The Dilemma of Thomas Paine's Torment

By Douglas V. Gibbs

In a post titled Tyranny Chases a little over a week ago I provided for the readers the meaningful words of Thomas Paine. The quote reveals how Americans, and other colonists of the New World, who he describes as "the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe," fled tyranny to come to the new settlements, yet the very tyranny that drove them to leave the homeland pursued them, and their posterity, still. Britain, despite a hundred plus years of The Colonies growth and move towards independence, still sought to maintain their authoritarian control over the colonists. A steady increase of revenue for the British Empire from America, power for The Crown through the presence of the British Empire in all parts of the world, and the very opportunity to keep an iron fist over a people, were no doubt some of the driving factors behind British rule.

"This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their descendants still." --Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

That quote was not the first I have ever provided by Thomas Paine. The tortured Founding Father is a strange favorite of mine, because when he was on target, it was a pure bull's eye, but then sometimes he wrote things that were not always consistent with his own words, or with the beliefs of many of his American brethren. Because of these tendencies of his, it drove me to study him years ago. I wanted to know the man, and why in his writings he seemed so tortured at times.

In March of 2008 I came across a book titled "The Elementary Common Sense of Thomas Paine," and promptly invited the author onto Political Pistachio Radio to discuss Thomas Paine, and his persuasive essay, "Common Sense."

Liberals, who would rather cherry-pick, rather than understand the entire context of a person's writings, or take into account all of the factors involved in a Founder's life, hold Thomas Paine as one of their favorites to quote because though Thomas Paine had a love for The Colonies, and what the Americans were attempting to establish governmentally, he also held anti-religious views that placed him at odds with his adopted country. His anti-religious views were largely encouraged by the tyrannical behavior of the Church of England, but once in America he clearly supported the concept of freedom of religion, and respected that this was a nation grounded in Christian principles.

When I quoted Thomas Paine in my "Tyranny Chases" post, a neurotic liberal that loves to torture himself by pretending to know the truth, and by pretending to be pro-America when every detail of his ideological madness says otherwise, left the following comment: "It's really funny when you quote Thomas Paine. He is pretty much the complete ideological opposite to you, but you're too dim to realize that."

The comment reveals how little he truly understands about Thomas Paine, and how in reality Paine shares a great deal with the political ideology that has come to be known as "conservatism."

January 29th will mark the birthday of Thomas Paine. He is considered by many as being one of the Founding Fathers, though he did not grow up in The Colonies, and only came to America after meeting Benjamin Franklin in England. Paine was not on the drafting committee of either The Declaration of Independence or The Constitution of the United States. He did not even share with the Americans their Faith in a loving Christian God. Yet, despite all of that, Paine was highly influential in providing the philosophical support for the American Revolution. In fact, Paine's writings were quite influential in the creation of some of the Founding Documents, and Paine's writings served to foment so many discussions in Colonial America, that the construction of this nation's founding documents owe a large part of its soul to Thomas Paine.

"Common Sense," however, did more than just provide for the American's ideas to discuss. Paine's essay provided a launching pad harnessing the willingness and zeal of the colonists in their incredible fight for independence from Britain.

Reading Paine's pamphlet, "Common Sense," reveals that the revolution was about more than just taxation. One must remember that Paine did not come to America until he was well into his adult life, and in England he had been an incredible failure with everything he tried to do. But after meeting Ben Franklin, his love for what The Colonies represented came to fruition. The Colonies were doing something that the King did not: America recognized individual potential and achievement.

Thomas Paine's life is a mixture of the deplorable and the commendable. His attitude towards what America represented, and his attitude towards the tyranny of The Crown, were indeed important factors in the construction of his essays, but his anti-religious views in a Christian environment definitely placed him at odds with a number of the revolutionaries.

Thomas Paine was born a Quaker. However, as a child, largely due to the treatment of the Quakers by the Church of England, and partly because his fellow Quakers refused to stand up to the demands of the State Church, Paine became quite skeptical about Christianity. As time passed, and his disdain for the religious world increased, Paine reached the point that he had difficulty reconciling the belief in a loving God with the doctrine of eternal punishment.

When Paine came to America in 1774 under the urgings of Ben Franklin, Paine took up the cause for American Independence. Paine, however, realized that the move for independence was something that had to happen quickly. America's opportunity for independence had a small window, in his opinion. The dynamics of the relationship between The Colonies and England, the added factor of Spain and France looking on to what was going on, and the mood of the colonists, were in line for a successful drive for independence, but in order for it all to happen successfully, Paine's attitude was that it was now or never. Most interestingly, however, Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense" invoked biblical language and illustration, to persuade Americans that Monarchy led to tyranny, and was against the will of Almighty God. Quite interesting coming from a man that held a view that questioned the very existence of the Christian God.

Reading "Common Sense," one may not guess that Paine was a nonbeliever (or possibly a believer trying to convince folks he wasn't because of his own inner turmoil), particularly after experiencing passages like the following: "But where says some is the king of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king..."

Hardly the words of a skeptic of Christianity, which leads one to believe that Paine's thoughts may have been anti-religious by that point in his life, but not necessarily anti-God.

After the War of Independence ended, Paine returned to Europe, and eventually became embroiled in the French Revolution. His treatise, the "Rights of Man," was strongly criticized by British statesman Edmond Burke, and is a document that in some parts found itself at odds with many folks that today would be considered to be Conservative. Paine aligned himself with a more moderate faction in French polity, placing himself at odds with the socialist "Jacobins", and even finding himself during the "Reign of Terror" imprisoned by those secular radicals for opposing the desire by the Jacobins' to have the King of France executed.

While in prison, Thomas Paine wrote the document that liberals love to quote the most, his treatise against Christianity, "The Age of Reason." Paine's dissatisfaction with the organized church took on a whole new level in his new writings. American diplomacy spared Paine's life, and though his friend Ben Franklin advised against it, Thomas returned to America and published his anti-religious "The Age of Reason." The book received condemnation from a number of prominent Americans, and gentlemen such as Elias Boudinot, and Patrick Henry, wrote rebuttals against it. His anti-religious views in the Christian nation of the United States of America led Paine down a rough road, upon which he found that his former status as a celebrity had turned devastatingly sour.

Never an atheist, the inspiration of "Common Sense" and the anti-religious views of "The Age of Reason" created a dichotomy that even the talented Thomas Paine could not resolve. The conflict between the two writings created for Paine a reputation that he would never seem to be able to shake. But in our modern era, because of his later writings, Paine has become a favorite of secularists. They like to use Paine to support their erroneous arguments that America was founded as a secular nation, as if such an argument makes any sense in the first place. If Paine was not an atheist, but not necessarily a Christian either (the term most often used for his belief system is "Deist") why would he use in "Common Sense" Christian nomenclature in his appeal for revolt? Was it influence from his upbringing? Or was his use of Christian antidotes a clue to the God-fearing sentiment of the general population and the majority of the Founding Fathers?

When reading Paine's "Age of Reason," one also begins to recognize Paine's lack of convincing arguments. For example, his discussion in the work regarding miracles, to paraphrase him, "Have we ever seen a miracle? In the same space of time we have heard millions of lies. The odds are at least millions to one that someone who claims a miracle is a liar then."

In his argument against miracles Paine confuses the inactive correlation of two unrelated events with the possibility that a given event can occur. A person could say that nobody gets hit by a car out on the sands of a desert. Therefore, the odds of such a vehicular accident are virtually impossible. However, if enough people to fill a football stadium were walking on the sand, and in the same place an off-road race was going on and enough of the racers headed for the crowd, the odds that someone will be hit increases dramatically.

One must consider that Paine believed that the creation itself was miraculous. If the very existence of the universe was a miracle, then why would Thomas Paine doubt that miracles could happen again?

As Paine's life wound down, poor health became an issue. He never regained the celebrity status he enjoyed during the American Revolution, and when he died, rather than being buried in a church cemetery his remains were placed on a ship bound for England, during which his remains somehow became lost in transit.

Rumors that are considered to be an urban legend claims that in 1809 Paine made a death-bed recantation of his anti-Christian beliefs to an attendant. Understanding Paine's growing discontent with religion as his life proceeded, the likelihood of his recantation of his anti-Christian beliefs are doubtful. However, it is fascinating that the secularists that cling to Paine as one of their own spends so much effort denying the rumor, as if their own system of beliefs depends on Paine stubbornly holding on to his anti-religious convictions to the bitter end.

Ultimately, Thomas Paine was a man who loved the idea of freedom, and a limited federal government, that the United States offered. He held to the beliefs put forth in the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. Paine was an important figure in the commencement of the American Revolution, and an important part of keeping the faith among the colonists as they fought against the tyrannical British Empire. Based on his involvement in the American Revolution, and the French Revolution, Paine's philosophy is clearly one that abhorred centralized systems, be they by a monarchy, or a socialist style system. Individual potential and achievement was important to the man. He believed in personal responsibility and self-reliance. In that, Paine was not an ideological opposite to those who share my Conservative political beliefs.

Paine's struggles with faith was where his true torment came from, and he wrestled with God to his dying day. One wonders, after being confronted by the Creator Himself after death, if Thomas Paine reconsidered the folly of his treatise, "The Age of Reason."

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary