The Reinforcement Of Authority

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The Reinforcement of Authority

Some might argue that Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Man" presents the viewpoint of a deist. Others might claim that the poem fails to exhibit Christian concepts of good and evil, especially since the poet concludes his first epistle with the seemingly unchristian claim that "WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT." Yet, Pope's arguments actually reflect a traditional Christian perspective, which can be verified by comparing his poem with New Testament teachings. Like the writers of the New Testament, particularly the apostle Paul, Pope claims that pride and envy leads man to question the justice of God, and he insists that men submit to God, remaining content with their lot in life.
First of all, the new science of Newton and the Enlightenment states, “The physical world could be understood through the ability of human reason to discern immutable mathematical laws that governed it.” In a political sense, many people claimed they had divine right and it was just accepted. So how in a bodily planet can we understand this? We must use reason to contemplate the facts. There are no mathematical laws to rule this and so we can rule this out. This would be right according to many philosophes because it didn’t violate natural laws, but not the deist.
In the presence of the social classes, the new science reinforced the idea of a “machine like universe.” The traditional ways of mankind was changed and the presence of evil was included. Men claim that God's creation is imperfect because they mistakenly believe that everything was created specifically for them. Pope admits that, "if the great end be human Happiness, then Nature deviates" (I. 1. 149-150). He does not believe, however, that God created the world solely for man's happiness. Pride persuades men to consider their present felicity the core purpose of creation. "If Man alone engross not Heav'n's high care," (I. l. 119), if his pride is not satisfied by...