The Puritan and Rationalism beliefs are two major influences on today’s modern culture. Even though both had a goal of seeking security and safekeeping, both viewed the world with major differences. Puritans focused on almost everything being related to
God and the bible, nothing else. Puritans believed that the bible was the source of understanding life and that normal everyday people could not understand God’s message alone. Puritans strongly believed that God was involved with the daily actions and was in control of the worlds operations as if you were almost like a puppet. The world was in control through self examination in the form of diaries and histories. God’s messages can be discovered. The values of rationalism were almost opposite of
Puritans. People find the truth by using reason rather than relying on the past or religion. God created the universe but doesn’t have anything to do with daily operations.
The world operates on God’s rules and through reason people can discover those rules.
People are good and can be perfectible, their purpose is to experience happiness and self fullfillment. Through analyzing Jonathan Edward’s sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and “Franklin’s Autobiography” we can see the different beliefs between
Puritans and Rationalists. Unlike Puritans, Rationalists believed that people were good and had the ability to strive towards being perfect. This was shown in Franklin’s, “The AutoBiography” when he
