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REVELATION , , ,
, SO FAR AS THE term has relation between God and man, can only be applied to something which God reveals of his will to man;
but though the power of the Almighty to make such a communication is necessarily admitted, because to that power all things
are possible, yet, the thing so revealed (if any thing ever was revealed, and which, by the bye, it is impossible to prove)
is revelation to the person only to whom it is made. His account of it to another is not revelation; and whoever puts
faith in that account, puts it in the man from whom the account comes; and that man may have been deceived, or may have dreamed
it; or he may be an impostor and may lie. There is no possible criterion whereby
to judge of the truth of what he tells; for even the morality of it would be no proof of revelation. In all such cases, the proper answer should be, “When it is revealed to me, I will believe it to
be revelation; but it is not and cannot be incumbent upon me to believe it to be revelation before; neither is it proper that
I should take the word of man as the word of God, and put man in the place of God.”
This is the manner in which I have spoken of revelation in the former part of The Age of Reason; and which,
whilst it reverentially admits revelation as a possible thing, because, as before said, to the Almighty all things are possible,
it prevents the imposition of one man upon another, and precludes the wicked use of pretended revelation.
But though, speaking for myself, I thus admit the possibility of revelation, I totally
disbelieve that the Almighty ever did communicate any thing to man, by any mode of speech, in any language, or by any kind
of vision, or appearance, or by any means which our senses are capable of receiving, otherwise than by the universal display
of himself in the works of the creation, and by that repugnance we feel in ourselves to bad actions, and disposition to good
ones.
The most detestable wickedness,
the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race, have had their origin in this thing
called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonourable belief
against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was
propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted,
if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any
such, than that we permitted one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with
the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us.
Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men,
women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars,
that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion,
and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament [of] the other.
Some
Christians pretend that Christianity was not established by the sword; but of what period of time do they speak? It was impossible that twelve men could begin with the sword: they had not the power;
but no sooner were the professors of Christianity sufficiently powerful to employ the sword than they did so, and the stake
and faggot too; and Mahomet could not do it sooner. By the same spirit that Peter
cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant (if the story be true) he would cut off his head, and the head of his master,
had he been able. Besides this, Christianity grounds itself originally upon the
[Hebrew] Bible, and the Bible was established altogether by the sword,
and that in the worst use of it—not to terrify, but to extirpate. The
Jews made no converts: they butchered all. The Bible is the sire of the [New]
Testament, and both are called the word of God. The Christians read both
books; the ministers preach from both books; and this thing called Christianity is made up of both. It is then false to say that Christianity was not established by the sword.
The only sect that has not persecuted are the Quakers; and the only reason that can be given for it is, that they are
rather Deists than Christians. They do not believe much about Jesus Christ,
and they call the scriptures a dead letter. Had they called them by a worse name,
they had been nearer the truth.
It is incumbent on every man who reverences the character of the Creator, and who wishes to lessen the catalogue of
artificial miseries, and remove the cause that has sown persecutions thick among mankind, to expel all ideas of a revealed
religion as a dangerous heresy, and an impious fraud. What is it that we have
learned from this pretended thing called revealed religion? Nothing that is useful
to man, and every thing that is dishonourable to his Maker. What is it the
Bible teaches us? — rapine, cruelty, and murder. What is it the Testament teaches us? —to believe that
the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.
As to the fragments of morality that are irregularly found thinly scattered in those books, they make no part
of this pretended thing, revealed religion. They are the natural dictates of
conscience, and the bonds by which society is held together, and without which it cannot exist; and are nearly the same in
all religions, and in all societies. The Testament teaches nothing new upon this
subject, and where it attempts to exceed, it becomes mean and ridiculous. The
doctrine of not retaliating injuries is much better expressed in Proverbs, which is a collection as well from the Gentiles as the Jews, than it is in the [New] Testament.
It is there said, (xxv. 21) “If thine enemy be hungry give him bread to eat; and if he be thirsty give him
water to drink:” but when it is said, as in the Testament, If a man smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him
the other also,” it is assassinating the dignity of forbearance, and sinking man into a spaniel.
Loving of enemies is
another dogma of feigned morality, and has besides no meaning. It is incumbent
on man, as a moralist, that he does not revenge an injury; and it is equally as good in a political sense, for there is no
end to retaliation; each retaliates on the other, and calls it justice: but to love in proportion to the injury, if it
could be done, would be to offer a premium for a crime. Besides, the word enemies
is too vague and general to be used in a moral maxim, which ought always to be clear and defined, like a proverb. If a man be the enemy of another from mistake and prejudice, as in the case of
religious opinions, and sometimes in politics, that man is different to an enemy at heart with a criminal intention; and it
is incumbent upon us, and it contributes also to our own tranquillity, that we put the best construction upon a thing that
it will bear. But even this erroneous motive in him makes no motive for love
on the other part; and to say that we can love voluntarily, and without a motive, is morally and physically impossible.
Morality is injured by prescribing to it duties that, in the first place, are impossible
to be performed, and if they could be would be productive of evil; or, as before said, be premiums for crime. The maxim of doing as we would be done unto does not include this strange doctrine of loving enemies;
for no man expects to be loved himself for his crime or for his enmity.
Those who preach this doctrine of loving their enemies, are in general the greatest
persecutors, and they act consistently by so doing; for the doctrine
is hypocritical, and it is natural, that hypocrisy should act the reverse of what it preaches.
For my own part, I disown the doctrine, and consider it as a feigned or fabulous morality; yet the man does not exist
that can say I have persecuted him, or any man, or any set of men, either in the American Revolution, or in the French Revolution;
or that I have, in any case, returned evil for evil. But it is not incumbent
on man to reward a bad action with a good one, or to return good for evil; and wherever it is done, it is a voluntary act,
and not a duty. It is also absurd to suppose that such doctrine can make any
part of a revealed religion. We imitate the moral character of the Creator by
forbearing with each other, for he forbears with all; but this doctrine would imply that he loved man, not in proportion as
he was good, but as he was bad.
If we consider the nature of our condition
here, we must see there is no occasion for such a thing as revealed religion. What
is it we want to know? Does not the creation, the universe we behold, preach
to us the existence of an Almighty power that governs and regulates the whole? And
is not the evidence that this creation holds out to our senses infinitely stronger than any thing we can read in a book,
that any impostor might make and call the word of God? As for morality, the knowledge
of it exists in every man’s conscience.
Thomas Paine, the American patriot,
was like a number of our founding fathers a Deist; but unlike them he went public, for he had, obviously, decided against
seeking public office. The Age of Reason is a mature example of the Deist
(rationalist) analysis of Christianity.--jk
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