Benjamin Franklin's enlightenment deism: Benjamin Franklin early-on adapted a creed that would last the rest of his life: a virtuous, morally fortified, and pragmatic version of deism. He fit squarely into the tradition--indeed, was the first great American exemplar of the Enlightenment and its Age of Reason.(Readings In Science And Religion) From: Skeptical Inquirer | Date: March 1, 2004| Author: Isaacson, Walter | COPYRIGHT 2004 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

When we last took Benjamin Franklin's spiritual pulse in London, he had written his ill-conceived "Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity," which attacked the idea of free will and much of Calvinist theology, and then he had repudiated the pamphlet as an embarrassing "erratum." That left him in a religious quandary. He no longer believed in the received dogmas of his Puritan upbringing, which taught that man could achieve salvation only through God's grace rather than through good w...