The New Age Of Reason 

By Derek Kinrade 

Those of a radical persuasion are unlikely to have missed the reference in Richard Dawkins’ new book The God Delusion. Dawkins points to the epithets hurled at ‘poor Tom Paine: Judas, reptile, hog, mad dog, souse, louse, archbeast, brute, liar and of course infidel’ in an age when deists were commonly seen as ‘indistinguishable from atheists’.

Although Paine’s views on religion are not yet universally accepted, and perhaps never will be, it is open to question whether my use of the term ‘radical’ remains appropriate. Leaving aside those ‘don’t know’ or who are not interested’, it may be that in Britain today thinking that was once thought of as radical has for the most part become orthodox. Despite pockets of religious fundamentalism we live in a largely secular society. 

Nonetheless, I wonder whether members of the Thomas Paine Society, in focussing upon the historical context of Paine’s life and work and associated memorabilia, are in danger of neglecting the enduring relevance of his core ideas. I am thinking in particular of his mature opinions as set out in The Age of Reason, addressed to his fellow citizens of the United States of America: a nation, paradoxically, that is now home to some of the most entrenched opponents of his views. 

In his approach to religion, I believe that Dawkins can be seen, in every aspect save one, as the lineal descendent of Paine. The exception is that Paine, despite his rejection of religious creeds and denunciation of national institutions of churches as “human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolise power and profit”, remained firm in his belief in one God and a hope for happiness beyond this life. With that reservation, however, he was comprehensive in his critique of the foundations of every established religion, singling out the Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan traditions. All of them, he argued, pretended some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals, and relied upon books claimed as the revealed word of God. But, Paine protested, revelation, when applied to religion, could only be something communicated immediately from God to man. Anything else is hearsay, or hearsay upon hearsay, that we are not obliged to believe. 

In the present climate of sensitivity surrounding criticism of Islam, it is particularly apt that Paine, as well as laying about the contrivance of the Christian tradition, was forthright in expressing his view of the origin of the Muslim faith: 

When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes too near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second-hand authority as the former [the commandments of Moses]. I did not see the angel myself, and, therefore, I have a right not to believe it’.

Yet to my mind, Paine did not go far enough. Impeccably fair, he asserted that everyone has a right to their own opinion, however different that opinion might be to one’s own, and that the most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. Well my reason tells me that even what is perceived as immediate, firs- hand revelation is not to be trusted. And that if there is no God, then there is no immaculate, divine revelation. Which brings me back to Richard Dawkins.