The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• General Introduction, With Last Gleanings, Historical and Biographical.
• The Age of Reason. Editor’s Introduction.
• I.: The Age of Reason.
• Chapter I.: The Author’s Profession of Faith.
• Chapter II.: Of Missions and Revelations.
• Chapter III.: Concerning the Character of Jesus Christ, and His History.
• Chapter IV.: Of the Bases of Christianity.
• Chapter V.: Examination In Detail of the Preceding Bases.
• Chapter VI.: Of the True Theology.
• Chapter VII.: Examination of the Old Testament.
• Chapter VIII.: Of the New Testament.
• Chapter IX.: In What the True Revelation Consists.
• Chapter X.: Concerning God, and the Lights Cast On His Existence and Attributes By the Bible.
• Chapter XI.: Of the Theology of the Christians; and the True Theology.
• Chapter XII.: The Effects of Christianism On Education. Proposed Reforms.
• Chapter XIII.: Comparison of Christianism With the Religious Ideas Inspired By Nature.
• Chapter XIV.: System of the Universe.
• Chapter XV.: Advantages of the Existence of Many Worlds In Each Solar System.
• Chapter XVI.: Application of the Preceding to the System of the Christians.
• Chapter XVII.: Of the Means Employed In All Time, and Almost Universally, to Deceive the Peoples.
• Recapitulation.
• The Age of Reason.: Part II.
• Preface.
• Chapter I.: The Old Testament.
• Chapter II.: The New Testament.
• Chapter III.: Conclusion.
• III.: Letters Concerning %u201cthe Age of Reason.%u201d
• IV.: Prosecution of the Age of Reason. 1
• V.: The Existence of God. a Discourse At the Society of Theophilanthropists, Paris. 1
• VI.: Worship and Church Bells. a Letter to Camille Jordan. 1
• VII.: Answer to the Bishop of Llandaff. Editorial Note.
• VIII.: Origin of Free-masonry. 1
• IX.: Prospect Papers. Editor’s Preface.
• X.: Examination of Prophecies. 1 Author’s Preface.
• XI.: A Letter to Andrew Dean. 1
• XII.: Predestination.
• Appendix A.: Atuobiographical Sketch.
• Appendix B.
• Appendix C.: Scientific Memoranda.
• Appendix D.: The Iron Bridge.
• Appendix E.: the Construction of Iron Bridges.
• Appendix F.: to the People of England On the Invasion of England.
• Appendix G.: Constitutional Reform. 1
• Appendix H.: Constitutions, Governments, and Charters.
• Appendix I.: The Cause of the Yellow Fever, and the Means of Preventing It In Places Not Yet Infected With It.
• Appendix J.: Liberty of the Press. 1
• Appendix K.: the Snowdrop and the Critic, 1 to the Editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, 1775.
• Appendix L. 1: Case of the Officers of Excise; With Remarks On the Qualifications of Officers, and On the Numerous Evils Arising to the Revenue, From the Insufficiency of the Present Salary: Humbly Addressed to the Members of Both Houses of Parliament.
• Appendix M.: The Will of Thomas Paine.

CHAPTER V.

EXAMINATION IN DETAIL OF THE PRECEDING BASES.

Putting aside everything that might excite laughter by its absurdity, or detestation by its prophaneness, and confining ourselves merely to an examination of the parts, it is impossible to conceive a story more derogatory to the Almighty, more inconsistent with his wisdom, more contradictory to his power, than this story is.

In order to make for it a foundation to rise upon, the inventors were under the necessity of giving to the being whom they call Satan a power equally as great, if not greater, than they attribute to the Almighty. They have not only given him the power of liberating himself from the pit, after what they call his fall, but they have made that power increase afterwards to infinity. Before this fall they represent him only as an angel of limited existence, as they represent the rest. After his fall, he becomes, by their account, omnipresent. He exists everywhere, and at the same time. He occupies the whole immensity of space.

Not content with this deification of Satan, they represent him as defeating by stratagem, in the shape of an animal of the creation, all the power and wisdom of the Almighty. They represent him as having compelled the Almighty to the direct necessity either of surrendering the whole of the creation to the government and sovereignty of this Satan, or of capitulating for its redemption by coming down upon earth, and exhibiting himself upon a cross in the shape of a man.

Had the inventors of this story told it the contrary way, that is, had they represented the Almighty as compelling Satan to exhibit himself on a cross in the shape of a snake, as a punishment for his new transgression, the story would have been less absurd, less contradictory. But, instead of this they make the transgressor triumph, and the Almighty fall.

That many good men have believed this strange fable, and lived very good lives under that belief (for credulity is not a crime) is what I have no doubt of. In the first place, they were educated to believe it, and they would have believed anything else in the same manner. There are also many who have been so enthusiastically enraptured by what they conceived to be the infinite love of God to man, in making a sacrifice of himself, that the vehemence of the idea has forbidden and deterred them from examining into the absurdity and profaneness of the story. The more unnatural anything is, the more is it capable of becoming the object of dismal admiration.1

[1]The French work has “aveugle et” (blind and) preceding “dismal.”—Editor.