Age of Reason
Most of my day outside of class has been occupied by Thomas Paine's two volume work (written during the dangers of the French Revolution) which purports to justify a belief in a beneficient creator God (Deism) by knocking Christianity and its Scriptures. It is still a very well-argued critique of the excesses of Biblical literalism, but its discussion of the absurdity of the Christian religion should be absolutely unconvincing to believers and comical to non-believers. It only confirms in me a further belief in Tertullian's (I think) bon mot, credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd).
I only have two decent criticism of Paine.
1. The Universe is not as simple, marvelous, or good as Paine sees it. Indeed, there are really good arguments that the Universe is den of misery and that the worlds of God's creation are murderous to life. Indeed, life alone can mitigate its murderousness. Paine does not even bother dealing with the bad side of the Universe, which many have seen as proof against a creator God as worthy of worship as Paine would claim.
2. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is one of my favorite trilogies. To my surprise, I found myself actively cheering for the destruction of God by the end of the second book. On reflection, I realized that my hatred of Pullman's God stemmed from one cause to which all others could be joined. The God that Pullman posits is not Trinitarian. His mention of Christ is passing and so contradictory to his theology that he ignores Christ and the great consequences of Christ for any world order. Nor does Pullman mention the Holy Spirit, except he talks at great length about the existence of a heroic stream of intelligent particles pervading the Universe that give sentience and the higher sentiments to various species such as human beings. Pullman only evades the implications of the Holy Spirit by co-opting it for his own purposes. Yet any true critique of Christianity has to attack seriously all three Persons.
Paine, however, fails to do so. He does well with showing how the Old Testament Prophets view the Father as an evil version of the Deist God. He makes the virgin birth, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension look seriously absurd. The Holy Spirit, however, he degrades at one point as an instrument of debauchery and as a pigeon or a "cloven tongue of fire." So skeptical of mystery, revelation, prophecy, and miracle, Paine has little use for a Person whose activities fall in realms into which his reason cannot inquire, so he blasphemes Him with little purpose.
P.S. I highly recommend Pullman's His Dark Materials (three books starting with The Golden Compass ) for apologist and skeptic alike.
(ESA 20030225.1)
Most of my day outside of class has been occupied by Thomas Paine's two volume work (written during the dangers of the French Revolution) which purports to justify a belief in a beneficient creator God (Deism) by knocking Christianity and its Scriptures. It is still a very well-argued critique of the excesses of Biblical literalism, but its discussion of the absurdity of the Christian religion should be absolutely unconvincing to believers and comical to non-believers. It only confirms in me a further belief in Tertullian's (I think) bon mot, credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd).
I only have two decent criticism of Paine.
1. The Universe is not as simple, marvelous, or good as Paine sees it. Indeed, there are really good arguments that the Universe is den of misery and that the worlds of God's creation are murderous to life. Indeed, life alone can mitigate its murderousness. Paine does not even bother dealing with the bad side of the Universe, which many have seen as proof against a creator God as worthy of worship as Paine would claim.
2. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials is one of my favorite trilogies. To my surprise, I found myself actively cheering for the destruction of God by the end of the second book. On reflection, I realized that my hatred of Pullman's God stemmed from one cause to which all others could be joined. The God that Pullman posits is not Trinitarian. His mention of Christ is passing and so contradictory to his theology that he ignores Christ and the great consequences of Christ for any world order. Nor does Pullman mention the Holy Spirit, except he talks at great length about the existence of a heroic stream of intelligent particles pervading the Universe that give sentience and the higher sentiments to various species such as human beings. Pullman only evades the implications of the Holy Spirit by co-opting it for his own purposes. Yet any true critique of Christianity has to attack seriously all three Persons.
Paine, however, fails to do so. He does well with showing how the Old Testament Prophets view the Father as an evil version of the Deist God. He makes the virgin birth, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension look seriously absurd. The Holy Spirit, however, he degrades at one point as an instrument of debauchery and as a pigeon or a "cloven tongue of fire." So skeptical of mystery, revelation, prophecy, and miracle, Paine has little use for a Person whose activities fall in realms into which his reason cannot inquire, so he blasphemes Him with little purpose.
P.S. I highly recommend Pullman's His Dark Materials (three books starting with The Golden Compass ) for apologist and skeptic alike.
(ESA 20030225.1)
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