It's just a fact. I am looking at the text now:
1) first line. "..... the laws of nature and of nature's GOD.." 2) second line ".... endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable rights..." 3)then at the end: " a firm reliance on the protection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE ,
4) ... we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our SACRED Honor."
I didn't say the word "God" occurs four times. The specific word "God" is mentioned only once, at the beginning. I said God was REFERENCED four times which amounts to the same thing. God can be referred to many ways in English.
Creator, Sacred, Divine: those words MEAN GOD. Those words can't refer to anything else.
It's a long document but it is one page. And it mentions God FOUR TIMES.
You could write a whole paper and many have I am sure about how they were anchoring their open rebellion against their Christ-ordained king in religious terms so as to evade the definition of mere irreligious criminals. They were creating a new morality. Any competent expert on the Enlightenment (I'm no scholar) can explain "natural" rights; which mean rights that you are born with, are unalienable from you, and refer to "nature's God" meaning, nature has a divine origin and divine governor, God. They are asserting the rights of man. They are saying he has a natural and divinely sanctioned right to his independence and to take care of himself. HIMSELF. Not just be a cog for his King. His ordained king. A king was crowned with reference to religion, using sacred oil. So this Declaration was very much a new religious idea.
It could not have been made without a reference to a new religious view.
The Declaration does not say "we are a band of rebels and the heck with all of you. It's a wide Atlantic. If you don't like it, let's see you come over here and do something about it."
No, the Declaration says, "we are a new nation just as legitimate and legal, in the sense of international morality, as France or anybody. We are NOT a band of rebels and too bad for you."
It is a Declaration, not only of Independence, but of Legitimacy. That HAD TO HAVE a divine sanction or they would just have been a band of horrible men, rebels without morality. That isn't what they wanted, it wasn't how they saw themselves, and it would have led to bad things. There is a plea "please don't invade me" in there; "I am not a criminal and a threat to universal morality".
The above are the thoughts and musings of a non-scholar. Don't take it solemnly as holy writ, no pun intended. Do your own reading on Locke and all that. I am no scholar.