What are your views of Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"?

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More specifically, does the Bible forbid rule by kings completely or only kings that become a substitute for the Lord? Much thanks:)
 
I don’t think the bible rejects monarchy, it just warns against it. In fact, Israel was ruled by many kings.

I think Thomas Paine was 100 percent correct on something things, and totally wrong on the other things.
 
Now I wish I had finished that book when I started it. I either didn’t get to Paine’s argument from the Bible or I’ve forgotten it.

I have read the Bible however, and I can’t think of anything against monarchy. There is the time the Jews demanded a king, Samuel warned them against it, and God saw it as a rejection of Him as their king, but that was a unique situation for a very unique nation, and the legitimacy of Saul and later the Davidic kings is quite clear afterwards.

In the New Testament the crowd of Jews (sadly I must give the standard clarification: not all Jews, just this particular crowd) rejected Jesus with the cry “we have no king but Caesar”, but again this was a unique situation. Caesar was a foreign ruler (not a king, incidentally; Rome professed to be a republic right to the end) who these Jews, despite hating him and heading towards rebellion against him, were accepting in place of their rightful king, a king who finally brought together both strains if you will of the Israelite kingship- the kingship of God and the Davidic kingship. Thus there are several layers of irony here that don’t apply to other situations.

Throughout the Middle Ages and early modern times the Church supported loyalty to one’s king. St. Thomas More, whom the Church set before us as a model of sanctity in the 20th century, died with a profession of loyalty to his king on his lips. I think it’s safe to say that monarchy is, at the very least, one legitimate option as a form of government. Christ is indeed our King, but there can be lesser kings below Him.
 
Thomas Paine uses what the Lord told Samuel and then says:

“That the Almighty hath here entered His protest against government by kings is true, or the Scripture is false.”

It’s really very American. He also compares the British king to the pope and says that it’s time to throw off the yoke. Of course the Pope is the chancellor, not the king so it’s a flawed argument - but very American. The unsuspecting can be easily swayed by it.
 
josephback said:
Thomas Paine uses what the Lord told Samuel and then says:

“That the Almighty hath here entered His protest against government by kings is true, or the Scripture is false.”

It’s really very American. He also compares the British king to the pope and says that it’s time to throw off the yoke. Of course the Pope is the chancellor, not the king so it’s a flawed argument - but very American. The unsuspecting can be easily swayed by it.
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Funny thing is Paine wasn’t American. He was from England.
 
josephback said:
Ok, he was a recently transplanted American;) But Americans aren’t really into kings.
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Some of us are. Not many of course. Personally, I consider the president my king, under whatever other name.

I don’t think we should link national identity to a particular form of government, however tempting this may be in the case of us Americans because of the short history of our nation. Americans would still be American even if we had and embraced a king, just like the French are still French whether they happen to have a king or a president at the moment.
 
If we take the following words of Thomas Aquinas, we can see that he and Thomas Paine at least agree on general principles. Aquinas saw the need for the mixed elements of monarchy (the Presidency), the aristocracy (the Senate) and the people (House of Representatives) all elected by the people, as the best form of government.

“One of the principal things to be considered,” he wrote, “with regard to the good establishment of princes [rulers] is that all should have some part in the government; for in this way peace is preserved amongst the people, and all are pleased with such a disposition of things and maintain it. The next thing to be considered is the form of government, of which there are principally two kinds: a Kingdom, in which one rules, and an Aristocracy, in which a few exercise the authority. The best form is that in which one rules over all, and under him there are others having authority, but the government pertains to all, because those who exercise authority can be chosen from all and are chosen by all. . . . Hence the best government is a mixture of a Kingdom, of Aristocracy and of Democracy, i.e., of the power of the people, inasmuch as the rulers can be chosen from the people, and the election of the rulers belongs to the people.”
 
Charlemagne_II said:
If we take the following words of Thomas Aquinas, we can see that he and Thomas Paine at least agree on general principles. Aquinas saw the need for the mixed elements of monarchy (the Presidency), the aristocracy (the Senate) and the people (House of Representatives) all elected by the people, as the best form of government.

“One of the principal things to be considered,” he wrote, “with regard to the good establishment of princes [rulers] is that all should have some part in the government; for in this way peace is preserved amongst the people, and all are pleased with such a disposition of things and maintain it. The next thing to be considered is the form of government, of which there are principally two kinds: a Kingdom, in which one rules, and an Aristocracy, in which a few exercise the authority. The best form is that in which one rules over all, and under him there are others having authority, but the government pertains to all, because those who exercise authority can be chosen from all and are chosen by all. . . . Hence the best government is a mixture of a Kingdom, of Aristocracy and of Democracy, i.e., of the power of the people, inasmuch as the rulers can be chosen from the people, and the election of the rulers belongs to the people.”
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That’s a cool but surprising quote. Where is it from?
 
I think Thomas Paine’s common sense is not understood clearly. In our philosophy class, we had a poor understanding of Paine’s notion of common sense, as if it were just intuition. I’ve also read a book by Immanuel Kant (forgot the specific book) wherein he obviously misunderstood Paine’s notion of “common” as something more of like a trend rather than understanding things as they are in themselves since they are obvious.
 
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