The Age Of Reason

Paine rejects all organized religions that claim a special calling, favor, or insight regarding the Almighty. He dismisses these claims because they are associated with revelation, which he argues is impossible—not because God cannot reveal something in any way God chooses, but because a revelation to one person becomes nothing more than a report when transmitted to the next person. By the time it reaches others, it is hearsay only. The Ten Commandments qualify as unsubstantiated revelation, as does the Immaculate Conception. Christianity, which posits Jesus Christ’s divinity as the Son of God, amounts to an updated version of ancient Roman mythology, whose gods also had children. Only Deism, rooted in reason, can correct these lies.

Paine expresses deep respect for Jesus Christ as a man but also doubts Christ’s divinity. For one thing, Jesus did not write the New Testament, which is filled with extravagant claims that cannot be proven. Nor can we be certain of the New Testament’s true authorship. Jesus himself probably lived and died as the New Testament describes, but the resurrection and ascension are dubious at best and likely inventions, for the Jews, whose ancestors would have witnessed these supposed events, say that they never happened. Paine concludes that Jesus gave the world an outstanding moral philosophy but was also a rabble-rouser who threatened the interests of the Jewish priests and perhaps even the Roman occupiers, and this is why the authorities killed him.

Paine argues that Christians have borrowed the figure of Satan from the ancient myth of a hostile Giant whom Jupiter banished below Mount Etna. This story, coupled with the Christians’ broader adoption of the Old Testament, explains Satan’s appearance as a serpent in the Garden of Eden. Paine suggests that the churches keep Satan ever-present as a tool with which to terrify and enslave the masses. Furthermore, Satan serves as the explanation for man’s downfall, which required the birth, life, and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Paine scoffs at the story of Satan and derides it as a terrible affront to God, for it assumes an evil power capable of challenging the Almighty. In Paine’s view, the Christians have even allowed Satan to triumph over God. Paine acknowledges that good people have believed this story. He also acknowledges that there is something powerful in the idea of God sacrificing Himself as a show of boundless love. This power, though, has prevented good people from investigating the story and understanding its foolishness. 

Paine regards Deism as the true theology. In this two-paragraph chapter, he encourages readers to set aside their pride, acknowledge their mounting skepticism of the Christian doctrine, and look to the heavens for solace in God’s wondrous creation. He also announces that he will devote the next two chapters to examining the Old and New Testaments.

Paine notes that the authorship of the Old and New Testaments is open to question, and he claims that those texts became Christian doctrine by a vote among early church leaders. He proposes to examine these books for evidence that they might contain God’s word, but first he reiterates his opposition to revelation as a source of reliable evidence. He observes that in the rest of the Old Testament, Moses never mentions the creation story, though Moses is said to have authored the Book of Genesis.

Paine denounces the obscenity, cruelty, and violence he finds throughout the Bible (he refers to the Old Testament alone as the “Bible”). He then dismisses the Proverbs as mediocre. All of this he considers proof that the Bible cannot be the word of God. Paine devotes more than half the chapter, however, to the so-called prophets. Here he argues that the Biblical prophets were nothing more than Jewish poets and musicians. In fact, he claims that the word “prophet” actually meant “poet” and that the modern world errs in attaching future-seeing implications to the Biblical word “prophet.” He cites Saul, Samuel, Deborah, Barak, and David as examples of poets or musicians described as “prophets.” Paine concludes that human languages, written or oral, are too limited to convey God’s true word.

Paine observes that Jesus Christ did not write the New Testament and claims that Christ probably never meant to establish a new religion. The Gospels—the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—offer few details of Jesus’s life aside from his relatively brief ministry. Jesus spent part of this time in hiding, which suggests to Paine that Christ never planned on being betrayed. Nor, according to Paine, did Christ intend to suffer and die.

Since the New Testament’s authorship cannot be established, and since it consists primarily of anecdotes, some in the form of letters called “epistles,” Paine concludes that it is most likely a church invention, a useful tool for extracting money from the credulous masses. This is also the purpose of both purgatory and the entire concept of redemption. In fact, Paine regards redemption as akin to a debt, as praying for the souls of others is an act too closely resembling payment. Paine concludes by contrasting Christianity’s dismal, self-flagellating aspect with the beauty of reason-based Deism.

Having rejected the Old and New Testaments, Paine locates the word of God in Creation. Unlike Christianity, the physical world reveals God’s word to all peoples and nations. Paine argues that nature has to be God’s preferred method of revelation. Due to differences in language and other temporal limitations, any attempt at revelation by scriptural means would fail in its purpose, and God, by definition, cannot fail. Using reason alone, and reflecting on the natural world, Paine discerns wisdom and mercy in God’s nature. 

Paine argues that the world itself proves God’s existence because the world is not responsible for its own creation. This knowledge is a result of reason, not revelation. Paine cites the Book of Job and the 19th Psalm as the only books in the Bible that dwell on God’s creation of the world as an object of reflection and wonderment. Working from memory, he inserts 24 lines from the 19th Psalm as evidence. He also cites from memory a question from Job: “Canst thou by searching find out God; canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?” Paine answers yes to the question of finding out God but no to the question of finding out God to perfection. Paine approves of these passages because they appeal to reason, claiming that no other passages in either the Old or New Testaments make such an appeal.

Paine equates Christianity with atheism, for it places intermediaries between man and God and thus inverts theology by making it a study of men. Conversely, Paine identifies “natural philosophy, embracing the whole circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place” as “the true theology” (29). In this way human beings discover God’s principles. The ability to predict an eclipse, for instance, proves that human beings have learned the natural laws of celestial motion. These mathematical truths enable navigation and engineering. They are the means by which God demonstrates His power and teaches His lessons. Paine regards this instructive quality as the real purpose behind the Pleiades, Orion, Sirius, the North Star, and the known planets, five of which he mentions by name. 

Paine describes Christianity as the enemy of true education. Christian authorities’ preference for the study of ancient (and lapsed) languages proves that they have no interest in promoting genuine knowledge, which can only come from scientific inquiry undertaken in living languages. Furthermore, the spread of knowledge would expose their spurious system and undermine their sole claim to power. This is why they persecuted Galileo and others. It is also why, until 17th- and 18th-century scientific advancements, nearly all useful knowledge originated with the ancient Greeks.

Paine blames Christianity for inaugurating “the age of ignorance” (37), a thousand-year period of intellectual darkness during which science was kept in abeyance. He acknowledges that intellectual activity increased after the Protestant Reformation but concludes that Christianity’s greatest internal schism produced nothing else worth celebrating.

Paine contrasts Christianity with his own reflections drawn from celestial observations. He refers to his own Quaker upbringing and his inclination toward science. He also confesses to never having been drawn to matters of politics and government until he went to America on the eve of the American Revolution.

He then describes two different types of thoughts: those born of deliberate reflection and those that simply appear in the mind. He declares that he pays great respect to the former type and considers it the basis of his lifelong skepticism toward Christianity. He recalls that as a child of seven or eight he heard a Christian sermon on the subject of redemption, and it struck him as repellent. He contrasts this with what he regards as simple and beautiful Deism. In fact, he identifies the Quakers as the closest of all religious sects to true Deism.

Paine then transitions away from direct comparisons and offers his thoughts on the known world. He refers to the globe and orrery (an instrument for astronomy) as useful tools from which to derive knowledge of Creation. He observes that in recent centuries, this knowledge has expanded immensely. The vastness of space, along with other celestial reflections, convinces Paine that God had a purpose in showing man the boundlessness of creation.

Paine devotes this chapter entirely to astronomy. He describes the tilt of the Earth and its rotation on an axis. He analyzes the heliocentric solar system and its six known planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. He even calculates (or simply states) each planet’s estimated distance from the sun. He explains how these things can be known after centuries of observation. He also guesses that all of the universe’s other stars function as the centers of their own solar systems. Paine sees great advantage in this “plurality of worlds” (47) and proposes to explain as much in the ensuing chapter.

Paine reminds readers that our scientific knowledge comes from celestial observation and that “the Creator made nothing in vain” (48). Building on his astronomical reflections from the previous chapter, Paine concludes that God created a boundless-yet-visible universe for the benefit not only of Earth’s inhabitants but for those who inhabit all distant worlds. The sheer vastness of this creation fills all observers with an awe-inspiring sense of God’s eternal wisdom and goodness.

Paine declares that the vastness and complexity of the known universe, with its millions of likely-inhabited worlds, cannot be reconciled with a Christianity that proposes one world only. The multiplicity of worlds further diminishes the likelihood that God would travel to Earth alone to act as redeemer by dying on a cross. Paine insists that many religions can offer good moral precepts, but only one can be true, and that one must be “consistent with the ever existing word of God that we behold in his works” (49). Paine acknowledges that many people believe Christianity preaches good morality, but he also suggests that the Christian churches know they are perpetrating a fraud, which explains the priests’ centuries-long persecution of scientists.

Paine identifies mystery, miracle, and prophecy as the three methods by which so-called religious authorities everywhere have deceived the masses. He dismisses mystery as incompatible with religious belief, for moral truths must be as clear as God’s existence, which Creation alone proves. Paine regards miracles as a corollary to mystery, a fraud imposed for the purpose of preventing genuine scientific investigation. There are no such things as miracles because God can do anything, and if God can do it, then it is not a miracle—it is simply part of God’s natural law. At one time, for instance, the flight of a hot-air balloon would have been perceived as a miracle, but this is only because human beings at one time did not understand God’s scientific laws, which make such flight possible.

Paine considers ordinary miracles beneath the dignity of the Almighty, who already has shown man the miracle of Creation. Paine suggests that a human being telling a lie is a far more likely occurrence than an unnatural or supernatural development styled a “miracle.” He denies the reports of miracles in the New Testament. Although it deals with the future rather than the present, prophecy suffers from the same defects as miracles.

The chapter concludes with a brief summary of Part 1. In short, the word of God cannot be found in a book. The word of God must be discovered in Creation, which is also the source of our reflections on morality, for it impresses us with a sense of God’s goodness and a desire to imitate that goodness. While he does not dwell on the question of eternal life, Paine considers it “probable” (58) that God will permit our continued existence.