Download Religious Skepticism in Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason: Deism's Impact on Paine's Doubt and more Lecture notes Skepticism in PDF only on Docsity!
RELIGIOUS SKEPTICISM IN THOMAS PAINE’S ESSAY ENTITLED THE
AGE OF REASON (PART I)
Nadia Faradhillah Retno Wulandari ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF HUMNANITIES DIPONEGORO UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT Esai The Age of Reason (Part I) merupakan sebuah tulisan yang berisi pandangan Thomas Paine mengenai agama. Dalam esai ini, Paine mengungkapkan argumennya mengenai hubungan antara keberadaan Tuhan dan kebenaran sebuah agama. Argumen-argumen tersebut disusun berdasarkan kepercayaan Paine terhadap paham Deisme. Pada akhirnya, paham Deisme lah yang membuat Thomas Paine menjadi seseorang yang skeptis terhadap agama. Skripsi ini menganalisis sikap skeptis Thomas Paine terhadap institusi agama. Penulis memilih esai The Age of Reason (Part I) yang ditulis oleh Thomas Paine sebagai objek penelitian. Hal yang menjadi fokus dalam skripsi ini adalah bagaimana argumen-argumen Thomas Paine menunjukkan keyakinannya terhadap Deisme, dan membuatnya menjadi seseorang yang skeptis terhadap agama. Untuk mengetahui hal ini, penulis menggunakan pendekatan filsafat agama dengan memakai teori Religious Skepticism milik J. L. Schellenberg. Dari analisis, dapat disimpulkan bahwa keyakinan Thomas Paine terhadap Deisme memiliki arti penting terhadap sikap skeptisnya pada agama. Deisme yang mengutamakan penggunaan akal dalam memahami agama menemukan banyak kesalahan yang terdapat pada institusi agama sehingga membuat sikap skeptis Thomas Paine terhadap agama semakin besar. Kata kunci: agama, deisme, sikap skeptis pada agama
1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
There is a lot of ways to convey opinion about a certain issue. It can be done in writing or orally. Essay is the most common written form to express human’s thought. Blake and McBee state that essay is a kind of literary work reflecting the writer’s idea towards certain issues. Moreover, essay has various characteristics depend on the issue that is brought up by the writer. It may discuss an important issue or a strange one. On the other hand, the form of essay also can be differentiated into systematic and casual. Furthermore, there are four types of essay: description, exposition, argumentation, and narration (Blake and McBee, 1981: xi). The Age of Reason (Part I) by Thomas Paine is an example of argumentation essay. An argumentation essay is a type of essay that conveys the thought of the writer towards a certain issue, and it usually heads for persuading public assumption to choose pros and cons for that issue (Blake and McBee, 1981: xi). The Age of Reason (Part I) , actually called The Age of Reason: Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology, expresses Thomas Paine’s thought about the orthodox Christianity. Published in January 1794, The Age of Reason (Part I) helped popularized deism (Foner, 1995: 846). Through this essay, Thomas Paine explains that there was too much political power and was often corrupt in the institution of the church (Bakhtiar, 2007: 91). His refusal towards the church authority leads him to a doubtful feeling towards religion. He refuses every idea about God that comes from divine revelation. According to him, the only way to utter God’s existence is by using the human reason (Bakhtiar, 2007: 91). This idea attracts the writer to make further study to religious skepticism towards organized religions.
2.2. DISCUSSION
2.2.1 DEISM IN THE AGE OF REASON (PART I)
The Age of Reason (Part I) is a form of critic towards religious proposition, specifically Christian proposition. In the essay, Thomas Paine shows his disagreement towards the Christian proposition by presenting the concept and example of deism. He persuades his readers by showing some examples of reasonable thought about religion. Through giving an explanation and critical thinking towards deism to his readers, then, he captures the fallacies in Christian proposition that leads him to religious skepticism. There are four main points of deism that he presents in his essay. These ideas of deism are the basic device for him to dig out the fallacies in the Christian religion system. According to Paine, a deist believes in the existence of one God who has great power, wisdom, and kindness to His creatures. A deist is also able to comprehend the attributes of God through His immense creation. Moreover, after comprehending the attributes of God, a Deist will respond by copying those attributes and applying them in the daily life. That is the way how a deist becomes a religious person. In comprehending the attributes of God, humans need to use their reason so that the religious attitude will not contradict to it. Reason is the basis for humans to comprehend religious proposition. The religious proposition based on reason will not cause any doubts towards that proposition. In other words, the more logic that is used, the stronger religious proposition that is believed.
According to Thomas Paine, the main idea about deism above has four supporting ideas. These ideas are the pillars of deism that is explained in this essay. The first idea is the existence of God as the ultimate cause of the universe. The second is The Creation and its complex mechanisms as the evidence that the God exists. The third idea is deists’ refusal towards revelation, miracle, and mistery. The last idea is the deists’ response to God’s beneficences. 2 .2.2 RELIGIOUS SKEPTICISM IN THE AGE OF REASON (PART I) Deism believed by Thomas Paine makes him put the Christian religious proposition into question. From the four ideas of deism conveyed in his essay, he starts to doubt the truth of Christian religious proposition. In The Age of Reason (Part I) he discusses matters in Christian religious proposition and the Bible that seems strange to him. The strange matters in Christian religious proposition are discussed by presenting the fallacies in the elements of Christian religious system, namely: creed, code, cultus, and community. Nevertheless, in his essay, Paine discusses more fallacies in creed than any other elements. It is for the reason that creed is the most basic belief of a religion. By means of creed people believe and convince a religious proposition. Therefore, Thomas Paine skepticism or doubt pays more attention of creed in his essay.
3. CONCLUSION The result analysis shows that religious skepticism in The Age of Reason (Part I) has strong relation to deism concept that is believed by Thomas Paine. The four
Paine to be a religious skeptic. Moreover, Thomas Paine believes in the existence of God as the creator of the universe and its mechanism, and so does he believe in the existence of religion that preaches the proposition which agrees with the concept of deism. Therefore, this believe makes him a categorical religious skeptic. BIBLIOGRAPHY Albanese, Catherine. America: Religion and Religions. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1992. Bakhtiar, Amsal. Filsafat Agama. Jakarta: Pt Raja Grafindo Persada, 2007. Blake and McBee. Essays. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc, 1981. Conway, M. D. Encyclopedia Americana. New York: Americana Corporation, 1975. Foner, Eric. Paine: Collected Writings. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1995. Hikmat, Mahi M. Metode Penelitian dalam Perspektif Ilmu Komunikasi dan Sastra. Yogyakarta: Graha Ilmu, 2011. Nasution, Harun. Filsafat Agama. Jakarta: Bulan Bintang, 1985. Paine, Thomas. “The Age of Reason.” 3 October 2012. Web. 5 February 2015 <http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/The-Age- of-Reason-by-Thomas-Paine.pdf.>. Purba, Antilan. Esai Sastra Indonesia Teori dan Penulisan. Yogyakarta: Graha Ilmu,
Schellenberg, J. L. Prelegomene to A Philosophy of Religion. New York: Cornell University Press, 2005.
Semi, M. Atar. Metode Penelitian Sastra. Bandung: CV Angkasa, 2012. Shipka, Thomas A. Philosophy: Paradox and Discovery. Ed. Arthur J. Minton. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996. Suparman and Sobirin. Ide-ide Besar; Sejarah Intelektual Amerika. Yogyakarta: UII Press, 2003.
