The Age of Reason · Chapter
VI: Of the True Theology explained
Paine contrasts the grandeur and benevolence of the natural world—a creation that provides for humanity without cost—with the gloomy and sacrificial narratives of Christian theology.
What happens
Paine contrasts the grandeur and benevolence of the natural world—a creation that provides for humanity without cost—with the gloomy and sacrificial narratives of Christian theology. He argues that the visible universe itself offers ample grounds for gratitude and admiration, and he asserts that the suspicion of Christian doctrine as fabulous is widespread. To comfort those in doubt, he resolves to proceed with a free investigation of the Old and New Testaments.
Themes in this chapter
Deism and Natural Theology
Paine points to the natural world—the sun, rain, and abundance—as evidence of a benevolent Creator, arguing that true theology is found in the observable universe rather than in scripture.
Critique of Organized Religion
Paine criticizes the Christian church for promoting a gloomy, sacrificial theology that he sees as an insult to the Creator, and he notes the growing suspicion that church doctrine is fabulous.
Characters to notice
- Thomas Paine
Author and speaker; presents his bold investigation of Christian theology as a necessary consolation for those doubting the church's teachings.
Key passages
“Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born—a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing?”
At birth we find ourselves in a beautiful, fully provisioned world that we did nothing to earn.
Paine uses this rhetorical question to emphasize the gratuitous bounty of nature as a foundation for natural theology.
“The suspicion that the theory of what is called the Christian church is fabulous, is becoming very extensive in all countries; and it will be a consolation to men staggering under that suspicion, and doubting what to believe and what to disbelieve, to see the subject freely investigated.”
Many people now suspect that Christian doctrine is a fable, and they will find comfort in an open examination of the matter.
Paine justifies his investigation as a service to those troubled by doubt.