Ben Franklin

>>Franklin was a good experimental physicist (to use anachronistic
terminology) but no theologian.>\\

Walter Isaacson's recent bio of GF (Benjamin Franklin, An American Life),
is a good read -- this subject (BF's theology) is fairly well covered;
his science work is covered too -- but all too briefly. We think of BF as
a Deist -- probably an accurate term -- but one who did have a theology
of some depth -- held firmly to the afterlife and was uncomfortable with
many other deists as they expounded their ideas. Today, I judge, he would
fit politically somewhere in the Ted Kennedy camp; religiously he would
be his own man, not Unitarian, but almost so.

At one time he commented on who Christ was -- he figured that he had
insufficient expertise to come down on either side of the divinity
question -- was content to wait until the afterlife to learn the answer.
In the meantime, his way to salvation (I think he did not use that word)
was to do god deeds as that would please God the most. He was
particularly turned off by preachers who expounded on what one must
believe to the exclusion of what one should do.

I would amend your statement above to say BF was a poor theologian; he
did not take the issues seriously enough (he was busy with a few other
things). He also had a few personality flaws, which come out in the book
-- but then, we all do.!

All in all -- I admire him immensely.

Burgy
Received on Thu Mar 17 15:53:34 2005