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Sacralizing the Secular: A New Perspective on Modernity
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16582 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1989 |
6,141 Words |
| Author
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Stephen A. McKnight
Stephen A. McKnight is associate professor of European
intellectual history at the University of Florida and the
author of Sacralizing the Secular: The Renaissance Origins of
Modernity( Louisiana State University Press, 1989). |
In its most basic meaning, the term modernity carries no value-related connotation; it simply denotes the present. The term has seldom been restricted to this bland usage, however. From the fourteenth century to the present, modernity has been used to designate an epochal break with the preceding age. The corollary concepts of "Renaissance" and "enlightenment" make it clear that this epochal shift marks a break from a preceding period of sterility, death, and darkness. The "Renaissance" underscores the new age's underlying emphasis on human dignity, creativity, and autonomy. The "Enlightenment' makes it clear that the source of the epochal advance is an epistemological leap that provides man with the theoretical knowledge and instrumental power to control nature and perfect society.
A long-standing tradition of historical interpretation has linked these epochal features to science and secularization. From this perspective, Francis Bacon is often celebrated as a patriarch of the modern age because of his advocacy of the new learning (i.e., science and technology) as the source for a great instauration of a utopian political order. The linking of modernity to secularization occurs as early as the Enlightenment celebration of man's "self-emancipation" from theological and ecclesiastical control and from the medieval Christian view of man as a dependent, sinful creature.
The modernist's claims of an emancipation from religion and theology have not, of course, gone unchallenged. Arising concurrently with the affirmation of modern advances through secularization is the scholarly tradition that establishes parallels between modern views and Christian religious categories. Karl Lowith's study Meaning in History is a well-known, recent example of this position. Lowith shows that modern progressivist constructions of history and utopian political views employ the basic patterns of Christian salvation history (heilsgeschichte) but in an immanentized form. Man assumes the role of savior, and society becomes a surrogate Kingdom of God. According to Lowith, the modern age does not break with the religious tradition of the past; it employs religious motifs to create a secular religion.
A related interpretive tradition draws parallels between modern experience and ancient Gnostic religion, pointing particularly to the parallel emphasis on knowledge (gnosis) as the means whereby man can overcome alienation from his true nature. Carl Jung, Hans Jonas, Harold Bloom, Eric Voegelin, and other leading scholars have introduced this approach into psychology, philosophy, literary criticism, and political
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