Comparing Benjamin Franklin And Jonathan Edwards On Religion
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Benjamin Franklin and Jonathon Edwards on Religion
Benjamin Franklin believed in Deism while Jonathan Edwards was stoutly religious. Edwards believed strongly in God and his omniscient power. In his memoirs he says, “I thought with myself, how excellent a being that was.” In this Edwards is referring to God and how he first truly felt God’s glory. This is a stark difference from Franklin’s beliefs which centered on Deism, the belief that God stepped back from the world once He created it. They are different people in regards to religion and family life but in time period they are writing in they are remarkably similar. Benjamin Franklin grew up in a very large family that was fairly religious, they went to church on Sunday and enjoyed it. Franklin was not nearly as religious as his family, he preferred to spend Sundays reading and writing rather than listening to a very boring pastor talking about things he deemed unimportant (FIND QUOTE/CITATION). His family disapproved but did not stop him, perhaps assuming it was a phase. It was not and Franklin grew into an influential man who did not believe in God’s all encompassing influence in day to day life.…show more content… However, he did not want to, he was very religious as a child and as he grew into an adult he became, if possible, more religious. Edwards admits in his memoirs that he would often spend time reading the canticle and that it brought him a lot of peace and “inward sweetness,” (77). He has almost his own personal ‘Great Awakening’ at age 18 where he “surrender[s] to the Calvinist concept of the absolute power of God.” (76) He went to college with a very heavy influence in religion and theology. He got his AB at age 20 and ten years later became an ordained pastor at a church in Northhampton that had once been his grandfathers