The Age of Reason · Theme
Morality and Humanity
How The Age of Reason develops Morality and Humanity.
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.
Where it surfaces
- 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.