As we continue into this next chapter examining Mr. Paine's work (The Age of Reason) the discovery of what he called true theology is set against the Christian scheme. He began designing against religion in general, however, since leaving his introductory remarks, he then set his face against his true target, the Christian faith. The reader of his work who is outside the scheme of Christianity will find a remarkable philosophy colored with allusions and comparisons to dazzle their mind and imaginations. His work undoubtedly over the centuries has lead many in persuasion against the faith. However, any reader who has any familiarity with Christian theology will and undoubtedly has found themselves unmoved by his arguments and appalled at his misrepresentations of the faith. It is sad indeed that this work has been so widely published over the years and his influence has given it so great acceptance. So many have read thinking they are seeing a true and honest report of things as they are when in reality all they are seeing are the imaginations of a man's mind that are set against a false dichotomy being presented as its enemy.
"As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of atheism; a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up chiefly of man-ism with but little deism, and is as near to atheism as twilight is to darkness. It introduces between man and his Maker an opaque body, which it calls a redeemer, as the moon introduces her opaque self between the earth and the sun, and it produces by this means a religious or an irreligious eclipse of light. It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade." - Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
It is difficult and perhaps impossible now to know if he was being honest or simply hostile to his subject. If indeed the Christian system of faith appeared such to him, his view would be unrecognizable to anyone familiar with the Christian faith. His descriptive discourse above has nothing to do with Christianity whatsoever.
Nonetheless, he will continue to examine what he calls true theology. In his description of this true theology, he again reverts back to the cosmos and creation and what it reveals about God. He sets the Christian system against science charging it calls science nothing but human inventions.
"It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human inventions; it is only the application of them that is human. . . . It would also be ignorance, or something worse, to say that the scientific principles, by the aid of which man is enabled to calculate and foreknow when an eclipse will take place, are a human invention. Man cannot invent anything that is eternal and immutable; and the scientific principles he employs for this purpose must, and are, of necessity, as eternal and immutable as the laws by which the heavenly bodies move, or they could not be used as they are to ascertain the time when, and the manner how, an eclipse will take place." - Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
This is the type of rhetoric that is presented before the reader in The Age of Reason in order to bring demise to the Christian system and the promotion of his true theology. I know of no work that is so loose and inaccurate as this attempt presented by Mr. Paine. It truly saddens me to say that of such an influential figure in our history.
"The Almighty lecturer, by displaying the principles of science in the structure of the universe, has invited man to study and to imitation. It is as if he had said to the inhabitants of this globe that we call ours, 'I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, and I have rendered the starry heavens visible, to teach him science and the arts. He can now provide for his own comfort, And Learn From My Munificence to All, to Be Kind to Each Other.' Of what use is it, unless it be to teach man something, that his eye is endowed with the power of beholding, to an incomprehensible distance, an immensity of worlds revolving in the ocean of space? Or of what use is it that this immensity of worlds is visible to man? What has man to do with the Pleiades, with Orion, with Sirius, with the star he calls the north star, with the moving orbs he has named Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, if no uses are to follow from their being visible? A less power of vision would have been sufficient for man, if the immensity he now possesses were given only to waste itself, as it were, on an immense desert of space glittering with shows." - Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
The structure of the universe has indeed been given to us to study and learn from. It is indeed there that we find ourselves amazed and are driven in our understanding to contemplate the how and the why. It is there we discover as Mr. Paine did there must be a God for reasons he examined. However, this examination reveals something more to us than Mr. Paine suggests. he suggests it teaches us to be kind to one another, yet that is not what we find. We find humanity filled with deceit and murder. We find natural disasters everywhere and disease lurking around every corner. There are over 13,200,000 people incarcerated today, over 1,000,000,000 disabled persons in the world as we speak. History records major wars being fought from 600 B.C until the present day with 10 in progress at this moment and 8 active conflicts. We find in our own souls a conviction of a righteousness which we cannot obtain. We look at the world around us and all its provisions, only to be accompanied with all its perversions, and we must ask why? Add to this the impure thoughts that find their way into the conscience of every human being, which we know is wrong and conceal in the privacy of our own minds. Mr. Paines finds the evidence of God in what he sees, yet a closer look into these things, when presented Mr. Paine's view of God, has compelled many to reason there cannot possibly be a God and such a world exist. I suppose that is why many atheists hold his work in such esteem, for in following his reasoning, the next step is atheism.
What we find in reality is a broken world, a cosmos in chaos. The world does in reality give us wonder, yet every wonder has a broken piece leaving not a single element of the cosmos untouched. The Christian system tells us why, it also gives us hope.
1 Corinthians 15:1-8 ESV
(1) Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,
(2) and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
(3) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
(4) that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
(5) and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
(6) Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
(7) Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
(8) Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
Romans 3:21-26 ESV
(21) But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—
(22) the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:
(23) for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
(24) and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
(25) whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
(26) It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
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