2.1 Protestantism and Secularism
Last modified 05/17/2008
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Conceptions of modernity frequently adopt a narrow view of scientism to
characterize secularism, so-called. The resulting lack of a philosophy of
history leaves the secular in a chronic, and misleading, conflict with religion,
so visible in the Darwin debate. But in fact the study of the modern transition
in light of the eonic effect shows us something deeper and much richer as a
perspective on the question of ideological modernism. Our eonic model posits an
integrated transformation we have called a 'transition' in a eonic sequence. If
we take this idea for what it shows us we see that the question of religion is
left ambiguous by the nature of the case, and we can see that the Protestant
Reformation, a complex remorphing of one of the religions issuing in the wake of
the Axial Age, is, along with the scientific revolution, one of the crucial
steps on the way to the climax of the Enlightenment. The point here is merely
that our definition of secularism must reflect, not just an ideological 'ism',
but the change in epochs created by the transition itself. The result is a
'secular' age, to be sure, but one that allows the elements of science,
philosophy, and religion to indulge a fruitful dialectic with themselves on the
way to creative renewal. The 'secular' is thus really a token for the modern
transition itself, indeed, that is the original sense of the term.
Thus we see that, like the first stage of rocket, the Reformation, yielding to the Enlightenment, nonetheless seems to proceed with its own momentum in parallel to modernity. And that is what we see to be the case. However we interpret this, the point for us is to examine the modern transition more closely, to see that the Enlightenment is more than just the triumph of 'rational scientism', and spawns a considerable dialectic of potential outcomes. The rise of German classical philosophy, a prime candidate for such a dialectical description, itself seems to sow the seeds for a post-religious religiousness, so to speak. We have seen the crux of the issue in the discourse on freedom and causality in Kant. In many ways, the 'rebirth' of religion as secular philosophy is the hidden treasure behind the modern transformation, and we can see how its full depth truly gives meaning to the phrase the 'Axial Age'. We should note how the Reformation produces as its first born the world of liberal politics and action, an outcome obviously visible in the spectacle of the seminal English Civil War. This parallelism of rising science representing the causal line and the world of liberal action representing the realization of freedom leaves us with a more balanced and perspective on what we mean by the 'secular'. And this duality was perfectly addressed in the critiques of the philosopher Kant and his successors, themselves, in a true sense, the last exemplars of the Reformation on its way to modern era. |
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