This is by far the largest section of Mr. Paine's work "The Age of Reason." In it, he covers the philosophical musings of his mind as a child unto adulthood. He relates how after hearing a sermon on the death of the Son of God his mind as a 7-year-old was deeply troubled, suggesting it was more than just childish thoughts, but know of a certainty that a man would be convicted of murder for doing the same. It seems his lack of understanding of the concept of substitutionary atonement troubled him greatly, one of which he never overcome in adulthood. This concept of propitiation lies at the foundation of Christian doctrine, of which Mr. Paine is attempting to make light of, however, his lack of understanding leaves him with only straw arguments drawn from a child's mind. If one is an atheist and wants to cast a bad light on Christianity, he needs to look further than Mr. Paine's musings.
There is a conundrum that one comes up against when the idea of redemption for man is examined.
Proverbs 17:15 ESV
(15) He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD.
Do you see the problem? God can't just let our sins pass and just forgive us. To justify us in our sins would be an abomination to him. It would be the same legally as to condemn a righteous man for crimes he has not done. This is the issue that troubled the mind of Mr. Paine so much. How could God condemn his own Son for crimes he did not commit? It seems however Mr. Paine is fine with just letting the wicked go free and just pardoning the human race. But one injustice is just as bad as the other. It would be like a judge just letting a condemned murderer go free after being convicted in court, the family of the victim would not think of him as a just judge. Yet, it seems Mr. Paine thinks it would be fine for God to do the same with the human race.
Paul addresses this issue in Romans 3;
Romans 3:4-6 ESV
(4) By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”
(5) But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.)
(6) By no means! For then how could God judge the world?
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.
This was all done so that God's justice could be met and we the sinners go free from our debt. This is why Christ had to suffer in the manner which he did, as a propitiation.
PROPITIATION, n. propisia'shon.
1. The act of appeasing wrath and conciliating the favor of an offended person; the act of making propitious.
2. In theology, the atonement or atoning sacrifice offered to God to assuage his wrath and render him propitious to sinners. Christ is the propitiation for the sins of men. Rom 3. 1 John 2.
He continues then to relate how his mind was naturally bent toward the sciences. He relates the working of the mind stating; "Any person, who has made observations on the state and progress of the human mind, by observing his own, can not but have observed, that there are two distinct classes of what are called Thoughts; those that we produce in ourselves by reflection and the act of thinking, and those that bolt into the mind of their own accord. I have always made it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors with civility, taking care to examine, as well as I was able if they were worth entertaining; and it is from them I have acquired almost all the knowledge that I have." - Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
As we consider the words of Mr. Paine above, we begin to understand his confusion in religious matters. He is approaching the Gospel, not with the act of actually thinking and reflecting upon his studies and logically working things out in his mind, but by certain thoughts that as he states, bolts into his mind of their own accord. From these wild random thoughts, he is approaching his critique of the Christian religion. This perhaps is why he makes such ridiculous statements in his treaty as "Christian mythology has five deities: there is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, the God Providence, and the Goddess Nature." - Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason) That statement would fit nowhere in Christian Theology, The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith would define God in this manner:
(The Lord our God is but one only living and true God; whose subsistence is in and of Himself, infinite in being and perfection; whose essence cannot be comprehended by any but Himself; a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; who is immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, every way infinite, most holy, most wise, most free, most absolute; working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will, for His own glory; most loving, gracious, merciful, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin; the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, and withal most just and terrible in His judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.)
As you can see, Mr. Paine's statements are nowhere close to the Baptist confession of faith, which would have been available to him had he desired to read it. This has certainly been an issue throughout his critique, he simply does not understand the subject of which he is writing.
Mr. Paine concludes this section by admiring the immensity of the created universe and insists that as one observes the vastness of the systems that the Christian Scheme scatters in the mind like feathers in the wind. He suggests there are many more inhabitable worlds existing in the creation such as ours. All we are to gather in this section is more ignorance of Christian doctrine and speculation on the nature of the universe. In the next post, we will address his thoughts on the system of the universe.
