One and the Same: Benjamin Franklin and Pope John Paul II
Society during the Early American Republic and today has its share or differences, but fundamentally we still face the same challenges. The United States and the western world in general, have had to balance secularism and deism within their own culture to equalize the share of influence they have over public policy. Benjamin Franklin knew this when he advocated that morals and virtue could be practiced without being a member of any organized religion. We see this centuries later when Pope John Paul II emphasized how important family was in the overall good of society. This paper will examine that even though both of these men have fundamental differences relating to organized religion, they believe that virtue and spirituality are divine and therefore trump any man-made convention.
Benjamin Franklin grew up in a time when there was a wave of secularism across the British colonies. During this same period, there was a common convention sweeping Europe which mandated that every subject’s faith would be that of the ruler. This meant that if the King of France was Catholic, every French citizen was therefore Roman Catholic. If the King of England was Protestant, every English subject would therefore be Protestant. This was one of the principle ideas which encouraged the spread of deism throughout Europe and later the British colonies.
Franklin was a practicing deist and it strongly influenced his philosophy. He was a product of the Enlightenment and believed that virtue can be obtained by practicing high moral standards rather than relying on an orthodox church. This made Franklin a leading proponent in the idea of anticlericalism during the later part of the Eighteenth Century. He and others with similar views were afraid that England would send over a Bishop of the Anglican Church to oversee the spiritual guidance of the Colonies. By this time, the Colonists were accustomed to praying directly to their Creator without the intermediary of the Clergy. This was the fundamental drive behind the thought of most deists.
Franklin was unique in his thought, however, in that he still correlated religion with a moral lifestyle. Deists carried a very vague sense of God and believed that there was some sort of higher power in control, but it was really more of an abstract presence rather than an empirical form. Franklin still asserted his beliefs that virtue and morality was separate from religion, but did recognize that if religion were to disappear from society, that virtue and morality would lessen as well.
Franklin would exercise his philosophy in an attempt to fuel revolution with the other founding fathers. Just prior to independence there was a very diverse population of colonists. Franklin appealed to the large Protestant population to rally around the concept of liberty and unification of the colonies. Protestants were familiar with rebelling against authority. It was in their culture at the time to despise any sort of hierarchy which weakened the autonomy of the individual. He would carry these same principles that were practiced in the religious sense and adapt them for political gain.
Franklin knew how important morality and virtue was in American society. During the period of Independence he and his fellow delegates were actively reliant upon the Supreme Being that they worshipped, without citing one specific deity of a religion. It was only later during the Constitutional Convention that many of the delegates wanted to weaken the presence of God and religion in American society. Franklin, still a deist, saw the implications that a lack of religion would have on the moral well-being of the blooming nation. He reminded the Convention of the all-powerful ally that they had once relied upon and asked if they felt that they could continue without that divine guidance.
Benjamin Franklin was well-known as being a supporter of all religions. This progressive stance made him appealing to the established Churches of the western world. He was seen as being an enlightened man in an un-enlightened world. Prior to Benjamin Franklin, the Colonies were not seen as being enlightened or as having a philosophy of their own. Franklin used his eclectic influence as a diplomat from various European countries to play upon his newfound celebrity by legitimizing the ambitions from the British Colonies.
Franklin was the leading advocate of justice and human rights. In his autobiography, Franklin outlines several virtues in which he emphasizes justice. His efforts mainly consisted of the pursuit of liberty and rebellion against the tyrannical King of England. Later in his life once independence was established and the American republic was up and running he focused his influenced as one of the nation’s most prominent abolitionists. In a letter he wrote in 1789, Franklin called slavery “an atrocious debasement of human nature.” His philosophic influence would later be revived at a time when it would be needed the most, in the twentieth century.
Two hundred years after Benjamin Franklin, Pope John Paul II would emerge as an unlikely advocate to the enlightenment principles of the past. Pope John Paul II was a product of the Second Vatican Council. This assembly recognized the changing times and noticed that if the Church was to survive, they would need to adapt as well. Pope John Paul was present at this event and assumed a new philosophy composed of family value and genuine morality.
He recognized and understood modernity and how it would relate to the spiritual well-being of his constituents. Pope John Paul II would emerge as one of the leading advocates of human rights in the twentieth century, largely because he lived through the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Poland during WWII. He would make this his primary objective during his religious career and during his reign as Pope. During this time, he would speak about the importance of equality and freedom as it relates to modern society.
His philosophy would circle around the need for greater acceptance and toleration between interfaith relations. He acknowledged the idea that we all worship the same deity, just in different ways. His first action in this effort was during the Second Vatican and it encompassed a worldwide appeal to Catholics to stop the oppression of Jews. This included verbal and physical acts, as well as the way they are portrayed in the media. Over the course of his papacy, he would travel all over the world and visit with leaders of various faiths and talk about the rights of the person.
The key idea in Pope John Paul II’s message for human rights is that all people are created in God’s image and that human beings should be treated as such, not as objects. In addition to human rights, he was a leading figure in support for the rights of nations. In his 1995 address to the United Nations General Assembly, he argues that because of artificial divisions during the Cold War, human beings were under the control of foreign powers that were unfamiliar with the necessities of their local demographic. He cited the document that the United Nations passed in 1948 relating to the list of Human Rights that every human being had. Pope John Paul argued that these rights could be practiced on a larger scale and benefit the health of nations.
He warns against the dangers of utilitarianism. This, he says, is when morality is described as something beneficial to a certain group, not necessarily something which is good. Because of this idea, morality takes on a false sense of importance and loses its appeal to those seeking a virtuous society. Morality becomes a political tool to sway public opinion and not as an ideal to which all people should try to obtain.
One of his most revolutionary ideas is that he follows in the path of enlightenment thinkers and reinforces the notion that there is a difference between spirituality and religion. He argues that a person who attends church often might not necessarily be a good and virtuous person. He continues to reassert the duty of spiritual guidance to the individual. Unlike his predecessors, he makes it known in his philosophy that there is a direct connection between the person and God, and that relationship can thrive without an intermediary. In a letter that he wrote in March of 1985, Pope John Paul II stated that only God could be the fundamental source of everything good. This was essentially a deist statement, but now, hundreds of years later; this is simply a well accepted progressive stance.
The most influential effort by Pope John Paul II during his papacy was the definition of faith. This word had an elastic quality in that nearly everyone had a different interpretation as to what it meant. Pope John Paul II reasserted the moral authority of the Papacy by stating that faith was the teachings of Christianity which were explained by the Church. This practice standardized the very backbone that morality and virtue were structured around. He continues to explain that faith, pertaining to Catholics, is both intellectual and emotional.
He incorporates many enlightenment ideas into his defense of faith, as it relates to reason. In his encyclical Fides et Ratio, he explains that without reason, faith can be a dangerous attribute. He continues to explain that reason can, and often is subjective. He also explains that it can be influenced by environmental factors. He saw this first hand in Nazi occupied Europe, when the conscience of millions was altered by the common acceptance of brutality.
Pope John Paul II brought a more realistic philosophy to the twentieth century which strengthened the rights of many, both the individual and the nation. He recognized the importance of diversity and acknowledged the inner conflict we all have regarding the particular and universal factors that compose our identity. He defined truth as a relation between truth and reason which, depending on your individual identity, would determine the person’s sense of truth, which would usually change from culture to culture. All of these ideas were needed at a time when modernity carried a negative connotation, but because of Pope John Paul’s ideas, we were able to see and understand the source of good acts in today’s world.
Both of these men were confronted with a rising secular society with a larger influence than earlier secular efforts. During the time of Benjamin Franklin, there was a looming fear of a godless nation. This was a result of the first amendment of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of religion to all Americans. However, this was often interpreted as a need for God to absent from all social and political conventions.
As with most deists, Pope John Paul II saw that there was very little to contrast the various groups who followed Christianity. He, and Franklin, were active participants in outreach campaigns which bridged the gap between established Christian churches and smaller congregational parishes. Both men knew that the only difference was that of doctrine. Both men were influenced largely by political conventions which occurred during their lifetime. With Benjamin Franklin, he was living in the Colonies after the end of the Seven Years War. A result of the newly conquered land was the Quebec Act of 1774. Among all the provisions which established governing practices, there was a clause which made the pledge of allegiance for that area generic in theology. This meant that one would not have to swear allegiance to a Protestant religion in order to be loyal to their government. It also allowed Catholics to practice their faith freely. Pope John Paul II was present at a similar event which encouraged religious toleration, and that was the well-known Second Vatican Council.
Both of these men were not only advocates of human rights, they were custodians of human rights. They went about this in a unique way, by appealing to the spirituality of the masses. Benjamin Franklin used the wide influence of Protestant ministers, who regularly preached the notion of liberty and justice. He would also later correlate rebellion to a tyrannical king to being obedient to God. Pope John Paul II used his moral authority to establish rights for all people, regardless of their nationality, as well as rights for the nation itself.
Although Pope John Paul II retains the importance and overall authority of the office of the Pope, he does emphasize that you don’t have to be a good Catholic or a good Christian to be a good person. Both men are dynamic in their persistence that good works and morality can be regularly practiced without the presence of God and Christian teachings. Both do, however, recognize that without the presence of God and religion, morality and virtue would most likely suffer and be absent from most of society. Benjamin Franklin expressed in many letters that although he didn’t find religion necessary to be a good person, he could only hope that it never disappeared from American society.
Both men saw the emerging philosophy of republicanism as an important and necessary component of modern society. Benjamin Franklin saw the need for this political idea because it was directly affecting the providence of the burgeoning nation. Pope John Paul II coupled republicanism with his drive for human rights by insisting that liberty and justice are cornerstones of modernity and that a government only exists at the consent and wellbeing of the governed. This idea paired well with his drive for human rights on the world’s stage by insisting that everyone had certain inalienable rights which cannot be voted away or repealed by a ruling government, which is largely what republicanism encompasses.
In a way, both of these men needed to make certain concessions to secularism in order to adapt with the contemporary views and philosophy. Benjamin Franklin was founding a nation with strong religious ties to Europe and many would love nothing more than to establish a theocracy. Franklin, however, recognized the need for religious freedom, largely because he viewed most religions as the same. Pope John Paul II was rather progressive in his ideas as a result of the Second Vatican Council, but came under fire from critics as not being progressive enough. Yet in a way, the acts of Benjamin Franklin formed a series of events which would later be experienced by Pope John Paul II, mainly the difference between religious freedom and religious absence in the United States.
Normally one would compare the leading of the most established Church in the world with a man who viewed all religions as the same. The reason we see this comparisons is that in the twentieth century, as a reaction to grave injustices and atheistic proliferation, the definition of “traditional” carries a different meaning. Both men formed their philosophy based on what was needed during their own experiences with modernity. Both of these men had direct experiences with oppression and both assumed a duty to help on the global level to enlighten oppressive governments and advocate rights for all people. Both of these men used Christian principles to reinforce their message, which during both periods, proved to be largely successful.
Benjamin Franklin grew up in a time when there was a wave of secularism across the British colonies. During this same period, there was a common convention sweeping Europe which mandated that every subject’s faith would be that of the ruler. This meant that if the King of France was Catholic, every French citizen was therefore Roman Catholic. If the King of England was Protestant, every English subject would therefore be Protestant. This was one of the principle ideas which encouraged the spread of deism throughout Europe and later the British colonies.
Franklin was a practicing deist and it strongly influenced his philosophy. He was a product of the Enlightenment and believed that virtue can be obtained by practicing high moral standards rather than relying on an orthodox church. This made Franklin a leading proponent in the idea of anticlericalism during the later part of the Eighteenth Century. He and others with similar views were afraid that England would send over a Bishop of the Anglican Church to oversee the spiritual guidance of the Colonies. By this time, the Colonists were accustomed to praying directly to their Creator without the intermediary of the Clergy. This was the fundamental drive behind the thought of most deists.
Franklin was unique in his thought, however, in that he still correlated religion with a moral lifestyle. Deists carried a very vague sense of God and believed that there was some sort of higher power in control, but it was really more of an abstract presence rather than an empirical form. Franklin still asserted his beliefs that virtue and morality was separate from religion, but did recognize that if religion were to disappear from society, that virtue and morality would lessen as well.
Franklin would exercise his philosophy in an attempt to fuel revolution with the other founding fathers. Just prior to independence there was a very diverse population of colonists. Franklin appealed to the large Protestant population to rally around the concept of liberty and unification of the colonies. Protestants were familiar with rebelling against authority. It was in their culture at the time to despise any sort of hierarchy which weakened the autonomy of the individual. He would carry these same principles that were practiced in the religious sense and adapt them for political gain.
Franklin knew how important morality and virtue was in American society. During the period of Independence he and his fellow delegates were actively reliant upon the Supreme Being that they worshipped, without citing one specific deity of a religion. It was only later during the Constitutional Convention that many of the delegates wanted to weaken the presence of God and religion in American society. Franklin, still a deist, saw the implications that a lack of religion would have on the moral well-being of the blooming nation. He reminded the Convention of the all-powerful ally that they had once relied upon and asked if they felt that they could continue without that divine guidance.
Benjamin Franklin was well-known as being a supporter of all religions. This progressive stance made him appealing to the established Churches of the western world. He was seen as being an enlightened man in an un-enlightened world. Prior to Benjamin Franklin, the Colonies were not seen as being enlightened or as having a philosophy of their own. Franklin used his eclectic influence as a diplomat from various European countries to play upon his newfound celebrity by legitimizing the ambitions from the British Colonies.
Franklin was the leading advocate of justice and human rights. In his autobiography, Franklin outlines several virtues in which he emphasizes justice. His efforts mainly consisted of the pursuit of liberty and rebellion against the tyrannical King of England. Later in his life once independence was established and the American republic was up and running he focused his influenced as one of the nation’s most prominent abolitionists. In a letter he wrote in 1789, Franklin called slavery “an atrocious debasement of human nature.” His philosophic influence would later be revived at a time when it would be needed the most, in the twentieth century.
Two hundred years after Benjamin Franklin, Pope John Paul II would emerge as an unlikely advocate to the enlightenment principles of the past. Pope John Paul II was a product of the Second Vatican Council. This assembly recognized the changing times and noticed that if the Church was to survive, they would need to adapt as well. Pope John Paul was present at this event and assumed a new philosophy composed of family value and genuine morality.
He recognized and understood modernity and how it would relate to the spiritual well-being of his constituents. Pope John Paul II would emerge as one of the leading advocates of human rights in the twentieth century, largely because he lived through the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Poland during WWII. He would make this his primary objective during his religious career and during his reign as Pope. During this time, he would speak about the importance of equality and freedom as it relates to modern society.
His philosophy would circle around the need for greater acceptance and toleration between interfaith relations. He acknowledged the idea that we all worship the same deity, just in different ways. His first action in this effort was during the Second Vatican and it encompassed a worldwide appeal to Catholics to stop the oppression of Jews. This included verbal and physical acts, as well as the way they are portrayed in the media. Over the course of his papacy, he would travel all over the world and visit with leaders of various faiths and talk about the rights of the person.
The key idea in Pope John Paul II’s message for human rights is that all people are created in God’s image and that human beings should be treated as such, not as objects. In addition to human rights, he was a leading figure in support for the rights of nations. In his 1995 address to the United Nations General Assembly, he argues that because of artificial divisions during the Cold War, human beings were under the control of foreign powers that were unfamiliar with the necessities of their local demographic. He cited the document that the United Nations passed in 1948 relating to the list of Human Rights that every human being had. Pope John Paul argued that these rights could be practiced on a larger scale and benefit the health of nations.
He warns against the dangers of utilitarianism. This, he says, is when morality is described as something beneficial to a certain group, not necessarily something which is good. Because of this idea, morality takes on a false sense of importance and loses its appeal to those seeking a virtuous society. Morality becomes a political tool to sway public opinion and not as an ideal to which all people should try to obtain.
One of his most revolutionary ideas is that he follows in the path of enlightenment thinkers and reinforces the notion that there is a difference between spirituality and religion. He argues that a person who attends church often might not necessarily be a good and virtuous person. He continues to reassert the duty of spiritual guidance to the individual. Unlike his predecessors, he makes it known in his philosophy that there is a direct connection between the person and God, and that relationship can thrive without an intermediary. In a letter that he wrote in March of 1985, Pope John Paul II stated that only God could be the fundamental source of everything good. This was essentially a deist statement, but now, hundreds of years later; this is simply a well accepted progressive stance.
The most influential effort by Pope John Paul II during his papacy was the definition of faith. This word had an elastic quality in that nearly everyone had a different interpretation as to what it meant. Pope John Paul II reasserted the moral authority of the Papacy by stating that faith was the teachings of Christianity which were explained by the Church. This practice standardized the very backbone that morality and virtue were structured around. He continues to explain that faith, pertaining to Catholics, is both intellectual and emotional.
He incorporates many enlightenment ideas into his defense of faith, as it relates to reason. In his encyclical Fides et Ratio, he explains that without reason, faith can be a dangerous attribute. He continues to explain that reason can, and often is subjective. He also explains that it can be influenced by environmental factors. He saw this first hand in Nazi occupied Europe, when the conscience of millions was altered by the common acceptance of brutality.
Pope John Paul II brought a more realistic philosophy to the twentieth century which strengthened the rights of many, both the individual and the nation. He recognized the importance of diversity and acknowledged the inner conflict we all have regarding the particular and universal factors that compose our identity. He defined truth as a relation between truth and reason which, depending on your individual identity, would determine the person’s sense of truth, which would usually change from culture to culture. All of these ideas were needed at a time when modernity carried a negative connotation, but because of Pope John Paul’s ideas, we were able to see and understand the source of good acts in today’s world.
Both of these men were confronted with a rising secular society with a larger influence than earlier secular efforts. During the time of Benjamin Franklin, there was a looming fear of a godless nation. This was a result of the first amendment of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of religion to all Americans. However, this was often interpreted as a need for God to absent from all social and political conventions.
As with most deists, Pope John Paul II saw that there was very little to contrast the various groups who followed Christianity. He, and Franklin, were active participants in outreach campaigns which bridged the gap between established Christian churches and smaller congregational parishes. Both men knew that the only difference was that of doctrine. Both men were influenced largely by political conventions which occurred during their lifetime. With Benjamin Franklin, he was living in the Colonies after the end of the Seven Years War. A result of the newly conquered land was the Quebec Act of 1774. Among all the provisions which established governing practices, there was a clause which made the pledge of allegiance for that area generic in theology. This meant that one would not have to swear allegiance to a Protestant religion in order to be loyal to their government. It also allowed Catholics to practice their faith freely. Pope John Paul II was present at a similar event which encouraged religious toleration, and that was the well-known Second Vatican Council.
Both of these men were not only advocates of human rights, they were custodians of human rights. They went about this in a unique way, by appealing to the spirituality of the masses. Benjamin Franklin used the wide influence of Protestant ministers, who regularly preached the notion of liberty and justice. He would also later correlate rebellion to a tyrannical king to being obedient to God. Pope John Paul II used his moral authority to establish rights for all people, regardless of their nationality, as well as rights for the nation itself.
Although Pope John Paul II retains the importance and overall authority of the office of the Pope, he does emphasize that you don’t have to be a good Catholic or a good Christian to be a good person. Both men are dynamic in their persistence that good works and morality can be regularly practiced without the presence of God and Christian teachings. Both do, however, recognize that without the presence of God and religion, morality and virtue would most likely suffer and be absent from most of society. Benjamin Franklin expressed in many letters that although he didn’t find religion necessary to be a good person, he could only hope that it never disappeared from American society.
Both men saw the emerging philosophy of republicanism as an important and necessary component of modern society. Benjamin Franklin saw the need for this political idea because it was directly affecting the providence of the burgeoning nation. Pope John Paul II coupled republicanism with his drive for human rights by insisting that liberty and justice are cornerstones of modernity and that a government only exists at the consent and wellbeing of the governed. This idea paired well with his drive for human rights on the world’s stage by insisting that everyone had certain inalienable rights which cannot be voted away or repealed by a ruling government, which is largely what republicanism encompasses.
In a way, both of these men needed to make certain concessions to secularism in order to adapt with the contemporary views and philosophy. Benjamin Franklin was founding a nation with strong religious ties to Europe and many would love nothing more than to establish a theocracy. Franklin, however, recognized the need for religious freedom, largely because he viewed most religions as the same. Pope John Paul II was rather progressive in his ideas as a result of the Second Vatican Council, but came under fire from critics as not being progressive enough. Yet in a way, the acts of Benjamin Franklin formed a series of events which would later be experienced by Pope John Paul II, mainly the difference between religious freedom and religious absence in the United States.
Normally one would compare the leading of the most established Church in the world with a man who viewed all religions as the same. The reason we see this comparisons is that in the twentieth century, as a reaction to grave injustices and atheistic proliferation, the definition of “traditional” carries a different meaning. Both men formed their philosophy based on what was needed during their own experiences with modernity. Both of these men had direct experiences with oppression and both assumed a duty to help on the global level to enlighten oppressive governments and advocate rights for all people. Both of these men used Christian principles to reinforce their message, which during both periods, proved to be largely successful.
posted by Shawn Niemann | 10:08 AM
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