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The Importance Of Benjamin Franklin's Journey To The Age Of Enlightenment

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By the eighteenth century, the once-fierce Puritan fire was facing the end of its reign, releasing its hold on the American mind in favor of the Age of Enlightenment. Rational, “enlightened” thinking blossomed during this period, which saw great changes in the way the world was perceived, as philosophers and scholars began replacing the supernatural with the secular and worldly in their theories and beliefs. This dramatic transition from the harsh Puritan beliefs to a more curious, scientifically centered mindset was spearheaded by some of the most famous names in American History. Amongst these, Benjamin Franklin stands in particular fame as one who shifted the focus of faith in American life. Endowed with a “proud and independent . . . nature”, Franklin’s obsession with accountability and responsibility for one’s own actions had a great effect on his views (Franklin 455). Turning his back on the “dry, uninteresting and unedifying” Presbyterian teachings whose “[a]im …show more content…

No longer should man cower in fear for his errors. No longer should man focus all his energy on pleasing an invisible power. Instead, the individual is encouraged to take his destiny in his own hands, live for self-improvement and self-promotion, and learn from and seek to reduce his mistakes. In the end, Franklin’s religion is founded on the hope for what man can accomplish. While the individual should never shoot for less than perfection, falling short does not result in an unredeemable end; one is not condemned to a Hell contrived by another. Instead, one will learn along the route of life and, at the finishing of life, can be comforted that though he “never arrived at the Perfection [he] had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet [he] [was] by the Endeavor made a better and happier Man than [he] otherwise should have been”

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