The Age of Reason · Chapter
XII: The Effects of Christianism on Education; Proposed Reforms explained
Paine argues that the Christian system has deliberately suppressed scientific learning by restricting education to the study of dead languages, thereby stifling reason and the knowledge of God's creation.
What happens
Paine argues that the Christian system has deliberately suppressed scientific learning by restricting education to the study of dead languages, thereby stifling reason and the knowledge of God's creation. He contrasts the Greek model of education—focused on science and philosophy—with the Christian model of linguistry, and calls for abolishing the study of dead languages in favor of scientific knowledge. He cites historical persecution of scientists like Galileo and Virgilius, and credits the Reformation with reviving the sciences, though not true religious reform.
Themes in this chapter
Science vs. Superstition
Paine argues that the Christian system opposed scientific knowledge, persecuting figures like Galileo and Virgilius, and that true learning comes from studying the structure of the universe.
Critique of Organized Religion
Paine condemns the Christian system for deliberately restricting education to dead languages to prevent science from challenging its mythology.
Intellectual Freedom and Skepticism
Paine advocates for the moral duty to seek evidence from science and creation, and criticizes the suppression of free inquiry by religious authorities.
Characters to notice
- Thomas Paine
Author and advocate for educational reform; criticizes the Christian system for suppressing science and promoting dead language study.
- Galileo
Mentioned as a Florentine who discovered telescopes and was persecuted for his scientific findings.
- Virgilius
Condemned to be burned for asserting the antipodes (that the earth is a globe).
- Newton
Hypothetically mentioned as a scientist who would have been persecuted if he lived three or four hundred years earlier.
- Benjamin Franklin
Hypothetically mentioned as a scientist who would have been at risk of execution for drawing lightning from clouds.
- Euclid
Referenced as an example of a Greek author whose works were translated from dead languages, though translators often did not understand the learning.
- Luther
Mentioned as the initiator of the Reformation, which helped revive the sciences.
Key passages
“It afterwards goes to school, where its genius is killed by the barren study of a dead language, and the philosopher is lost in the linguist.”
A child's natural curiosity and potential for scientific thought are destroyed by the forced study of ancient languages, turning a potential philosopher into a mere linguist.
Paine's core critique of Christian education: it stifles reason and scientific learning.
“The setters up, therefore, and the advocates of the Christian system of faith, could not but foresee that the continually progressive knowledge that man would gain by the aid of science, of the power and wisdom of God, manifested in the structure of the universe, and in all the works of creation, would militate against, and call into question, the truth of their system of faith; and therefore it became necessary to their purpose to cut learning down to a size less dangerous to their project, and this they effected by restricting the idea of learning to the dead study of dead languages.”
Christian authorities deliberately limited education to dead languages because they feared that scientific knowledge would expose the falsehoods of their faith.
Paine argues that the restriction of learning was a calculated move to protect Christian mythology.
“Had the progression of knowledge gone on proportionably with the stock that before existed, that chasm would have been filled up with characters rising superior in knowledge to each other; and those Ancients we now so much admire would have appeared respectably in the background of the scene. But the Christian system laid all waste;”
If knowledge had continued to advance naturally, we would have surpassed the Ancients, but Christianity destroyed that progress, leaving a barren gap in history.
Paine blames Christianity for the intellectual dark ages and the loss of scientific advancement.
