The secular and the sacred: reflections on Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age

Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age represents a remarkable achievement. Taylor insists in a reasoned way that the sacred continues to have an important and legitimate role, and challenges assumptions, whether based on Weberian or Durkheimian understandings of religion in society, that faith no longer has a place. In doing this, he distinguishes among different aspects of the secularisation thesis. In this article I assert that there is a coherence to Taylor’s body of work, including A Secular Age, and I trace certain themes, such as a concern with notions of the self, that run through his work. I also identify in Taylor’s argument links to the thought of thinkers like Blondel, Gilson, Maritain and Marcel, and to the notion of an apologetics of hope.     

THE “GHOSTS” OF IRAS PAST AND THE CHANGING CULTURAL CONTEXT OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE

Beginning with our cosmic ancestors and the 1950s ancestors of Institute on Religion in an Age of Science (IRAS, the “Ghosts”), this essay highlights the wider, post‐World War II cultural context, including other science and religion organizations, in which IRAS was formed. It then considers eight challenges from today's context. From the context of science there are (1) the challenge of scale that leads us to question our place in the scheme of things and can lead to a challenge to morale concerning whether we make any difference; (2) the challenge of human variability that leads to the question whether there is a single human moral nature; and (3) the challenge of detailed explanation that leads to the question of what is the task of theology in relation to detailed scientific explanation. From the religion context there are (4) the challenge of objectivity—studying religion without practicing religion; and (5) the challenge of pluralism and the variety of cultural and religious perspectives. From the context of the growing and diverse science‐and‐religion enterprise, considered from the perspective of IRAS developed in the first part of this essay, there are the challenges of (6) apologetics and (7) intellectualization. Finally, from the context of our growing, worldwide consumerist culture that is contributing to the radical alteration of the planetary environment, leading to much suffering, there is (8) the challenge of becoming more motivated to act for the long‐term global good.     

IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY WELL SUITED TO ENTER THE DISCUSSION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND HUMANISM?

The last several years have seen the emergence of increasing hostility from philosophers toward some pronouncements on human nature by the biological and cognitive sciences. Theology is also concerned about such matters, even if there have been, until now, few theologians involved in the discussion. This essay examines both the reasons that justify a neutral position of theology in the face of scientific disqualification of human uniqueness and the reasons to engage apologetically in such a debate on the side of humanists. Constructing a synthesis, I propose a greater theological involvement and concern in the discussion already underway, even if it means accepting some trade‐offs.     

“RELIGION AND SCIENCE” AS ADVOCACY OF SCIENCE AND AS RELIGION VERSUS RELIGION

Abstract. “Religion and science” often is understood as being about the relationship between two given enterprises, religion and science. I argue that it is more accurate to understand religion and science in different contexts differently. (1) It serves as apologetics for science in a religious environment. As apologetics for technology the role of religion‐and‐science is more ambivalent, as competing and contrary responses to modern technology find articulation in religious terms. (2) In the political context of the modern university, some invoke religion‐and‐science in arguing for a place of theology alongside the sciences. In this context, secular studies of religion are a major challenge, which is hardly addressed. (3) Within the religious communities, religion‐and‐science is a battleground between revisionist and traditionalist ways of understanding religion.     

"Scientific" Theology/"Theological" Science: Pannenberg and the Dialogue Between Theology and Science

Throughout his distinguished career, Wolfhart Pannenberg has sought to show that the Christian understanding of God is crucial to the pursuit of knowledge. As the essays in Beginning with the End indicate, Pannenberg has attempted to construct a bridge between theology and science via the idea of contingency and the concept of field. His interest in dialogue, however, arises out of a deeper theological foundation, which views theology as a public discipline and sees the human quest for truth as the quest for God. Although susceptible to criticisms that all objectivist approaches at-tract, this focus on "reasonable faith" provides a helpful point of departure for dialogue.