The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine. - HTML preview

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suffers in fact. A religion thus interlarded with quibble, subterfuge, and pun, has a tendency to instruct its professors in the practice of these arts.

They acquire the habit without being aware of the cause.

If Jesus Christ was the being which those mythologists tell us he was,

and that he came into this world to suffer, which is a word they sometimes use instead of to die, the only real suffering he could have endured would have been to live. His existence here was a state of exilement or transportation from heaven, and the way back to his original country

was to die.-—In fine, everything in this strange system is the reverse of what it pretends to be. It is the reverse of truth, and I become so tired of examining into its inconsistencies and absurdities, that I hasten to the

conclusion of it, in order to proceed to something better.

How much, or what parts of the books called the New Testament,

were written by the persons whose names they bear, is what we can

know nothing of, neither are we certain in what language they were ori-

ginally written. The matters they now contain may be classed under two

heads: anecdote, and epistolary correspondence.

The four books already mentioned, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,

are altogether anecdotal. They relate events after they had taken place.

They tell what Jesus Christ did and said, and what others did and said to him; and in several instances they relate the same event differently.

Revelation is necessarily out of the question with respect to those books; not only because of the disagreement of the writers, but because revelation cannot be applied to the relating of facts by the persons who saw

them done, nor to the relating or recording of any discourse or conversa-

tion by those who heard it. The book called the Acts of the Apostles (an

anonymous work) belongs also to the anecdotal part.

All the other parts of the New Testament, except the book of enigmas,

called the Revelations, are a collection of letters under the name of

epistles; and the forgery of letters has been such a common practice in

the world, that the probability is at least equal, whether they are genuine or forged. One thing, however, is much less equivocal, which is, that out of the matters contained in those books, together with the assistance of

some old stories, the church has set up a system of religion very

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contradictory to the character of the person whose name it bears. It has

set up a religion of pomp and of revenue in pretended imitation of a per-

son whose life was humility and poverty.

The invention of a purgatory, and of the releasing of souls therefrom,

by prayers, bought of the church with money; the selling of pardons, dis-

pensations, and indulgences, are revenue laws, without bearing that

name or carrying that appearance. But the case nevertheless is, that those things derive their origin from the proxysm of the crucifixion, and the

theory deduced therefrom, which was, that one person could stand in

the place of another, and could perform meritorious services for him.

The probability, therefore, is, that the whole theory or doctrine of what is called the redemption (which is said to have been accomplished by the

act of one person in the room of another) was originally fabricated on

purpose to bring forward and build all those secondary and pecuniary

redemptions upon; and that the passages in the books upon which the

idea of theory of redemption is built, have been manufactured and fab-

ricated for that purpose. Why are we to give this church credit, when she tells us that those books are genuine in every part, any more than we

give her credit for everything else she has told us; or for the miracles she says she has performed? That she could fabricate writings is certain, because she could write; and the composition of the writings in question, is of that kind that anybody might do it; and that she did fabricate them is not more inconsistent with probability, than that she should tell us, as

she has done, that she could and did work miracles.

Since, then, no external evidence can, at this long distance of time, be

produced to prove whether the church fabricated the doctrine called re-

demption or not, (for such evidence, whether for or against, would be

subject to the same suspicion of being fabricated,) the case can only be referred to the internal evidence which the thing carries of itself; and this affords a very strong presumption of its being a fabrication. For the internal evidence is, that the theory or doctrine of redemption has for its basis an idea of pecuniary justice, and not that of moral justice.

If I owe a person money, and cannot pay him, and he threatens to put

me in prison, another person can take the debt upon himself, and pay it

for me. But if I have committed a crime, every circumstance of the case is changed. Moral justice cannot take the innocent for the guilty even if the innocent would offer itself. To suppose justice to do this, is to destroy the principle of its existence, which is the thing itself. It is then no longer justice. It is indiscriminate revenge.

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This single reflection will shew that the doctrine of redemption is

founded on a mere pecuniary idea corresponding to that of a debt which

another person might pay; and as this pecuniary idea corresponds again

with the system of second redemptions, obtained through the means of

money given to the church for pardons, the probability is that the same

persons fabricated both the one and the other of those theories; and that, in truth, there is no such thing as redemption; that it is fabulous; and that man stands in the same relative condition with his Maker he ever did

stand, since man existed; and that it is his greatest consolation to think so.

Let him believe this, and he will live more consistently and morally,

than by any other system. It is by his being taught to contemplate him-

self as an out-law, as an out-cast, as a beggar, as a mumper, as one

thrown as it were on a dunghill, at an immense distance from his Creat-

or, and who must make his approaches by creeping, and cringing to in-

termediate beings, that he conceives either a contemptuous disregard for

everything under the name of religion, or becomes indifferent, or turns

what he calls devout. In the latter case, he consumes his life in grief, or the affectation of it. His prayers are reproaches. His humility is ingratitude. He calls himself a worm, and the fertile earth a dunghill; and all the blessings of life by the thankless name of vanities. He despises the

choicest gift of God to man, the Gift of Reason; and having endeavoured

to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason, as if man could give reason to himself.

Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility, and this contempt for

human reason, he ventures into the boldest presumptions. He finds fault

with everything. His selfishness is never satisfied; his ingratitude is never at an end. He takes on himself to direct the Almighty what to do, even in the govemment of the universe. He prays dictatorially. When it is sunshine, he prays for rain, and when it is rain, he prays for sunshine. He

follows the same idea in everything that he prays for; for what is the

amount of all his prayers, but an attempt to make the Almighty change

his mind, and act otherwise than he does? It is as if he were to say—-

thou knowest not so well as I.

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9

Chapter

In What the True Revelation Consists

But some perhaps will say—-Are we to have no word of God-—no revel-

ation? I answer yes. There is a Word of God; there is a revelation.

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.

Human language is local and changeable, and is therefore incapable of

being used as the means of unchangeable and universal information. The

idea that God sent Jesus Christ to publish, as they say, the glad tidings to all nations, from one end of the earth unto the other, is consistent only with the ignorance of those who know nothing of the extent of the world,

and who believed, as those world-saviours believed, and continued to

believe for several centuries, (and that in contradiction to the discoveries of philosophers and the experience of navigators,) that the earth was flat like a trencher; and that a man might walk to the end of it.

But how was Jesus Christ to make anything known to all nations? He

could speak but one language, which was Hebrew; and there are in the

world several hundred languages. Scarcely any two nations speak the

same language, or understand each other; and as to translations, every

man who knows anything of languages, knows that it is impossible to

translate from one language into another, not only without losing a great part of the original, but frequently of mistaking the sense; and besides all this, the art of printing was wholly unknown at the time Christ lived.

It is always necessary that the means that are to accomplish any end be

equal to the accomplishment of that end, or the end cannot be accom-

plished. It is in this that the difference between finite and infinite power and wisdom discovers itself. Man frequently fails in accomplishing his

end, from a natural inability of the power to the purpose; and frequently from the want of wisdom to apply power properly. But it is impossible

for infinite power and wisdom to fail as man faileth. The means it useth

are always equal to the end: but human language, more especially as

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there is not an universal language, is incapable of being used as an uni-

versal means of unchangeable and uniform information; and therefore it

is not the means that God useth in manifesting himself universally to

man.

It is only in the Creation that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as

they be. It is an ever existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; 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 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.

Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of

the creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the

unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible Whole is governed.

Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance

with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We

see it in his not withholding that abundance even 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.

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10

Chapter

Concerning God, and the Lights Cast on His Existence

and Attributes by the Bible

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 ten-fold 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 con-

ceive a time when there shall be no time.

In like manner of reasoning, everything we behold carries in itself the

internal evidence that it did not make itself. Every man is an evidence to himself, that he did not make himself; neither could his father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any of his race; neither could any tree,

plant, or animal make itself; and it is the conviction arising from this

evidence, that carries us on, as it were, by necessity, to the belief of a first cause eternally existing, of a nature totally different to any material existence we know of, and by the power of which all things exist; and this

first cause, man calls God.

It is only by the exercise of reason, that man can discover God. Take

away that reason, and he would be incapable of understanding anything;

and in this case it would be just as consistent to read even the book

called the Bible to a horse as to a man. How then is it that those people pretend to reject reason?

Almost the only parts in the book called the Bible, that convey to us

any idea of God, are some chapters in Job, and the 19th Psalm; I recollect no other. Those parts are true deistical compositions; for they treat of the Deity through his works. They take the book of Creation as the word of God; they refer to no other book; and all the inferences they make are drawn from that volume.

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I insert in this place the 19th Psalm, as paraphrased into English verse

by Addison. I recollect not the prose, and where I write this I have not

the opportunity of seeing it:

The spacious firmament on high,

With all the blue etherial sky,

And spangled heavens, a shining frame,

Their great original proclaim.

The unwearied sun, from day to day,

Does his Creator's power display,

And publishes to every land

The work of an Almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail,

The moon takes up the wondrous tale,

And nightly to the list'ning earth

Repeats the story of her birth;

Whilst all the stars that round her burn,

And all the planets, in their turn,

Confirm the tidings as they roll,

And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all

Move round this dark terrestrial ball

What though no real voice, nor sound,

Amidst their radiant orbs be found,

In reason's ear they all rejoice,

And utter forth a glorious voice,

Forever singing as they shine,

The Hand That Made Us Is Divine.

What more does man want to know, than that the hand or power that

made these things is divine, is omnipotent? Let him believe this, with the force it is impossible to repel if he permits his reason to act, and his rule of moral life will follow of course.

The allusions in Job have all of them the same tendency with this

Psalm; that of deducing or proving a truth that would be otherwise un-

known, from truths already known.

I recollect not enough of the passages in Job to insert them correctly;

but there is one that occurs to me that is applicable to the subject I am speaking upon. "Canst thou by searching find out God; canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?"

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I know not how the printers have pointed this passage, for I keep no

Bible; but it contains two distinct questions that admit of distinct

answers.

First, Canst thou by searching find out God? Yes. Because, in the first place, I know I did not make myself, and yet I have existence; and

by searching into the nature of other things, I find that no other thing could make itself; and yet millions of other things exist; therefore it is, that I know, by positive conclusion resulting from this search, that there is a power superior to all those things, and that power is God.

Secondly, Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? No. Not only because the power and wisdom He has manifested in the structure of the

Creation that I behold is to me incomprehensible; but because even this

manifestation, great as it is is probably but a small display of that im-

mensity of power and wisdom, by which millions of other worlds, to me

invisible by their distance, were created and continue to exist.

It is evident that both of these questions were put to the reason of the

person to whom they are supposed to have been addressed; and it is

only by admitting the first question to be answered affirmatively, that

the second could follow. It would have been unnecessary, and even ab-

surd, to have put a second question, more difficult than the first, if the first question had been answered negatively. The two questions have different objects; the first refers to the existence of God, the second to his attributes. Reason can discover the one, but it falls infinitely short in discovering the whole of the other.

I recollect not a single passage in all the writings ascribed to the men

called apostles, that conveys any idea of what God is. Those writings are chiefly controversial; and the gloominess of the subject they dwell upon, that of a man dying in agony on a cross, is better suited to the gloomy

genius of a monk in a cell, by whom it is not impossible they were writ-

ten, than to any man breathing the open air of the Creation. The only

passage that occurs to me, that has any reference to the works of God, by which only his power and wisdom can be known, is related to have been

spoken by Jesus Christ, as a remedy against distrustful care. "Behold the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin." This, however, is far inferior to the allusions in Job and in the 19th Psalm; but it is similar in idea, and the modesty of the imagery is correspondent to the modesty of

the man.

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11

Chapter

Of the Theology of the Christians; and the True

Theology

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 ec-

lipse of light. It has put the whole orbit of reason into shade.

The effect of this obscurity has been that of turning everything upside

down, and representing it in reverse; and among the revolutions it has

thus magically produced, it has made a revolution in Theology.

That which is now called natural philosophy, embracing the whole

circle of science, of which astronomy occupies the chief place, is the

study of the works of God, and of the power and wisdom of God in his

works, and is the true theology.

As to the theology that is now studied in its place, it is the study of human opinions and of human fancies concerning God. It is not the study of God himself in the works that he has made, but in the works or writings

that man has made; and it is not among the least of the mischiefs that the Christian system has done to the world, that it has abandoned the original and beautiful system of theology, like a beautiful innocent, to distress and reproach, to make room for the hag of superstition.

The Book of Job and the 19th Psalm, which even the church admits to

be more ancient than the chronological order in which they stand in the

book called the Bible, are theological orations conformable to the original system of theology. The internal evidence of those orations proves to a

demonstration that the study and contemplation of the works of cre-

ation, and of the power and wisdom of God revealed and manifested in

those works, made a great part of the religious devotion of the times in

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which they were written; and it was this devotional study and contem-

plation that led to the discovery of the principles upon which what are

now called Sciences are established; and it is to the discovery of these

principles that almost all the Arts that contribute to the convenience of human life owe their existence. Every principal art has some science for

its parent, though the person who mechanically performs the work does

not always, and but very seldom, perceive the connection.

It is a fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences human inventions; it is only the application of them that is human. Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.

For example: Every person who looks at an almanack sees an account

when an eclipse will take place, and he sees also that it never fails to take place according to the account there given. This shows that man is acquainted with the laws by which the heavenly bodies move. But it would

be something worse than ignorance, were any church on earth to say that

those laws are an human invention.

It would also be ignorance, or something worse, to say that the sci-

entific principles, by the aid of which man is enabled to calculate and

foreknow when an eclipse will take place, are an human invention. Man

cannot invent any thing 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.

The scientific principles that man employs to obtain the foreknow-

ledge of an eclipse, or of any thing else relating to the motion of the

heavenly bodies, are contained chiefly in that part of science that is

called trigonometry, or the properties of a triangle, which, when applied to the study of the heavenly bodies, is called astronomy; when applied to direct the course of a ship on the ocean, it is called navigation; when applied to the construction of figures drawn by a rule and compass, it is

called geometry; when applied to the construction of plans of edifices, it is called architecture; when applied to the measurement of any portion

of the surface of the earth, it is called land-surveying. In fine, it is the soul of science. It is an eternal truth: it contains the mathematical demonstration of which man speaks, and the extent of its uses are unknown.

It may be said, that man can make or draw a triangle, and therefore a

triangle is an human invention.

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But the triangle, when drawn, is no other than the image of the prin-

ciple: it is a delineation to the eye, and from thence to the mind, of a principle that would otherwise be imperceptible. The triangle does not make

the principle, any more than a candle taken into a room that was dark,

makes the chairs and tables that before were invisible. All the properties of a triangle exist independently of the figure, and existed before any triangle was drawn or thought of by man. Man had no more to do in the

formation of those properties or principles, than he had to do in making

the laws by which the heavenly bodies move; and therefore the one must

have the same divine origin as the other.

In the same manner as, it may be said, that man can make a triangle, so

also, may it be said, he can make the mechanical instrument called a

lever. But the principle by which the lever acts, is a thing distinct from the instrument, and would exist if the instrument did not; it attaches itself to the instrument after it is made; the instrument, therefore, can act no otherwise than it does act; neither can all the efforts of human invention make it act otherwise. That which, in all such cases, man calls

the effect, is no other than the principle itself rendered perceptible to the senses.

Since, then, man cannot make principles, from whence did he gain a

knowledge of them, so as to be able to apply them, not only to things on

earth, but to ascertain the motion of bodies so immensely distant from

him as all the heavenly bodies are? From whence, I ask, could he gain that knowledge, but from the study of the true theology?

It is the structure of the universe that has taught this knowledge to

man. That structure is an ever-existing exhibition of every principle upon which every part of mathematical science is founded. The offspring of

this science is mechanics; for mechanics is no other than the principles of science applied practically. The man who proportions the several parts

of a mill uses the same scientific principles as if he had the power of constructing an universe, but as he cannot give to matter that invisible

agency by which all the component parts of the immense machine of the

universe have influence upon each other, and act in motional unison to-

gether, without any apparent contact, and to which man has given the

name of attraction, gravitation, and repulsion, he supplies the place of

that agency by the humble imitation of teeth and cogs. All the parts of

man's microcosm must visibly touch. But could he gain a knowledge of

that agency, so as to be able to apply it in practice, we might then say

that another canonical book of the word of God had been discovered.

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If man could alter the properties of the lever, so also could he alter the properties of the triangle: for a lever (taking that sort of lever which is called a steel-yard, for the sake of explanat