An Ignoble Experiment: Thomas Paine's "Age of Infidelity"

2009/12/30

Thomas Paine's "Age of Infidelity"

Dear Indiana,

The Age of Revelation:
The Age of Reason Shewen to be an Age of Infidelity
by Elias Boudinot

While Thomas Paine's Age of Reason gets a great deal of press from skeptics, misinformed separationists, and atheists of every stripe, almost no one mentions Elias Boudinot's book-length response. Paine is considered to be an American Founding Father, and yet, unlike Paine, Boudinot actually served in a civil capacity in the United States that included work on the Constitution. Paine's only elective office was in France. Boudinot is a true American Founding Father. Paine had no role in the founding conventions of America and their documents.

With the publication and dissemination of Paine's work, Boudinot feared what we are experiencing today in America. "I confess," he wrote, "that I was much mortified to find, the whole force of this vain man's genius and art, pointed at the youth of America, and her unlearned citizens." Even though there are tens of thousands of churches and tens of millions of Christians, it seems that the skepticism of Paine has the upper hand. The prevalence of skepticism is more the inaction of Christians than the accomplishment of skeptics. Boudinot knew that he could no longer wait for someone else to respond.

Boudinot waited some time before deciding to respond to Paine's Age of Reason. His measured rejoinder to Paine's work is contemplative and, contrary to Paine's treatise, a work of sound scholarship. A great deal of thought and humility went into the well argued reply. It was Boudinot's opinion that if The Age of Reason had not been written by the popular author of Common Sense, the 1776 pamphlet that argued that America was justified in breaking away from the British monarchy, the book would not have been given much of a hearing.

Boudinot shows that Paine did not uncover anything new under the sun. Modern-day atheists have only repackaged Paine for an audience that is not familiar with Elias Boudinot's The Age of Revelation which is a remarkable work of scholarship for that time. Boudinot quotes sources from nearly every field of knowledge. He seems to be acquainted with several languages, including Latin and Greek. He has a broad knowledge of the Bible and a keen sense of logical analysis. His work shows what an educated layman can do when spurred on by the need to answer a once-respected writer who abused his popularity to rail against a religious system that he either did not fully understand or had no wish to understand.

"The Thomas Paine of Common Sense and the Thomas Paine of The Age of Reason must be kept separate, both by time and philosophy. The later Paine cannot be superimposed on the earlier Paine... When Thomas Paine comes up in a discussion, ask if it's the early Paine or the later Paine. There is a big difference, as Elias Boudinot made clear more than 200 years ago in The Age of Revelation." — Gary DeMar

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