THOMAS PAINE
Reading Guide: “Common Sense” and The Age of Reason
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. (The Age of
Reason)
Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
1. Read the biography of Paine in your text. Briefly describe Paine’s place in
American history.
2. What were Paine’s major works? Briefly describe the purpose of each. What was
the purpose of each?
3. Characterize Paine’s writing style.
“Common Sense” (1776)
1. What genre of literature is “Common Sense”?
2. Who is his audience? What is his tone?
3. What radical solution does Paine argue for in “Common Sense”?
4. “Common Sense” reflects a shift in American political strategy from puritan
theocracy to what kind of thinking?
5. Analyze the argument in “Common Sense.” What are his argumentative
strategies?
The Age of Reason (1794-1796)
Chapter I: “The Author’s Profession of Faith”
1. What is Paine’s intention for writing The Age of Reason?
2. What is Paine’s tone (attitude towards his subject matter)?
3. Does Paine believe in God? Does Paine believe in an afterlife?
4. According to Paine, what are one’s “religious duties”?
5. How does Paine define the word “church”?
6. According to Paine, what have the national institutions of churches done to
humankind?
7. What is “infidelity”? How does Paine define “infidelity”?
8. How does Paine describe the relationship between church and state?
Chapter II: “Of Missions and Revelations”
1. What is Paine’s belief in divine revelation?
2. According to Paine, why are we not obliged to believe in revelation?
3. How does Paine view the biblical account of the Virgin birth?
4. Paine believes that Christianity grew out of what?
5. According to Paine, what will abolish the “amphibious fraud”?
Chapter XI: “Of the Theology of Christians and the True Theology
1. Explain how Paine can view Christianity as a form of atheism?
2. What is “deism”?
3. What is “natural philosophy”?
4. Explain Paine’s view that it is a “fraud of the Christian system to call the sciences
human inventions.”
5. According to Paine, what is the “true theology”?
CRITICAL THINKING
1. Do you find any fallacies (errors in reasoning) in Paine’s thinking?
2. In what way is Paine’s Common Sense” similar to Franklin’s “The Way to
Wealth.” Connect the two works.
3. What is the connection between Paine’s “Common Sense” and Thomas
Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence?