Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Ben Franklin is one of those Founders most likely to be thought of as a "deist." Now, perhaps that term, in some sense, describes Franklin's creed, but not in the same sense that it describes Thomas Paine's.
At American Creation Tom Van Dyke has a good post on why Franklin was not a "deist" as that term is commonly understood. I'm going to feature a letter of Ben Franklin's where he criticizes the Bible and compare it to Thomas Paine's biblical criticism. This comparison should show the difference between Paine's deism and Franklin's theology which arguably should not be termed "deism" but something else [though it's certainly not orthodox Trinitarian Christianity].
Franklin's letter is to John Calder, Augt. 21. 1784. The context is Franklin discusses his disagreement with a clause in PA's then existing constitution which required "Members of Assembly" to declare their belief in the divine inspiration of the Bible. Franklin, as acting governor of PA, eventually saw the offending religious test removed and replaced with one that required simple belief in "God and a future state of rewards and punishments."
As you will see, in the letter Franklin complains about PA's religious test, in part, because he himself couldn't pass it. As he wrote to Calder:
I agreed with you in Sentiments concerning the Old Testament, and thought the Clause in our Constitution, which required the Members of Assembly to declare their belief that the whole of it was given by divine Inspiration, had better have been omitted....To which I may now add, that the[re are] several Things in the old Testament impossible to be given by divine Inspiration, such as the Approbation ascrib'd to the Angel of the Lord, of that abominably wicked and detestable Action of Jael the Wife of Heber the Kenite. If the rest of the Book were like that, I should rather suppose it given by Inspiration from another Quarter, and renounce the whole.By the way how goes on the Unitarian Church in Essex Street? and the honest Minister of it, is he comfortably supported?
Notice that Franklin doesn't slam the Bible in its entirely, just certain "parts" of it he sees as impossible to have been given by divine inspiration. Indeed, Franklin intimates his acceptance of at least *some* revelation by speaking of a particular "Unitarian Church" and its "honest minister" in positive terms. Those "Unitarian Churches," just beginning to gain the strength to come out of the closet and challenge "the orthodox," weren't slamming the Bible in toto the way we will see Paine doing; but they weren't proclaiming it the inerrant, infallible Word of God either. Rather, they took a more "enlightened" approach to the good book.
Now, here is the way Thomas Paine approached the Bible. From "The Age of Reason":
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.
I think in reading the two approaches, we see both Franklin and Paine disbelieved the Bible was the inerrant, infallible Word of God. However, the difference between the two is that there was enough in the Bible with which Paine disagreed that he wrote off the entire Bible, disbelieving that any of it was divinely inspired. But Franklin did not "renounce the whole" as Paine did.
Comments
Great post. I've always been a fan of Thomas Paine for his ability to state clearly and simply his position.
Franklin was eloquent, but his point seems phrased a little too gently. Of course, that's a stylistic difference, but I agree with you that Franklin seems to be a deist.
Posted by: JStein | January 16, 2009 7:14 PM
(bolding mine)Posted by: H.H. | January 16, 2009 7:26 PM
Yes, there are 3 reasons why the Deist label for Franklin is problematic:
1) He believed in an active Providential God (one who intervenes in the affairs of man);
2) He likely believed that parts of the Bible were divinely inspired;
3) He held an extremely high view of Jesus; Paine held about as high a view of Jesus as you could for a "Deist" (basically he thought Jesus was a nice guy). But Franklin said:
Posted by: Jon Rowe | January 16, 2009 7:32 PM
Paine's creed from The Age of Reason which establishes the premise he expounds upon in the rest of the book. I would argue it's worthy of our consideration so here it is:
Teddy Roosevelt referred to Paine as a "filthy little atheist". I disrespectfully disagree with the Tedster. Paine was a consistent conveyor of inconvenient truths and therefore often wore out his welcome; shame on all those people.
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 16, 2009 8:06 PM
Props on this post. I agree that Franklin was not a deist, but if I recall correctly, he wrote in his autobiography that he WAS. Confusing.
Posted by: FishyFred | January 16, 2009 9:13 PM
Fred,
See Tom Van Dyke's post above linked that clarifies the confusion w/ Franklin's autobiography.
Posted by: Jon Rowe | January 16, 2009 9:24 PM
"I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life."
I recently re-read the Age of Reason and am in the middle of the Rights of Man. I was disappointed that Paine was not a materialist, like T Jefferson.
I don't believe in any god or afterlife.
Posted by: Kevin | January 16, 2009 9:52 PM
Kevin - In all the framers defense who depended on reason rather than revelation yet still reasoned a creator interested in the affairs of man; for their time it's hard to criticize that position given the lack of empirical evidence that informed their reason relative to the explanations we now understand based on the physical evidence that explains what was still mysterious in their time.
I continue to be amazed at what they reasoned to be true given the paucity of evidence they had to work with in their day. Jefferson's rewrite of the Bible wasn't much different that what historians and theologians started understanding regarding its historical veracity late in the 19th Century.
We don't enjoy consideration of intellects like theirs' in our day when we go the voting booths, instead they reside in our universities, research centers, and tech companies. Often under-utilized given the grief they'd garner if they even considered serving in an elected capacity.
I'm hoping by the end of Obama's tenure, the technocrats he's appointing will put a big dent in that entrenched form of bigotry. Hell, Obama might even turn out to be one of them, there is some evidence to make that argument though I'll hold off for now.
Posted by: Michael Heath | January 16, 2009 10:14 PM
I read somewhere that George Washington had the men that didn't want to fight in war killed, not as some secret mafia-like move, but just out and out offed them.
Dissent = Death in George Washington's view....and hey, seems to me when George W Bush was Governor of Texas, he signed away over 300 lives of people on death-row, more than any Governor ever in the USA, and refused to allow any DNA evidence that could of let some of these folks, who were innoncent to live....much like it Guatanamo and many of the "black-sites", innocent people are tortured and killed....
WOW, what a reveliation....what is wrong with the initials GW?
Hey, isn't George Will that mean NeoCon pundit?
Ok folks this is getting scary.
NO MORE GW's PLEASE!!!
:)
Posted by: Corey Mondello | January 18, 2009 8:47 AM