THE RESPONSE OF A THEOLOGIAN TO CHARLES TAYLOR'S A SECULAR AGE

The author of this article confirms Charles Taylor's thesis that despite the growing spread of unbelief in modern society, i) religion remains an independent variable, ii) a creative “back and forth” continues to occur between secular wisdom and religious faith, and iii) the difference between these two does not necessarily produce opposition between them. The author also agrees with the importance Taylor attaches to the emergence of immanent humanism. Yet the author disagrees with Taylor's account of contemporary culture and religion as expressions of people's quest of identity; the article demonstrates instead that religion participates in all contemporary social movements.     

The Two Sides of Love

Abstract The kind of love under consideration here is that between equal persons as it typically occurs within the context of a friendship. It is assumed that love opens the way to a sense of meaning or purpose for the individual, the difficulty addressed being that of how to pursue or recognise love. Is it primarily a form of action or of feeling? Can love be said to consist of giving? How does love relate to freedom and dependence? The consideration of these questions leads to the argument that love necessarily involves the creation of needs and therefore of vulnerability. The essay closes with a conception of how the conflict between love as action and love as feeling (‘the two sides of love’) may be resolved.     

Against Couples

ABSTRACT The essay attacks the convention that a person should at any period in their life have not more than one sexual partner. The issues of the care of children and the desirability of a shared household are here bracketed out. The main argument proceeds by seeing conflicts between the requirement of exclusivity in sexual life, authenticity, and the principle that sexual communion should be an expression of love. A general social inertia, defined by the possessive introversion of couples, means that individuals will inevitably sometimes have to choose between sexual solitude and cultivating a more or less artificial relationship. The ideal of a single, central relationship is criticised on the grounds that (i) in some respects it is not desirable and (ii) it is in any case unrealistic to suppose that we can choose to create such an ideal relationship at will.