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Gods Role In The 17th Century Religion Essay

发布时间:2017-04-22
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God's role in the 17th century had prominent similarities and especially prominent differences between the Puritans and the Deist's such as Benjamin Franklin. Each religions different view on God characterized the way they defined the life they lived, the choices they made, why they lived the way they did and who had control over their destiny. The Puritans viewed him as a very irate man while the Deist's saw him as an understanding man. Both religions understood how powerful a man he was.

Puritans lived by the aspect that they lived to obey a higher power, in their case the higher power being either a governor or God himself. Life is defined as the existence of an individual human being or animal. The Puritans existed to obey God. God gave leaders the ability to lead the people through God's laws to the best of their ability (Winthrop, 1). Winthrop believed that civil liberty was very important in daily doings. He believed it was defined by the characteristics of being only good, just and honest (Winthrop, 1). This liberty is described as being able to subject to authority (Winthrop, 1). He described women as having the ability to chose their husband but once chosen she is to serve him as her lord. Winthrop portrayed this as women benefitting from this process. A woman picking her husband and submitting her liberty in a way can be compared to Puritans choosing to follow their Christian God and submitting their liberty to him. Women gave their men the power just as the Puritans gave theirs to God. Winthrop illustrates this as a cheerful process and done without second thought (Winthrop, 2). Franklin being completely different than Puritans was a Deist. During the 18th century the Enlightenment began. Franklin was a part of this and compared religion with reason, science and progress. He thought the Bible was based on fables partly probably because of his reasoning through the stories and believing that it was not scientifically possible for some of those stories to be true. Franklin did believe in a God and that God was the higher power. He believed he was all-wise, all-good and all-powerful and that nothing in the Universe acted against him because Evil did not exist. (Franklin, 26). Both religions believed that God allows evil doings to take place for a specific purpose and that whether it being the Christian God for Puritans or a god for Deists, they both believed that he was a man full of purpose and reasoning and was there to lead you on a respectable path in life.

Deists like Franklin believed they could improve themselves and possibly even mankind as a whole. Unlike Puritans, Deists did not get this understanding of moral perfection from the Bible. Franklin got this need for moral perfection from himself (Franklin, 32). He created a list called the "Virtues" which gave advice on how to obtain moral perfection or at least to better ones self. His last Virtue is Humility. His description of this is to "Imitate Jesus and Socrates" (Franklin, 33). By Franklin writing this, it explains that he did believe in a higher power but also believed in earthly role models along with spiritual role models. Both role models were figures who sought to understand reasoning and errors with explanations. Franklin believed that Temperance was the most important for reason of that it cleared the head, which allowed unrelenting appeal of previous habits (Franklin 33). Franklin's chart is yet another example of him attempting to better himself (Franklin, 34). It was a systematic approach that displayed scientific characteristics while it also displayed goals of wanting to better him, which showed progression over time. Science and progress were among the two descriptions of the Enlightenment that Franklin lived in. Another example of his need to improve mankind was his inventions such as the bifocals and the stove (Franklin, 41). The Deists lived by the sole purpose of wanting to better ones self.

The Puritans defined their choices in life by taking references from the Bible and choosing the path that God would want them to take. Puritans lived their life through the Bible and God's desires. Every time Mary Rowlandson was confronted with a hardship she sought out the Bible. Reading passages comforted her in knowing that God had a purpose for all his doings. When an Indian gave her a Bible she progressively read to chapter 3, where she soon learned that God promised mercy if you repented to him and asked for guidance (Rowlandson, 17). When the Indians publically humiliated the pregnant woman, Rowlandson prayed to God. She looked to God for answers. When evil doings were silent she became uncertain that God still remembered her. When bad events occurred such as her being taken captive, she knew God was looking down on her. God punished those who did not obey his rules, which the Puritans lived by. When John Dane skipped church one Sunday a wasp stung him. He soon put reasoning to his pain. He thought God was punishing him (Dane, 4). The Puritans saw their God as an irate man with no exceptions while the Deists saw theirs as an understanding figure who believed that mankind was capable of good.

The Puritans and Deists believed in two different purposes of why God created them. The Puritans contemplation was that man could not better oneself in order to please God. People were seen as natural sinners and were incapable of doing anything but sin. "Your best duties are tainted, poisoned, and mingled with some sin, and therefore are most odious in the eyes of a holy God." (Wigglesworth, 4). No matter how well man behaved during life or how well man tried to prove goodness, man was more than likely going to hell after death. Puritans believed that you could not change your afterlife destination during your earthly existence. Man's afterlife destination was already decided for you once you were born and God was the one who determined this fate.

Deists on the other hand believed that mankind was fully capable of good and fully competent of fulfilling God's wishes without being so harshly judged by Him. Franklin wrote that if man were limited to his actions, being able to only do what God wanted them to do, then there would be no such thing as liberty (Franklin, 27). This proves that deists believed that God wanted man to make mistakes. He wanted man to learn from those mistakes and attempt to make oneself a better man. They thought experience was important in the concept of learning traits based on decency. Franklin explains that the soul is inexistent until it feels that first experience of pain. He quotes that our pain is what cause our desires and that pleasures major factor is pain and only through pain is it when we experience our pleasures (Franklin, 27). The amount of pain is equal to the amount of pleasure and that there is no greater pleasure than afterlife in Heaven. Heaven's pleasure will overcome our earthly existence's pain (Franklin, 28). Franklin was a man who wanted to help others improve while also wanting to improve himself. He formed a group "JUNTO" which was based on attempting to increase the knowledge of the participants by reading and writing (Franklin, 30). He also structured the first subscription to a library, allowing many to read which helped mankind become closer to moral perfection by increasing their knowledge (Franklin, 31). He also exposed his want of reaching moral perfection by producing a newspaper to the public. This newspaper shared topics to the public explaining that a man can not call himself a man of sense until his practice of virtue became a pattern (Franklin, 37). The Deists lived by the sole purpose of wanting to better ones self.

Deists and Puritans believed in two different concepts of afterlife. Puritans believed that once you were born, your future was already decided for you. God had already chosen if you were going to Heaven or Hell. They believed in predestination. Very few deserved to be saved from hell (Wigglesworth, 4). Man was full of sin, which made him not worthy of being saved. Not even the mentally retarded were spared from this damnation. They believed that if they were unable to understand the concept of good, then they were not be able to actually produce goodness. Babies also would go to hell, although they would get the least punishable room (Wigglesworth, 4). They believed that God was very unsympathetic on the deciding factors of where man would be destined to after death. Deists on the other hand believed in an afterlife better than hell. They believed that one could prove themselves to God that they were worthy of such a pleasurable afterlife.

Everyday, whether it being a man living through his religion of Deism or Puritanism, man tried to better one self in the light of God. Even though Puritans were predestined they still wanted to fulfill God's goals for them because they feared the day that God would not remember them. Puritans such as Mary Rowlandson became very weary when God was not acting upon them or around their surrounding environment. They feared that God had forgotten them. That is why every time a horrific incident occurred, one was thankful that God was paying attention to him. It seems though that the Deists tried to make themselves in God's image a little differently than did the Puritans. It seemed that the Deists were more practical in living for God. They did not necessarily fear when God was not showing himself to them, but instead they tried to better themselves for when God did show. They were very practical in the way that they tried to be seen in God's light. Deists such as Franklin improved themselves in areas such as temperance and silence instead of constantly being devoted to reading and living through the Bible (Franklin, 33). "God made man in his own image, and man returned the compliment." Both Deists and Puritans strived towards the goal of returning the compliment to God.

Both types of religion understood God's progressive, ageless love towards mankind. God was heavily present in both types of religion whether it was through guiding, learning's, consequences heavily enforced upon or throughout painful events. Deists and Puritans both understood his eternal power and knew He would never fail them, even when they thought he had left them alone. Both religions understood how great and mighty God was.

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