercedes in human events, whether directly or subtly. And this, the argument goes, reflects the general attitudes of the Framers or at least of the political system they wished to establish.

....

God is thus not just Nature's God and the Creator, but also the "Supreme Judge of the world," to whom people may appeal to judge or witness "the rectitude of [their] intentions," and whose "Divine Providence" is said to "protect[]" them."

To be sure, one can only draw so much from a single historical document; for instance, it's possible that particular references in the document were seen as largely rhetorical flourishes (though I'm not sure that this is so, since my sense is that very many educated Americans of the Framing generation did indeed have a pretty conventional understanding of God as creator, judge, and source of protection). But those who focus on the Creator and Nature's God language in the document do often try to draw something from that one document. And if we look to the document, we see it discussing God as judge and protector, and not just God as creator.

I should note that I say all this as a secular person; it's not that I want the Declaration to reflect this sort of religious sensibility -- I'm just reporting on the sensibility that it appears to me to in fact reflect.