Comparison between comparing PuritanNative American & Rationalist - Essay Example

Comparing Puritan, Native American & Rationalist Puritans forms a group of English Protestants serving as an activist movement within the Church of England in the 16th and the 17th centuries (Carpenter, 2003). On the other hand, Natives refer to the indigenous Americans, who were affected by the arrival of the Europeans in America during the 15th century. The Rationalists refers to the category of people living in the age of enlightenment, holding that reason was superior to either religion or experience as the primary source of knowledge (Bourke, 1962).

This discussion seeks to analyze the comparison of the three groups, based on their various concepts. The major comparison between Puritans, Native American & Rationalist as a matter of virtue is in regard to the value of the world. All the three groups first believed in the relevance of the world, with the Puritans holding that God created the earth and still works in it through His spiritual powers. The Rationalists believed that God created the earth and then left it for the control and use of man according to how man pleases, while the Natives hold that the earth is a cycle of life, where there is only life and death as the main concepts that rules the world (Johnston, 2003).

Therefore, the three groups are joined by that similarity that they considered the world to be an important place for man, despite the fact that they differed in aspects of beliefs, regarding who is in control of the world. Secondly, the concept of the value of law is another aspect of virtue that compares the Puritans, the Natives and the Rationalists, with the Rationalists holding laws as an important concept of controlling man, which is generated through the concept of reason (Bourke, 1962).

similarly, the Puritans hold that the Biblical doctrines are the laws that should guide man in his life on earth, with the view that Biblical laws overrides all the other laws formulated by men, since God is still in control of the world, and has only given man the mandate to use the earth and the resources found on it (Carpenter, 2003P). The belief in law also formed an important aspect of the Natives lives as a matter of virtue, with some tribes of the Natives, like the Iroquois, having established their own laws to guide the relationship between them, which were also later adopted to form part of the US constitutions, through the constitution upholding and maintaining as important, the standard practices among the Native communities (Johnston, 2003).

The views in relation to perfect life for humans also form another aspect of virtue that compares between Puritans, Natives and Rationalists. The Puritans believe that through obeying the spiritual laws and the laws of God, man can live a perfect life (Carpenter, 2003). On the other hand, the Natives hold that it is possible to attain perfect lives, based on man’s observance of the laws of nature as well as the laws established by the natives to guide their interaction with each other. Similarly, the rationalists holds that reason is the greatest gift that God ever gave to man, and thus through the application of reasons, humans can be perfect (R).

Thus, the possibility of perfect human life is a virtue factor that compares all the three groups. BibliographyBourke, Vernon J., Rationalism (Runes, 1962), p211-263.Carpenter John, New Englands Puritan Century: Three Generations of Continuity in the City upon a Hill, (Fides Et Historia, 2003), p1-30.Johnston Eric, The Life of the Native American, (Atlanta, GA: Tradewinds Press 2003). P42-56.