検索キーワード： "Thomas Paine" 哲学

Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology, published in three parts from 1794, was a best seller in America, where it caused a short-lived deistic revival. Promoting a creator-God while advocating reason in the place of revelation, Paine’s controversial pamphlet caused his native British audience, fearing the results of the French Revolution, to receive it with more hostility than their American counterparts.

Thomas Paine, a political activist and member of the US Constitution, argues persuasively for a logical approach to theology in The Age of Reason. In keeping with the intellectual tradition of British Deism, Paine rejects the idea of divine revelation, claiming that "it is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other." He continues by thoroughly examining the contradictions and historical errors in the Bible in order to reach the conclusion that it cannot be a work of divine inspiration.