One of the books I have put on the reading list is Craig Nelson's Thomas Paine: Enlightenment, Revolution and the Birth of Modern Nations. I finished it while we were away in New York. It's a stunning read. I love a good biography, and this was one of the best. Nelson does a great job of using Paine's life as a lens to see and understand his time. The Revolutions in the United States and France are both masses of strangeness and discord. Paine's life was a microcosm of the socio-political upheaval of the eighteenth century. I thought I would share a quotation or two from Paine's own writings on Religion. They are worth sharing because, at least by Nelson's understanding, they reflect the deist views of many of the Founders of the United States...not all, but at least the "spirit of the age."
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.This is from Age of Reason (appeared in France and England in 1794). Paine wrote this work to stave off the attempt by many moderns of his era from inventing atheist governments. Paine was walking a tightrope. He was a naturalist, assuming God was given evidence all around. Yet he would have nothing to do with institutionalized religion. He was watching France's revolution careen into atheism and thus, by his estimate, immorality (the scandal of the guillotine and its rampant use would become a global concern jeopardizing the budding French republic's standing with even its allies like the U.S...and pave the road for Napoleon's regime). Such atheism was not, per his thinking, democratic. But neither was there a place for any Religion. Paine's faith was expressed in these words:I believe [in] the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.
I do not believe in the creed confessed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit...
Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ; and the Turks their Mohamet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.
Each of these churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.
p. 262, Nelson
The word of God is the creation we behold: And it is in this word, which no human invention can counterfeit or alter, that God speaketh universally to man...It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it is publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.This is really interesting stuff and sheds a little light for me what the Founders were thinking about. Deism is something I was only familiar with in passing. Reading this book has proven to be very interesting...and perhaps a little enlightening. Give it a shot. Posted by tripp at July 11, 2008 07:13 AMDo we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible While is governed. Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance which which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not the book called the scripture, which any human hand might make, but the scripture called the Creation.
The only idea man can affix to the name of God is that of a first cause, the cause of all things. And, incomprehensibly difficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he arrives at the belief of it, from the tenfold greater difficulty of disbelieving it. It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space can have no end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It is difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a time when there shall be no time.
p. 267, Nelson