Concerning the nature of heaven, intellectualists followed Aristotle's lead by seeing the final state of happiness as a state of contemplation. Voluntarism, by contrast, maintains that final happiness is an activity, specifically that of love. The conceptions of theology itself were polarized between these two views. According to intellectualism, theology should be an essentiall speculative science; according to voluntarism, it is a practical science aimed at controlling life, but not necessarily aimed at comprehending philosophic truth. According to intellectualism, choices of the will result from that which the intellect recognizes as good; the will itself is determined. For voluntarism, by contrast, it is the will which determines which objects are good, and the will itself is indetermined.
According to intellectualism, choices of the will result from that which the intellect recognizes as good; the will itself is determined. For voluntarism, by contrast, it is the will which determines which objects are good, and the will itself is indetermined. Concerning the nature of heaven, intellectualists followed Aristotle's lead by seeing the final state of happiness as a state of contemplation. Voluntarism, by contrast, maintains that final happiness is an activity, specifically that of love. The conceptions of theology itself were polarized between these two views. According to intellectualism, theology should be an essentiall speculative science; according to voluntarism, it is a practical science aimed at controlling life, but not necessarily aimed at comprehending philosophic truth.
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.
The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
GEORGE WASHINGTON Treaty of Tripoli 1796
The legitimate powersof government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.
But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God.
It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Benjamin Franklin, the great sage of the colonies and then of the new republic, summarized a personal creed that almost literally reproduced [Deism's] five fundamental beliefs. The first three presidents of the United States also held Deistic convictions as is amply evidenced in their correspondence.
ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
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