Benjamin Franklin: Religion and Freedom

The paper considers Benjamin Franklin’s writings on religious matters, as well as his interaction with religious personae and institutions, on a culturological level. In this, his Autobiography (1791) is the primary source, as are three principal essays he published on the matter during his lifetime: “A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity” (1725), “Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion” (1728), and “On the Providence of God in the Government of the World” (1732). From these sources, an attempt to reconstruct Franklin’s curious approach to religion, cosmology and the concept of God is made, and the trajectory along which his opinions seem to have shifted is traced. Most importantly, it is argued that, for all the different approaches to religion Franklin exhibited throughout his lifetime, his stance on religion is in a metonymic relation with his political orientation as a Founding Father of the United States. That is, religious freedom he advocated is ostensibly a manifestation of his grander approach to freedom of any kind, which American cultural identity is based on. This freedom is also considered in relation to Franklin’s stance towards slave owning and towards Native Americans