Essay On Benjamin Franklin's Beliefs

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Belief in God has everything to do with trusting his Holy Word. Nothing is wrong with trusting the facts and words of the world, but when this is the only truth we accept, the belief is flawed. Well educated and good natured, Benjamin Franklin attended school through his childhood years and is still known today for his book smarts. Growing up, he was brought up in a Puritan household. Puritans wanted to “purify” the church and filter out the good and bad beliefs or ideas. To imitate Christ and seek righteousness where beliefs unto which he was raised.
The point at which Benjamin decided to discontinue in the beliefs that he was raised in is neither clear nor certain, but one thing is for sure, later in life, he became a Deist. He believed that there was a God who created the heavens and the earth but doesn’t govern the world or the people in it. “Though I seldom attended any public worship, I had still an opinion of its propriety and of its utility when rightly conducted, and I regularly paid my annual subscription for the support of the only Presbyterian minister or meeting we had in Philadelphia” (70). Church and worship were looked at as a routine or a chance for others to look favorable on him. When the preacher taught from Philippians 4:8, Ben was greatly offended that the preacher did not point out more moral flaws in the way the people were living. His views on scripture were more about moral adjustments and perfection that sinful men in need of a Savior. It is easy to make excuses for Franklin and say, “Because he was a scientific man, he just believed in scientific facts and scientific truths,” but in reality, we all face the decision to believe in the ways of the world or walk by faith in Jesus Christ. Constantly learning from books either for politics or science, it probably came as a second nature to take scientific fact as truth and faith as false. Benjamin chose to trust more of what was in front of him that take a step back and acknowledge that the God of the universe loves him and sent a mediator on behalf of him. Acknowledging that man is not morally perfect was probably one step that Benjamin took in the right direction, but he never put God as the reasoning behind his life. “It was about this time I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at anytime, and to conquer all that either natural inclination. Custom, or company might lead me into” (71). His goal was “moral perfection,” but later in the text, he himself even states that this goal was harder than what he originally thought it would
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The thirteenth virtue was “Humility –Imitate Jesus and Socrates.” Even he could acknowledge that we are to imitate Jesus and walk as he walked, but he could not accept the fact that Jesus is God in human form. Socrates believed that we should die in what we believe in. Always ask another question. If you are looking for an answer, ask another question to find the previous answer. This is possibly how Benjamin Franklin would have tied humility and Socrates into the same sentence. Don’t think yourself a “know-it-all” but rather know by

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