Reaction Paper

1. What is the dilemma of the author?

- In the worktext of Raul J. Bonoan, S.J entitled The Enlightenment, Deism, and Rizal
his dilemma was clearly about the religious beliefs of Rizal when he was in Europe and
if he truly accepted deism as his belief. Rizal was influenced by many people that
caused his beliefs to change. He read and got hooked in the writings of Voltaire and
Rousseau which were the ones who want to eradicate all religion especially the Catholic
Church. Voltaire and Rousseau believe in God but not fully they believed that God plan
the world as if a project but once finished they believed that God did not need to
interfere anymore. They believe in natural revelation and it influenced Rizal dearly.
Morayta and Los Rios also influenced Rizal to challenge the Catholic doctrines and
convinced him to joined masonry.
2. How did the author resolve his own dilemma?
- He studied and read the writings of Rizal and compared it to the writings of Rousseau.
He first studied the definition of deism and read the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau
to understand completely what deism is then he read the writings of Rizal to see if his
belief were reflected in his writings. He saw a parallelism in Rizal’s letters to Father
Pastel and Pi y Margall. There were points that were the same but different words were
used. Analyzation of the writings of Rizal were the main reason on how he got the
solution on his dilemma he analyzed very word Rizal said and compared it to different
writings related to deism.
3. Justify the observation of the author regarding Jose Rizal’s beliefs.
- He showed the comparisons of writings of Rizal and the Deist writers. The same
thought was there but different ways on how the thought was delivered. He also said
that Rizal even went to the rally that was headed by students that were supporters of
Morayta when he was excommunicated in the university and wrote that Rizal was a fan
of the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau that he even suggested it to Marcelo H. del
Pilar. There are solid evidences that Rizal did change his beliefs into Deism because of
the comparisons and actions of Rizal.
4. What struck/surprise you after reading the article
 - The one that struck me the most is that no matter what influenced him to change his
beliefs and even though he became a Deism somehow, he still went back to Catholicism
and underneath all of the things he changed he still went back to God. Even though
many people influenced him to join different religion such as Masonry he still when
back and prayed to God. He did not fully remove Catholicism in him he just resented
the ways of the friars in the Philippines. It opened up my eyes that no matter what we
do to God, He is still there until we believe in Him again.
5. Lessons/ message of the article
- For me the main lesson of the article was even though Rizal changed his beliefs into
Deism and Enlightenment underneath all of his writings parallel to Deism there was
still Catholic beliefs in him. He still somehow believes in God; one example was when
he wrote a prayer in his German diary when he was being shipped to Manila to face his
trial. It showed no parallelism to the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, Pi y Margall and
Morayta. His change of beliefs was an eye opener for him in his own aspirations and it
awakened the nationalist in him.