The Age of Reason · Question
How does The Age of Reason develop the theme of Morality and Humanity?
Answer
The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine develops Morality and Humanity across the chapters the companion marks for this theme.
The work emphasizes that religious duties consist of doing justice, loving mercy, and making fellow creatures happy, warning against losing sight of morality amid the wreck of superstition.
Paine's later work exalts the moral nature of man as the foundation of theistic religion, humanizing religion and subverting last-century deism.
Paine condemns the Bible's accounts of divinely commanded genocide, especially the killing of infants, as violating moral justice and human sympathy.
Paine emphasizes divine morality, justice, mercy, and benevolence as the true foundations of religion, contrasting with church teachings.
Evidence in the book
- Editor's Introduction
Paine's later work exalts the moral nature of man as the foundation of theistic religion, humanizing religion and subverting last-century deism.
- I: The Old Testament
Paine condemns the Bible's accounts of divinely commanded genocide, especially the killing of infants, as violating moral justice and human sympathy.
- To the Ministers and Preachers of All Denominations of Religion
Paine emphasizes divine morality, justice, mercy, and benevolence as the true foundations of religion, contrasting with church teachings.
- Contradictory Doctrines Between Matthew and Mark
Paine praises Matthew's emphasis on good works toward fellow humans as the true path to salvation.
