1
Table of Contents
Title
A Classical Approach to A Secular Age
Subtitle
How the inclusion of ancient Greek culture and philosophy can open up
and broaden Charles Taylor’s historical narrative.
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
3
Secularity and Religiosity
9
§1 Introduction
9
§2 An Age of Disenchantment
10
§3 Taylor’s Conditions of Secularity
12
§4 Taylor’s Concept of Religion
15
§5 Conclusion
18
Theos and Phusis
19
§1 Introduction
19
§2 Gay’s Enlightened ‘Philosophes‘
22
§3 The Rise of the Rational
24
§4 Conclusion
28
Transcendence and Immanence
30
§1 Introduction
30
§2 The Immanent Frame
32
§3 Fullness and Transcendence
33
§4 Ancient Conceptions
36
§5 Conclusion
42
Christianity and Antiquity
43
§1 Introduction
43
§2 Dreyfus and Kelly’s Polytheism
44
§3 Hadot’s Philosophy as a Way of Life
49
§4 Christianity as the Way of Life
53
§5 Conclusion
54
Conclusion
56
Bibliography
60
2
Introduction
Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age is one of the most important philosophical works
written in our time about the nature of the age we live in today. The influence and
popularity of this extensive work are abundant and Taylor’s ideas are dominant in the
debate about secularism. Charles Taylor (1931 - ) is a Canadian political and social
philosopher who has contributed a lot to intellectual history. While Taylor has already
written a voluminous study called Sources of the Self, A Secular Age should be regarded
as his magnum opus.
Many scholars have written about A Secular Age, not only because of the quality
and versatility of the study, but more importantly because it contains new insights about
our way of living. A Secular Age argues for an interesting message: we can only
understand our secular age when we take into account the history of pre-modernity, with
the development of our concept of human beings out of this history.
This thesis focuses on two elements that Taylor connects to the concept of
religion. These are (i) the notion of a sense of fullness and (ii) the longing for
transcendence. For Taylor these elements are connected to religion. Whether a religion
is polytheistic, monotheistic, or non-theistic, religion always refers to something higher
or beyond, to something that goes beyond our own capacities, responsibility, and
control. Religion even requires a surrender to a transcendent authority. The notion of a
sense of fullness is important, because we cannot help but ask questions about the
quality of our life, such as “What constitutes a fulfilled life?” or “What makes life really
1
worth living?” These questions appeal to every human being and are related to the
practical context of life. Taylor investigates whether the source for the notion of a sense
of fullness is immanent or transcendent. Therefore, the opposition between immanence
and transcendence is the axis around which Taylor revolves his inquiry.
In A Secular Age, Taylor asks the question “whether people recognise something
beyond or transcendent to their lives”. He concludes that we cannot get past
transcendence. Even though our society does not respect the boundary between “the
1Taylor
2007: 16
3
laws of physical science and the meaning things have for us”, Taylor believes that there
is more between orthodox religiosity and secular exclusive humanism.2
In order to depict the present-day age, Taylor uses a hermeneutic method. His
hermeneutic approach can explain why he prefers a historical narrative over a purely
analytical comparison: we can only understand our condition when we have an idea of
how we are defined by previous conditions that we have overcome. This is why Taylor
wants to explore where the concepts that we use to describe our contemporary state –
such as modernity, individualism, secularity, and disenchantment – come from and
which previous conditions have been overcome. A Secular Age can be regarded as a
Hegelian project: it is an attempt to provide a conclusive account of the actual modern
human condition. 3
Taylor wants to philosophise freely and openly, without
presuppositions and from as many different points of view as possible. Yet despite this
noble ambition, he uses a specific framework to tell the historical narrative he has in
mind.
A narrative can be an excellent tool to help illuminate the mere facts. It gives
substance to the content, sparks off enthusiasm in the reader, and displays arguments in
a new manner. The historical narrative is a story in which different layers come together
so as to offer new insights about the past. Taylor uses the historical narrative in a
different way: he is primarily interested in an understanding of our contemporary age
and he uses the historical narrative to arrive at a comparative description between the
past and the present.
Taylor frames his historical narrative between two dates: the years 1500 and
2000 AD. He does so by asking the following question: “why was it virtually
impossible to not to believe in God in, say, 1500 in our Western society, while in 2000
many of us find it not only easy, but even inescapable?”.4 By using this timeframe,
Taylor makes a clear choice. In A Secular Age, he tells the story of the specific history
of the Latin Christendom. This story can be understood as the second framework, or to
put it more exactly, the fundamental meta-framework. This becomes clear when we look
at Taylor’s description of our secular age. Taylor states, for example, that “there is an
inescapable (though often negative) God-reference in the very nature of our secular
2
Ibid: 16, 39
3
Dohmen and Van Buuren 2011: 205
4
Taylor 2007: 25
4
age”.5 The secular is thus connected to the divine sphere of God. In addition, by stating
that our secular age is an age “in which the eclipse of all goals beyond human
flourishing becomes conceivable”, he defines our secular age in religious terms, because
for Taylor, transcendence is in essence connected to religion.6 Therefore, Taylor’s
ambition to theorise without presuppositions must be regarded as unsuccessful.
As Taylor’s narrative is grounded in a Latin Christendom tradition, his narrative
starts in the historical period of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance.7 However,
not only the ground of Taylor’s theory is embedded in Latin Christendom tradition,
Taylor’s conclusion focusses on Christianity as well. In his chapter ‘Conversions’,
Taylor explains that the path for leading a good life in the modern and secular age is
most likely to be found within Christianity. Although Taylor is quite modest about his
religious background, he argues, through the specific narrative that he creates, that
religion is the only way to reach transcendence and that this religious belief is in
essence Christianity.
It is problematic that both the premises of Taylor’s theory and the conclusion of
Taylor’s theory are soaked in Christian tradition. If, like Taylor claims, religion is a
choice and transcendence is a fundamental aspect of a life that is worthwhile, this theory
is too much focused on a Christian-secular history. Where in this Christian framework
will non-believers, non-Christians, polytheists, and anti-theists have a place? The
Christian framework is just too limited, especially if you take into account that Taylor is
a secularist because of the potential secularism has in respect to different kinds of
beliefs, non-beliefs, and anti-beliefs. Because of the primary focus on Christianity,
Taylor’s A Secular Age contains a circular mode of reasoning.
The problems described above are all connected to Taylor’s Christian
presuppositions. Taylor’s framework for his historical narrative is too limited and onedimensional. However, I believe that there is a way out of this circular mode of
reasoning. The inclusion of ancient Greek culture and philosophy in the framework can
open up and broaden Taylor’s historical narrative. The history of our secular age did not
begin in the late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: it began when religion was
reflected upon. Such reflection developed during the Axial Age in various ways, in
5
Ibid: 29
6
Ibid: 19
7
Bilgrami 2012
5
various cultures, some of which crystallised in Ancient Greece. The ancient Greek
philosophers reacted upon the world around them through philosophy and science, were
innovative, adopted many different ideas, and made a harmonious connection between
spirituality, religion, science, rationality, and irrationality possible. The ancient thinkers
respected both the laws of physical science and the meaning that phenomena have for
us.
A confrontation between the Latin Christendom tradition and the ancient Greek
tradition can provide a more complex, broad, and multi-sourced picture of the origin of
secularism: it includes the discoveries and rediscoveries of ancient philosophy; it helps
to provide a better understanding of the nature of the secular and the religious; it opens
up Taylor’s theory for ‘non’-believers who look for fulfilment and transcendence. This
is important for the case of A Secular Age: reflection upon the complex ancient world
from which Christianity arose, will make it insightful that the secular-religious nexus
does not require the specific label of Christianity, but instead needs to be refined and
understood in ways more intertwined with ancient and potentially other, non-Christian
traditions.
Thus, the aim of this thesis is to open up and broaden Taylor’s Christian
orientated historical narrative of religiosity and secularity by introducing the narrative
of ancient Greek culture and philosophy.8 It will be shown that this creates a clearer
picture of religiosity and secularity and provides a broader, not just Christian,
foundation for Taylor’s argument concerning the human need for transcendence.
Dealing with Taylor’s extensive narrative is already a huge challenge, and
incorporating ancient Greek culture and philosophy is an even more immense task. As
such, this inquiry presents an analysis of Taylor’s historical narrative of religion and
secularity and gives a dense and small highlight of the tradition of Ancient culture and
philosophy. In this small highlight I focus on Plato’s, Aristotle’s and Epicurus’ theories.
What I will offer must not be regarded as a detailed study but as a suggestion on the
direction in which a religious secularist should go, to be less narrow minded and more
broad, open, and inclusive.
The central question of this thesis is as follows: why is Taylor’s narrative in A
Secular Age important and how can this narrative be more valuable for non-Christians
8
I prefer to use the terms ‘religiosity and secularity’ to ‘religion and secularism’ because these terms are more open
and fluid.
6
and non-believers?9 The first part of this question, about the relevance and importance
of Taylor’s theory, is addressed in chapters one and three, while the second part of this
question, about the broadening of Taylor’s narrative, is discussed in chapters two and
four.
The first chapter, “Secularity and Religiosity”, discusses briefly the debate of
secularism that forms the background of Taylor’s A Secular Age and analyses Taylor’s
use of the concepts of secularity and religiosity.
The second chapter, “Theos and Phusis”, introduces my alternative historical
reading of how elements of the secular emerge out of developments within religion, by
looking at ancient philosophy. Taylor’s ideas of fulfilment and transcendence can
benefit from including the ancient perspective, and the first step to this end is to include
the history of ancient philosophy in Taylor’s historical narrative. Two issues are the
focus of this chapter: whether elements of the secular can be found in ancient
philosophy and how ancient philosophy can be included in Taylor’s narrative.
For Taylor, the concept of transcendence is deeply rooted in his definition of
religion. This is not strange, since many definitions of religion include a notion of
transcendence. However, I believe that transcendence is not necessarily a product of
religious practices or a product of Christianity. Transcendence is also connected to a
notion of praxis (of acting in a certain way) and can have a ‘non-religious’ content.
Furthermore, the connection that Plato and Aristotle make between philosophy and the
notions of flourishing and fulfilment is similar to the connection that Taylor makes
between flourishing, fulfilment, and the religious. The idea of ‘philosophy as a way of
life’, described in Pierre Hadot’s theory, provides a similar account. Therefore, the
second part of this thesis examines how the notion of transcendence is connected to the
‘non-religious’ and discusses theories that can contribute to the project of making
Taylor’s narrative more valuable for non-Christians and non-believers.
Chapter three, “Transcendence and Immanence”, investigates the concepts of
transcendence and immanence, since it is important to think about the meaning of
transcendence and immanence in the twentieth century in showing why Taylor’s ideas
are worthwhile. It also explores the relation between transcendence and immanence in
9
Here, the non-believer must be understood as someone who does not believe in the Christian solution to our need
for transcendence. I think that everyone is a believer in a broad sense, whether you believe in science, atheism, Jesus
or ghosts.
7
Taylor’s theory and Plato’s, Aristotle’s, and Epicurus’ theories. Lastly, I will argue that
the notion of transcendence does not need to be defined in mere religious terms.
Chapter four, “Christianity and Antiquity”, shows the importance of including
the ancient perspective in Taylor’s theory through the introduction of Dreyfus and
Kelly’s idea of polytheism and Hadot’s idea of philosophy as a way of life.
8
1 Secularity and Religiosity
It is impossible in our days to be a Christian, atheist, or anything
else, without a degree of doubt. Our situation is characterised by
this instability, much more than by the idea that religion has swept
away religion.10
Charles Taylor
§1 Introduction
Already in 1998, Taylor wrote that we live in a situation of cross pressures. We are
drawn to both the realm of the secular and the religious. The debate about secularism
and religion forms the background of this idea of Taylor. Secularism and religion, as
well as secularity and religiosity, are fluid concepts. Multiple reasons underlie this
fluidity. Firstly, there is no real consensus about the meaning of these concepts.
Furthermore, the concepts are often regarded as a dichotomy, while certain elements of
the concepts do not form a strong opposition. It is also not clear where the boundary
between the two concepts needs to be drawn. Lastly, the concepts have different
meanings in different discourses and traditions. Nevertheless, it is on the boundaries
where the interesting things happen and where philosophy can fulfil a role in the
attempt of clarification.
It is important to ask questions about what the religious and the secular mean for
us, because both aspects are part of our reality. Many philosophers, sociologists, and
scientists have declared that we live in a secular age. Secularism has become part of our
reality. In “What is secularism?”, Taylor emphasises the importance of the term
‘secularism’ by stating that “it is too late to ban the word ‘secular’; too many
controversies have already been stated in these terms.”11 Religion cannot be banned
either, because “the thesis of an inevitable decline of religious beliefs and practices ...
are at odds with empirical evidence.”12 Thus, in the contemporary modern and secular
society, human beings have to relate themselves both to secularity and religiosity: both
10 Abbey
2000: 197
11
Taylor 2008: xxi
12
Bader 2007: 37
9
the secular and the religious are part of our world and these concepts are deeply
intertwined.
Taylor’s investigation is a research into the relation between the religious and the
secular, and conditions of belief. To arrive at answers, he asks himself three questions.
What does it mean to live in a secular age? How can the change in conditions of belief
between 1500 and 2000 be explained? And how did belief become an option? These
three questions guide his project throughout A Secular Age. These questions also help
Taylor to understand how we can relate ourselves to both the religious and the secular in
the twenty-first century. Before we discuss this, it is first necessary to get a clear idea of
Taylor’s definition of the religious and the secular. Taylor defines these concepts in a
specific way and ascribes specific elements to the cluster of religiosity and secularity.
Once we have a clear idea of the definitions and elements that Taylor uses, we can
investigate the role of the religious and the secular in the tradition of ancient Greek
culture and philosophy.
§2 An Age of Disenchantment
Taylor believes that the contemporary age of the modern West must be understood as ‘a
secular age’. Taylor begins his theory with the idea that we can only grasp what is
happening in our secular age if we look at the greater narrative and understand the
development of our concept of human beings out of this narrative. The historical
narrative created by Taylor in A Secular Age is a good way to start the search for an
understanding of our contemporary age. Largely, because this well-informed and
extended study is multilayered: it is a history of religion and secularism, a history of
disenchantment and Enlightenment, and a history of different perspectives on
transcendence and immanence.
Taylor is inspired by Max Weber’s ‘Entzauberung’ theory because of the idea
that modern Western society does not have a notion of the sacred anymore.13 The sacred
and enchanted world of the pre-modern age is a world that has been overcome due to
disenchantment. The buffered self replaced the porous self that lived in a world of
fairies, spirits and demons. This, however, does not mean that all religious beliefs have
vanished in modern Western society. Quite the opposite: the secular and the religious
are entangled. As Taylor points out “our sense and understanding of ourselves as
13
Taylor 2007: 25
10
secular” arises out of the sense of “overcoming and rising out of earlier modes of
belief”. 14
As has been noted in the introduction, the years 1500 and 2000 mark the
framework with which Taylor works. The philosophical transitions that Taylor reveals in
his narrative are connected to the ‘past’ of the year 1500 and the ‘present’ of the year
2000. The self was porous in the enchanted world of spirits and powers, because of its
openness en vulnerability towards its external world. Human beings with a porous self
believed in the existence of magic, demons, gods, and witches because they truly
experienced such phenomena around them. The porous self was open to an universe that
is alien to modern human beings. Through developments of disenchantment,
reformation, scientific revolution, deism, and a new modern form of exclusive
humanism, in which human beings took responsibility for their “own powers of moral
ordering”, the self became more and more buffered. The buffered self is also described
of as bounded; there is a boundary between oneself and the external world and one can
distance oneself from this external realm. The porous self and the buffered self must be
understood as two different existential conditions of the ‘past’ and the ‘present’.15 In
chapter three, I will discuss the relation between the porous self and the buffered self
more thoroughly.
Another transition that can be distinguished is connected to the way in which
people regard time in the ‘past’ and the ‘present’. This transformation becomes clear in
the development of the use of the word saeculum. The old meaning of secularisation
developed during the aftermath of the Reformation and within the tradition of the Latin
Christendom. The secular became a category here. In Antiquity, people were familiar
with the Latin term saeculum, which can be translated as ‘age’ or ‘century’. The
meaning of saeculum referred to something that belongs to a certain time or generation.
During the Middle Ages, the divine and religious were related to the realm of the
transcendent. For the moment, I will define the transcendent as something that goes
beyond, stands outside time and generation, and is connected to the idea of the higher
sphere of the infinite, eternal, transcendent, and religious. Chapter three I will
problematise the meaning of the transcendent.
14
Ibid: 268
15
Ibid: 37, 38
11
The term saeculum originally developed as the opponent of the idea of
timelessness of the transcendent sphere: it symbolised the worldly sphere. In the
seventeenth century, with the rise of modernity, the notion of the secular – which
referred to all that there was: the finite, immanent, and worldly – was connected to the
profane sphere. The more the secular sphere was considered as all that there was, the
more the higher sphere was denied.16 As a result of these historical developments, the
two spheres – of the transcendent and religious and the secular and immanent – were
envisaged as opposites and defined over and against each other. Therefore, the
opposition between the secular and the religious is a product of the specific tradition of
Latin Christendom.
§ 3 Taylor’s Conditions of Secularity
The theory of ‘the orthodox model of secularisation’, which posits that the general
processes of Enlightenment and modernisation are closely and intrinsically intertwined
with the emergence of secularisation, evolved from the tradition of Latin Christendom.
Secularisation can be understood in two ways. The broad meaning is the secularisation
of societal structures or the decrease of the social significance of religion. The narrow
meaning holds that there is a decline in the participation in religious beliefs and
practices. The orthodox model of secularisation uses the narrow meaning, which leads
to the conviction that modernisation, with its rationalisation, social differentiation and
individualisation, will cause a decline of the social importance of religious institutes and
religious practices and beliefs. The idea behind this model is that the less religious a
society becomes, the more modern it becomes. 17
The narrow secularisation theory had a great influence during the second half of
the twentieth century, but many contemporary sociologists and philosophers argue that
it must be strongly reconsidered.18 Philosopher Veit Bader sums up the main critique by
stating that “the theses of an inevitable decline of religious beliefs and practices, and of
inevitable subjectification and privatisation, are at odds with empirical evidence”. 19 The
16
Taylor 2008: xix
17
Casanova 2003: 19
18
Sociologist and Philosophers I am referring to are José Casanova, Grace Davie, Veit Bader and Charles Taylor, but
there are many more to be considered.
19
Bader 2007: 35
12
broad theory of secularisation, the secularisation of societal structures or the decrease of
the social significance of religion, is more accepted in contemporary scholarship.
The secularisation thesis (broad and narrow) includes the ‘subtraction theory’,
which focuses solely on the scientific part of modernisation and “attributes everything
to disenchantment”.20 Taylor rejects the subtraction theory throughout A Secular Age:
“The subtraction story gives too little place to the cultural changes wrought by
Western modernity, the way in which it has developed new understandings of
the self, its place in society, in space and in time. It fails to see how innovative
we have been; its tendency is to see modernity as the liberating of a continuing
core of belief and desire from an overlay of metaphysical/religious illusion
which distorted and inhibited it.”21
The historical narrative that Taylor describes is not a story about decline or loss. It is
about a genuine transition through which new ways of relating ourselves to something
transcendent become possible. Furthermore, religion is not the enemy of scientific
knowledge. Transformations and reformations within Christianity itself were the main
forces for developments in the history of secularism. This was not the scientific
revolution. The ethos that the scientific world view prescribes is a popular fit for the
individual modern human being: it is connected to the natural way in which we think
about things. However, popularity is not a necessary proof. Science makes claims about
wisdom, knowledge and truth and requires for human beings to belief in its claims.
In A Secular Age, Taylor presents an alternative to the subtraction theory. 22
Taylor is primarily interested in the conditions of secularism and in how these
conditions have shaped both contemporary belief and unbelief.23 This explains his focus
on the background and context of the conditions of secularism and belief. Taylor
distinguishes three conditions of secularity. The first condition, Secularity 1, deals with
the institutional aspect of society and focuses on “the retreat of religion in public life”.
Secularity 2 entails the view of the decline of religious beliefs and practices and
20
Taylor 2007: 26
21
Ibid: 573
22
Hurd 2007
23
This focus on conditions differs, for example, from José Casanova’s use of the term modes.
13
“consists in the falling of religion, in people turning away from God, and no longer
going to church.”24 According to Taylor, both Secularity 1 and 2 give a narrow and
biased perspective on the concept of secularity. Therefore, he develops a new condition
of the secular, Secularity 3, which concentrates on conditions of belief. Secularity 3 is
connected to a modern context of understanding: this is the condition Taylor studies. It
is a cross-pressured condition in which the human religious, moral, or spiritual search
for and experience of fullness occurs and it is the condition which enables people to
relate themselves to both secularity and religiosity. It is also the condition that
acknowledges that religions and beliefs have become optional, a matter of personal
choice. Thus, the rich genealogy of Secularity 3 is the alternative that Taylor creates.
Here, new moral sources have a place.
Some of Taylor’s motives for developing of the condition of Secularity 3
become somewhat clearer when we consider his political view in which he uses the
model of neutral secularism. Taylor states that a society is secular when the idea of God
and the belief in God are no longer self-evident, axiomatic, or socially obligatory. In the
secular society, people are free to choose the form(s) of belief(s) they prefer. Neutral
secularism entails that diverse beliefs and non-beliefs must be considered as equal.25 All
perspectives, whether secular or religious, are part of our reality, of our society and must
have a place in it.
Within the plural or multicultural character of society, Taylor tries to make room
for the reality of both the secular and the religious. He argues that a multicultural
society is based on equal respect, which allows people from different cultures, with
different secular and religious beliefs and practices, to live together in harmony.
Secularism can provide a neutral common ground and can protect the right and freedom
to express different beliefs or world views. Moreover, secularism opens up the process
of dialogue guided by equal respect. 26 Thus, thanks to the secularist approach, the
conditions of belief can flourish and people can have the freedom to go on a quest to
find out what to believe and practice and what not. Furthermore, it is a quest in itself,
for a society or state to provide harmony between different world views and religious
beliefs. There is a need of a meta-narrative of secularism, because it is necessary to
24
Taylor 2007: 2
25
Schwartz 2011
26
Schwartz 2011
14
include the debate on religion and secularism in the public debate, apart from the
political structure of a society or state. The meta-narrative of secularism is essential to
understand the development and nature, not only of secularism, but also of religion. The
condition of Secularity 3 meets this standard, since it is an open condition that enables
people to relate themselves to both secularity and religiosity.
§ 4 Taylor’s Concept of Religion
The three conditions of secularity in Taylor’s meta-narrative all refer to the concept of
religion. Secularity is more than religion’s opponent and it is more than a ruin of the
religious beliefs and practices in public life. Religion is present although it is widely
contested. How should we understand the concept of religion today? The fact that
religion is difficult to define is one of the causes of its contestation. There is an
enormous variety of forms of religion and there is no common ground or objective core.
Besides, the overwhelming differences between different religious beliefs and practices
preclude the possibility of a neutral point of view in the study of religion.
As stated in the introduction, two elements that are fundamental for Taylor’s use
of the concept of religion are (i) a belief in transcendence and (ii) the notion of a sense
of fullness. Belief in transcendence is a fundamental aspect, because of the character of
religion; whether it is polytheistic, monotheistic, or non-theistic, religion always refers
to something transcendent, something higher or beyond, to something that goes beyond
our own capacities, responsibility, and control. The notion of a sense of fullness is
crucial for our practical context. All human beings ask questions about the quality of
their life and are concerned with living a life that is worthwhile.
Taylor’s inquiry
revolves around the notion of the sense of fullness. One of his primary concerns is
whether the source for the notion of a sense of fullness is immanent or transcendent.
Therefore, the opposition between immanence and transcendence is guiding in his
analysis. I will return to this point in chapter three.
It is necessary here to get a clear understanding of what religion means for
Taylor. For Taylor, religion must be understood as religiosity, spirituality and
institutionalisation. Two dimensions play a crucial role in his thinking about religion:
the personal religious perspective of the individual and the inevitable importance of the
religious framework of reference. A person’s religious experience can only have value
when it is embedded in tradition and community. This is why A Secular Age focuses
15
both on the nature of the inner and personal religious experience and on the experience
and expression of the personal experience in a communal religious ritual. 27
Taylor states that lived experience is important. To understand where these
experiences come from, how we can interpret them, and how we can grasp their origins,
it is crucial to look at the historical narrative. It is completely different to believe in God
in 1500 than in 2000. Taylor thinks that this difference is a result of a condition within
Christianity that we have overcome. People used to live “naively within a theistic
construal” and have now arrived in a construal “in which we all shunt between two
stances, in which everyone’s construal shows up as such; and in which moreover,
unbelief has become for many the major default option”. 28 People in modern Western
countries live in a secular age. This means that there has been a great shift in
“background” – a framework that is taken for granted and of which the agents are
ignorant.29 Taylor believes that developments within the Latin Christendom tradition
were the great force behind this shift, “secularization went along with an intensification
of religious faith”.30 The increase of personal commitment and personal decision within
the religious experience, as well as the integration of Christian faith within ordinary life,
contributed to the incorporation of devotion and faith within immanent life. More than
the rising of Enlightenment, modernisation, or the scientific revolution, did the
reformation cause European societies to become secular. This idea, which is
acknowledged by many scholars in the field of religion, is examined more in depth in
the next chapter.31
Taylor explains the contemporary role of religion in the chapter “Religion
Today”. He states that we can understand our secular age as an ‘Age of Authenticity’,
an age that is characterised by a quest. Young people are particularly interested in
spirituality and spiritual life and the search that is connected to this. How should we
understand this? As described above, Taylor emphasises the notion of experience. In
every facet of our lives, experience has become very important: museums need to curate
their collection in such a way that it becomes a ‘Disney-like’ experience and festivals
27
Dohmen and Van Buuren 2011: 208
28
Taylor 2007: 14
29
Ibid: 13
30
Ibid: 143
31
John Bossy gives a similar argument in Christianity in the West, 1400 - 1700.
16
are organised for almost every occasion. Today, we want to experience things ourselves,
because we are looking for a more direct experience, for something that is greater and
has a higher purpose. In contrast to older generations, the notion of the sacred is not
evident anymore for many young people. Today, many people are not born in a world
that can be characterised as a social religious construct. The reality of the ‘Age of
Authenticity’ is thus a search for something ‘more’, something that is not evident, but is
missing. For many people, the life in the immanent order – where the presence of a
higher sphere or purpose is not evident and often neglected or denied – feels empty.
In Taylor’s understanding of religion the personal experience of something
higher only has value when it is embedded in a social dimension. A very important
aspect of religion, as regarded from the perspective of Christianity, is the distinction
between transcendence and immanence. According to Taylor, religion must be defined
in terms of transcendence in order to be in connection to the notion of a sense of
fullness.32 The aim of religion is not to be primarily a sort of contemporary quest or
ethic of authenticity, it is in essence connected to a belief in a transcendent reality and it
aspires to grasp the transcendent. For Taylor a religious conversion requires a surrender
to a transcendent authority. The ultimate notion of flourishing and the notion of a sense
of fullness require a commitment. In chapter three, this idea of religious conversion and
the surrender to a transcendent authority is dealt with more extensively.
Nowadays, the place of religion is often within an individualistic framework.
However, its content does not need to be individualistic. In moments of celebration, we
experience a dimension of religion that also existed in the enchanted world.33 Imagine
yourself at a festival on a nice summer day, while listening to a beautiful concert with
thousands of others who are enjoying and experiencing the same as you are. At these
rare and special moments, you feel very much alive, not only as an individual but in
connection with others.
Through his example of Carnival, Taylor describes a similar experience.
Carnival, the feast of misrule, symbolised a period of reversal of the ordinary order, a
period of anti-structure that interrupts the structure of ordinary life.34 Taylor thinks that
anti-structures are necessary, because within anti-structure all codes can be balanced
32
Ibid: 20
33
Ibid: 517
34
Ibid: 47
17
and structures can be limited, such as the tension between temporality and spirituality.
Taylor explains that these moments are moments of fusion, out of the everyday life,
which bring you in contact with something that goes beyond. However, these festive
moments are exceptional. When people long and look for a more lasting and sustainable
experience that evokes a similar reaction, they will likely find themselves drawn to
more traditional practices of religion.
§5 Conclusion
The question remains whether religion is the only way to connect to something
transcendent and reach a state of fullness. The religious landscape has changed
dramatically in our contemporary society, especially compared to to the year 1500.
Moreover, the distinctions between different sorts of religious or non-religious practices
and beliefs have become less definite. In addition, new forms of non-belief as well as
beliefs outside Christian orthodoxy have risen. Taylor acknowledges this, as can be seen
by his new definition of Secularity 3.
The condition of Secularity 3 must be understood as a notion that is open; it
includes all sorts of beliefs, whether secular or religious. Nevertheless, as a faithful
Christian, Taylor is very much drawn to the Christian tradition. His specific narrative
seems to imply the Christian option – despite his academic rigour and tolerance for
other religions. Political theorist William Connolly states in Varieties of Secularism that
it is not easy to define whether Taylor is a secularist or a “devotee of lost Christendom,
a defender of modernity or one who seeks to return to an enchanted world”. 35
The elements that are fundamental for Taylor’s conception of religion are the
notion of a sense of fullness and transcendence. Thus, as soon as Taylor points out the
importance of the concepts of transcendence and a sense of fullness, the priority lies on
the side of the religious, since these concepts are biased within a Christian framework.
The same holds for the notion of secularity. But are the notions of a sense of fullness
and transcendence necessarily religious notions? And have the concepts of religiosity
and secularity only developed within the tradition of Latin Christendom? An
investigation in the nature of the concepts of the religious, the secular, transcendence,
and a sense of fullness will be required in order to explore whether the framework of
Latin Christendom is necessary for these concepts.
35
Warner, VanAntwerpen and Calhoun 2010: 8
18
2 Theos and Phusis
Contemporary interests have very frequently determined not
only the questions which scholars have asked, but also the
answers which they have put into the mouths of the
defenceless dead.36
Eric Robertson Dodds
§1 Introduction
The quote can be explained in a twofold manner. People who live in the current age
project their perspectives on history, but the defenceless dead of the past generations
have also used and misused history to empower themselves. History can be a a very
powerful tool: it can disturb the state of affairs and change people’s perspectives on
developments which they are part of.
In the work of the Humanist Petrarch, a radical shift was made in the perspective
of the order of light and darkness. Where people used to refer to the pre-Christian
period as the ‘Dark Ages’, Petrarch reversed it, by identifying the label with the
Christian era: “the ancients had possessed light because they had been tough-minded,
worldly, philosophical; the Christian millennium had been dark because it was
quarrelsome, querulous and grossly superstitious.”37 This reversal has had an enormous
impact on the course of history and must be understood as an early indication of the
secularisation of history. It empowered the enlightened minded. This reversal in the
perspective of history has been pointed out by the influential historian Peter Gay (1923
- ). Gay is very conscious about the use and misuse of ideas in history and attempts to
show were ideas derive from. 38
As we have seen in the previous chapter, Taylor’s theory about religion and
secularity is also embedded in a particular reading of history, mainly through his
hermeneutic method. This leads him to ask questions about the origin of the secular
from a contemporary point of view. For Taylor, the Middle Ages form an excellent
36
Dodds 1973: 106
37
Gay 1966: 74 - 75
38
Even though Peter Gay wrote his work already in 1966, his ideas remain very influential, as the Dutch historian
Wyger Velema points out in e.g. “Antiquity and Modernity in the Eighteenth Century”.
19
ground for the contemporary point of departure.39 Partly because of this, the enlightened
time of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance become the source of inspiration.
Consequently, the ancient history remains rather dark in Taylor’s work. Throughout A
Secular Age, the importance of ancient philosophy on the development of the religious
and the secular is mainly ignored. There are some explanations, arguments, and reasons
for this, some very good and clear, but most of which I do not consider to be convincing
enough.
Two reasons can be identified for Taylor’s exclusion of ancient Greek culture
and philosophy. Firstly, Taylor explains that his main reason for excluding ancient
philosophy in his historical narrative is that he thinks that ancient philosophers are not
capable of an active interruption into the world and happenings around them. However,
ancient philosophy should be regarded from a different perspective. If one takes the
history of ancient philosophy seriously, it becomes clear that ancient philosophers did
try to understand and control the universe in an active way by developing new
alternative constructs. Among many other great innovations, they developed an atom
theory, adopted new religious ideas, created new moral systems, and believed in the
existence of a singular universal essence.
Secondly, a form of modern exclusive humanism, in which people are
themselves responsible for an alternative set of moral sources and locate the sources for
the meaning of life within human life, did not exist in “the non-theistic ethics of the
pagan ancient world”.40 I beg to disagree with this assertion. The humanism of the
Epicureans should be regarded as a form of exclusive humanism. Taylor acknowledges
this himself, but decides to ignore it for the blunt reason that in ancient culture,
Epicureanism was the exception and not the rule. In chapter three I will elaborate on
this wrongful denial.
Besides the above mentioned reasons, another reason – less explicit and obvious
– can be discovered. Reading between the lines, it becomes clear that the exclusion of
ancient Greek culture and philosophy is part of the monotheistic world view of the Latin
Christendom, which is Taylor’s primary focus. For example, in his explanation of
higher times, he uses the idea of higher time in ancient philosophy mainly to illustrate a
39
Taylor 2007: 25
40
Ibid: 27
20
difference with the idea of higher time in Christianity.41 Ancient philosophy is primarily
used in opposition to Christianity, as a condition that has been overcome by Christianity.
This idea of overcoming can be problematic, especially when there is a meta-narrative
involved, like in Taylor’s search for the source of the sense of fullness.
Since Taylor’s analysis of the secular derives from developments that are
internal and external to Latin Christendom, Taylor just does not focus on ancient
philosophy. He locates the origins of the secular in the late Middle Ages and early
Renaissance, a period in which the Christian church had great influence, but in which
there also was great turbulence regarding its continued existence. In the historical
narrative of A Secular Age, five processes can be distinguished: the disenchantment
with the development from the porous self to the buffered self; the decline of ritual and
worship in the social realm; the undoing of the tension between structure and antistructure; the exchange of higher time by secular time; and the replacement of the
cosmos by modern universe.
These five processes were driven by the two developments of the reformation
and modern science and directed towards secularisation and immanence. According to
Taylor, the development of the disenchantment with the altering of religious ideas from
the porous self to the buffered self led to an immense change in perspective of religion.
The main force behind this transformation was the reformation. In contrast to the year
1500, we can all agree that the world is much less enchanted nowadays. People’s beliefs
in demons, ghosts, spirits, angels, witches and fairies have mostly disappeared; these
phenomena can now be explained in more rational terms. These enchanted beliefs are
no longer part of our physical and psychological lives. Therefore, “the process of
disenchantment, involving a change in the way we understand our selves, can be seen as
a loss of a certain sensibility that is really an impoverishment.”42
The two arguments that Taylor puts forward in his defence of his choice for
excluding ancient Greek culture and philosophy can be persuasive, but are never
completely convincing. The implicit and hidden reason that must be added to his own
arguments reveals the narrowness of Taylor’s framework. As a result, the argumentation
for excluding of the tradition of Antiquity is neither entirely persuasive nor necessary.
41
Ibid: 50 - 51
42
Taylor 2008: 39
21
There are many other reasons that argue against the exclusion of the tradition of
Antiquity. Firstly, stories of world views other than monotheistic ones should not be
neglected. Secondly, the process of enchantment and disenchantment is not limited to
Latin Christendom and singularly based on “the kind of theological transcendentalism
that Taylor posits as its precondition”.43 Moreover, Taylor’s presentation of Latin
Christendom is rather uniform. 44 An illustration of this is the fact that he treats the
process of the reformation extensively, but does not speak much about the counterreformation. Fourth, the narrative of ancient history cannot be denied if one wants to
explain a complete story, as Taylor seems to intend. Lastly, the value of ancient
philosophy must be taken seriously: it did have the ability to interrupt actively in the
surrounding world.
The focus on Latin Christendom in Taylor’s theory, which leads to a kind of
‘circular mode of reasoning’, is mainly responsible for his neglect of ancient history.
Therefore, I propose a different perspective on the use of history in order to explain the
processes of secularisation and religion more openly. I will now turn to positive
arguments for the claim that tendencies of secular thinking existed in ancient times.
§ 2 Gay’s Enlightened ‘Philosophes’
Gay’s critical historical analysis of the developments of the modern and secular age is a
good way to start the alternative narrative of A Secular Age. Similar to Taylor’s
hermeneutic method, with its focal point on the entanglement of philosophy and history,
Gay is interested in the encounter of ideas in history with reality. Gay tries to
understand the use and misuse of ancient Greek philosophy in the thinking of the
enlightened ‘philosophes’ of the eighteenth century.45 Both Taylor and Gay are
fascinated by the relation between thought and events. However, even though their basic
interests are quite alike, Gay arrives at a very different conclusion and creates a
different construction of history.
The Enlightenment had a history of its own. Gay declares that the development
of the Enlightenment was characterised by “an appeal to Antiquity”, “a tension with
43
Giles 2012
44
Ibid
45
Gay 1966: xii. ‘Philosophes’ is the French denomination for philosopher and is ascribed to French intellectuals in
the eigtheenth century, the age of neo-classicism during which the Greeks were the primary source of inspiration.
22
Christianity” and a “pursuit of modernity”.46 This outlook explains the change of
perspective that Petrarch aimed to establish. In a negative sense, the focus of Petrarch
and his contemporaries was on Christianity and in a positive sense, on Antiquity. The
philosophers of the Enlightenment had a great affinity for ancient thought and “used
their classical learning to free themselves from their Christian heritage, and then, having
done with the ancients, turned their face toward a modern world view.”47 Gay describes
that the Enlightenment can be characterised by the “volatile mixture of classicism,
impiety, and science” and that the philosophes must be regarded as “modern pagans”.48
Mainly due to all educated men’s common knowledge of classical literature and
philosophy, classical Antiquity was inescapable and offered educated men an alternative
to Christianity. In this vision on history, ancient thought was an inescapable indication
of secularism.
The Greek philosophers were pioneers. Their ability to be innovative and critical
made them role models for the process of secularisation through the power of reason:
“To make the Greeks into the fathers of true civilization – the fathers, in a word,
of the first Enlightenment – was to subvert the foundations of Christian
historiography by treating man’s past as a secular, not as a sacred, record. The
primacy of Greece meant the primacy of philosophy, and the primacy of
philosophy made nonsense of the claim that religion was man’s central
concern.”49
Thus, instead of purely sacred and enchanted, the period of the ancient Greeks can be
regarded as bearing secular elements. Therefore, whether one regards this period as
sacred or secular, depends largely on which point of view one chooses; what one’s
method requires; where one is aiming at; and which presuppositions one holds. Like
Taylor, one can argue that the ancient tradition is not part of the historical narrative of
the coming into being of our secular age. Of course, it would be narrow-minded and
short-sighted to regard Antiquity as a period of reasoning and secularity alone. People
46
Ibid: xiv
47
Ibid: 8
48
Ibid: 8
49
Ibid: 72
23
lived in an enchanted world that was dominated by the sacred and despite some
educated men, a great part of society was excluded from philosophy. However, the
results of research of historians such as Gay cannot be denied. The historical narrative
that Gay creates, shows that the philosophes of Enlightenment sought inspiration for
their secular ideas within the tradition of Antiquity, and with good reasons.
§3 The Rise of the Rational
In addition to these arguments of a historian, a view from ‘within’ the history of thought
of the ancient Greeks can provide an even more solid ground for the idea that secular
ideas had a place within the ancient tradition. In this history of thought, two elements
are central. In ancient Greek, these elements were called ‘theos’ and ‘phusis’. The term
theos means ‘god’ or ‘goddess’. The first Presocratic natural philosophers used the term
phusis in two ways. Firstly, to describe all the processes that are natural, varying from
the surrounding nature to processes in the universe. Secondly, to point at the ‘nature’ of
things. Thus, research on the phusis of things investigates the nature and the origin of
things. In this chapter I use the term theos to refer to the realm of the religious and
phusis to refer to the sphere of the scientific.
There existed a fundamental and central relation between religion and science
or religion and philosophy and the historical development of philosophy and science
evolved out of a religious and enchanted world view. Besides the focus on magic,
religion, gods, the sacred and the irrational, the ancient tradition also includes much
science, philosophy, rationality and natural phenomena. The Greeks were extremely
innovative, productive and creative. Research of literary sources on papyri has shown
that magic and science, the rational and the irrational, have been intertwined throughout
the classical ages.50 The Greeks with their porous selves could incorporate mystics,
magic, religion, irrationality, and so forth in their scientific and philosophical thinking.51
To illustrate this eclectic way of thinking of the ancient porous selves, the way in
which ancient Greek culture developed ideas of gods, beliefs, and forms of religion is
an interesting and important focal point. Firstly, because philosophy and science
developed out of a critical reaction to religious practices, beliefs, and ideas. Secondly,
50
Lloyd 1979: 5
51
In All Things Shining, Dreyfus and Kelly demonstrate how the porous selves of the ancient Greeks were open to
the sacred. I will return to their theory in chapter four.
24
since ideas of gods, belief, and religion changed through philosophising. Another reason
why this focal point is interesting is because this history follows a line of argumentation
similar to that of Taylor. Taylor points out that secularism developed from the history of
religion and this development is quite similar to the coming into being of science and
philosophy in ancient history. I present the history of thought of the ancient Greeks as a
more broad and open narrative and additional perspective to Taylor’s theory.
The religions of Antiquity “were not reasoned about: they did not require proof
and hence could not be disproved.”52 Objectivity was unknown to the myth-making and
open mind of the common Greek population, as was a quantification of time and
history. Through the development of a habit of systematic criticism, a rational study
became possible. It would be undesirable to explain the entire development of this
rational study in this thesis – the amount of information is gigantic, many studies need
to proceed, and much evidence is incomplete. Therefore, I have restricted myself to
presenting a dense and small highlight of the alternative historical narrative, in order to
present an idea of the possibilities of ancient philosophy for thinking about the cluster
of religiosity and secularity.
From the very beginnings of Greek literature, critique on religion came into
existence. This started with the famous poet Homer (ca. 750 BC) and became more
explicit in the Theogony of Hesiod (ca. 750 BC), a poem in which a theologic
cosmology is created of all the existing myths and stories of the gods. Here, the gods
were classified in genealogies in order to structure a coherent world view. In the
everyday life of the ancient Greeks, the religious ritual had an important function and
the divine forces and gods had an essential role. Homer’s anthropomorphic
characterisation of the gods and divine forces had an enormous influence on people’s
ideas of the gods. Many natural phenomena, cosmological explanations and ideas about
human existence have been explained in terms of the sacred or the divine.
Through the art of argumentation of philosophy, true criticism on religion started
to reform its character. An early illustration of critique on the anthropomorphic
depiction of the gods is given by the poet and philosopher Xenophanes (570 - c. 470
BC), who stated famously, “if oxen and horses and lions had hands and could draw with
their hands and produce works of art like men, horses would draw the forms of the gods
like horses, and oxen like oxen, and they would make their bodies such as each of them
52
Gay 1966: 90
25
had themselves.”53 Xenophanes reduced the anthropomorphic idea to absurdity: because
it is absurd to think of the gods as oxen, horses and lions, it is absurd to think of the
gods as human beings. Thus, the anthropomorphic depiction was by no means necessary
and a better representation or model could be developed.
Natural phenomena that were previously ascribed to divine interventions
received more natural explanations during the sixth century BC. Ancient philosophers
held a naturalistic view of knowledge and belief, which means that knowledge and
belief are not stipulated or semantically determined. Knowledge and belief are both real
and objectively determined achievements. A variety of kinds of magical and irrational
beliefs can be documented from the earliest to the latest times of Antiquity. The rational
and the irrational were closely related and both part of the reality of the ancient Greeks.
The way in which developments within science and cosmology evolved out of an
interest for the magical aspects of reality, illustrates this. 54 Nonetheless knowledge
cannot be reduced to a belief, because beliefs are “in essence, not reducible to the
subject matter of empirical science” and have a distinct essence of their own.55
Knowledge is a natural state and can be understood correctly and incorrectly.
Diogenes Laërtius, a biographer of Greek philosophers, recalls how old ideas
about mythological legends of the soul and faith transformed. In his testimonia and
fragments of the earlier Stoics, he writes that these thinkers thought of God (him- or
itself) as “the right reason which penetrates all things”.56 This is one of the first times
that the idea of god is connected to rationality. This idea of the earlier Stoics prepared
the way for rationalistic movements.
The fifth century BC is a century that is often referred to as “The Greek
Enlightenment”, “the Rationalistic Movement” or “the Age of the Sophists”.57 The
Sophists introduced a new kind of philosophy of which the idea of ‘homo-mensura’ is
characteristic. Instead of absolute truth or pure objectivism, the core shifted to
subjectivity and a plurality of possible truths. Individual people became normative for
their own thinking and reality was real insofar it presented itself as reality to a specific
53
Lloyd 1979: 68. Xenophanes fr. 12
54
Lloyd 1979: 5
55
Gerson 2009: 9
56
Dodds 1951: 209, 255
57
Solmsen 1975: 5
26
individual. By the ‘homo-mensura’ statement, the idea of an absolute form of divinity or
an absolute god became unthinkable. The Sophist Critias (c. 460 - 403 BC) radicalised
this subjectification by stating that the divine forces and gods were power mechanisms
invented by human beings to control other human beings: “a man of clever and cunning
wit first invented for men the fear of gods, so that there might be something to frighten
the wicked.”58 The ‘homo-mensura’ statement was a completely new idea to depict the
world and can be regarded as an alternative construct.
Due to the polytheistic character of ancient society in the sixth and fifth century
BC, the critical approach of religion and the developments in science and philosophy,
gods could easily be adopted and rejected because there was no dogmatic, systematic, or
monotheistic world view. This flexible and open character of the polytheistic society
decreased with a change of climate in bourgeois Athens, where strict religious duties
existed and people could get convicted for ‘asebeia’ (ungodliness).59
The appearance of Plato (427 - 347 BC) had a great influence in the change from
a polytheistic world view to a more monotheistic one. Plato is the great inventor of the
transcendent world of the Forms. In his dialogue Politeia, Plato explains the theory of
the Forms by using the analogy of the sun, the line and the cave.60 The analogy of the
cave demonstrates that there are two worlds: the world of the shadows where people
live ‘imprisoned’ in a cave, and the world of the Forms, which is symbolised by the
world in the sun outside the cave. The people in the cave have their back and neck tied
to a wall. In front of them shadows of things are projected and therefore they can only
experience the representations of things and not the things itself. However, since they
do not know better, they believe the shadows to be true. The persons who can free
themselves and escape from the cave learn that they have falsely believed in the truth of
the reality of the cave and attain knowledge of the truth of the Forms.
The picture of the cave in the analogy corresponds to the earthly, surrounding
world. Besides this world exists a higher, transcendent world of the true, eternal, and
infinite Forms, to which people only have limited access. By a specific form of training
through contemplation and philosophy, the truth about the Forms can be learned within
this earthly life. In the representations that we encounter, a spark of their true source, the
58
Lloyd 1979: 15
59
Nussbaum 2006: 36. Because Socrates was accused of impiety and corrupting the Athenian youth, he was
condemned to drink a poisoned liquid which caused his death in 399 BC
60
Plato 2006: 263 - 281, 507E - 520D
27
truth of the Forms, is present. By looking at the representations around us, we can
receive a sort of objective notion of the truth. In very rare and exceptional moments of
great insight through contemplation, the Forms can be seen directly. While Plato is
inspired by the ideas of reincarnation of Pythagoras (572 - 500 BC), he believes that
during our ‘death’ we have stayed on the sphere of the ether and have seen the Forms
from there and that in life, vague memories of this encounter remain.
Opposed to the subjective theory of the Stoics, Plato proposes an objective
theory: absolute truth exists in the Forms. A sort of monotheistic idea is developed,
because Plato states that the idea of the Good is the most essential. The divine can never
cause some negativity or evil and must therefore be equal to the Good. The sphere of
the transcendent Forms with the Good as it highest Form is incorporated in the
monotheistic religion of Christianity. Taylor confirms that Plato’s terminology was most
suited to express the religious doctrine of the Christian belief. 61 Aristotle transformed
Plato’s conception of the divine and introduced a cosmological interpretation of the
divine instead of a religious interpretation.
Vital aspects of Christianity have their source in ancient tradition: not only in
Platonism, but also in Aristotelianism, Stoicism and Epicureanism. Thus, the narrative
of Christianity can be said never to be complete without its fundamental source of
inspiration. We shall return to the theories of Plato, Epicurus and Aristotle and their
connection with Christianity in the next chapters.
§4 Conclusion
Taylor claims that scientific thinking has not developed itself in rivalry with or in denial
of religion. As this inquiry of the alternative history has shown, Taylor can find good
arguments in Antiquity to substantiate his claim. Perhaps Taylor wanted to describe a
more positive outlook on Christianity than that of the early humanist Petrarch in the
early Renaissance and found a way in neglecting Antiquity. Or maybe the sources of
Christianity are simply not interesting enough to him. Nonetheless, Taylor cannot hold
that Antiquity is not crucial in the historical narrative about secularism. Both Antiquity
and Christianity are essential:
61
Taylor 2007: 275
28
“Indeed, while the eighteenth century undeniably produced a handful of
committed and dogmatic moderns, it is no more possible to reduce the classics
to a marginal role in the century of Enlightenment, than it is to ignore the
continued importance of religion in that same century. Nor is it possible to see
most forms of Enlightenment as opposed to either the classics or religion.”62
Where Taylor agrees with the very last word of the quote, he excludes the classics too
much. This is strange, because both narratives share a similar history; through critique
on existing religious practices, developments in science and in philosophy flourished.
This chapter has attempted to show, by the use of historical and philosophical
arguments, that the exclusion of Antiquity is a matter of choice and by no means
necessary. If Taylor were to include the extended narrative of classics and religion in his
theory, he would lose part of his problematic ‘circular mode of reasoning’ and
accomplish a real genealogical and hermeneutical approach. Furthermore, it would
provide a more complete picture of the origins of the secular and help to achieve a
better understanding of the relation between religiosity and the secular – an
understanding that is more open-minded and multiple-dimensional.
62
Velema 2012: 21
29
3 Transcendence and Immanence
Fate, which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he scorns,
affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance,
others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys
responsibility and that chance is inconstant; whereas our own actions are
autonomous, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach. It
were better, indeed, to accept the legends of the gods than to bow beneath
that yoke of destiny which the natural philosophers have imposed.63
Epicurus
§ 1 Introduction
In his Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus presents his theory about the nature of human
beings. He focuses on the strength that human beings have within themselves and
reveals an ambivalent attitude towards the higher spheres. People who are wise have
sacred beliefs concerning the gods, but they are never afraid of them, just as they are not
afraid of death. Fate is a story that human beings should not buy while their own
autonomous actions largely determine the course of their lives. Epicurus’ ambivalent
attitude reveals that human beings have a complicated and ambiguous relation to the
transcendent and immanent. To this day, this relation has remained obscure. However,
Taylor has made an attempt to reformulate the relation between the transcendent, the
immanent, and human beings.
One of the strongest statements that Taylor makes in A Secular Age is that
human beings need to relate themselves to something transcendent in order to live a life
that has ‘a sense of fullness’. This statement brings up a plethora of questions. How
should we understand this longing for transcendence and where does it come from?
Why is the longing for transcendence of importance? Can it perhaps be ignored or
replaced by atheistic or immanent world views? And what is at stake in this statement of
Taylor’s? In order to answer these questions, some concepts need further explanation.
Firstly, a clarification of the notion of the sense of fullness will be given, and secondly,
an explanation of the meaning of the opposition between transcendence and
63
Epicurus - Letter to Menoeceus
30
immanence. These concepts are discussed in many debates in the history of philosophy,
and particularly about the processes of secularisation and modernity. I will focus on the
meaning of transcendence and immanence in Taylor’s contemporary theory. The ancient
theories of Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus will also be discussed briefly.
The notion of ‘a sense of fullness’ is the axis around which Taylor interweaves
his narrative about our secular age. Ayşe Polat gives an interpretation of the
consequences of Taylor’s focus on the notion of fullness. She states the following:
“underneath Taylor’s focus on the sense of fullness lies his primary concern,
that is, whether the source of fullness is immanent or transcendental, “within” or
“without,” and in what sense. Taylor then henceforth sets the framework of his
analysis of secularity along the lines of immanence versus transcendence.”64
I think Polat is right when she states that Taylor’s analysis of the secular must be
understood in relation to his idea of ‘the sense of fullness’ and ‘along the line of
immanence versus transcendence’.65
The relation between religion and the distinction between transcendence and
immanence is mentioned for the first time in the introduction of A Secular Age, where
Taylor states, “a reading of “religion” in terms of the distinction transcendent/immanent
is going to serve our purpose here”.66 Taylor adds that religion as such cannot be
defined in terms of immanence versus transcendence, but that it is suitable for the
purpose of A Secular Age, because the distinction between transcendence and
immanence stems from our Western culture and is mainly valid for Latin Christendom.
The distinction is constructed and redefined through the processes of modernity and
secularisation. Furthermore, the immanent order of things is an innovation of the
modern West and it has left unanswered the question if life had a higher or deeper
significance.
64
Polat 2012: 220
65
The discussion would probably become more complex than necessary if we also included the notion of
‘transcendental’, like Polat does. This term, which originates from Immanuel Kant’s Kritiek der Reinen Vernunft,
describes a different use of the transcendent than Taylor would employ. Therefore, I prefer to use the term
‘transcendent’ rather than ‘transcendental’.
66
Taylor 2007: 15
31
§2 The Immanent Frame
The concepts of transcendence and immanence are closely connected to the secular and
the religious. In Taylor’s explanation of the Latin term ‘saeculum’, we have noted how
the term developed over time and formed the opposition of the transcendent. During the
Middle Ages, the attributes timelessness, infinity, and eternity became strongly
connected to the transcendent sphere and attributes such as the finite and the worldly
with the immanent sphere. Consequently, the transcendent sphere was connected to the
realm of the divine and the secular to the immanent sphere.
Transcendence belongs to a higher sphere that stands outside time and
generation. In monotheistic religions like Christianity, transcendence and God are
closely connected: God is defined as surpassing His creation and therefore transcendent.
Immanence literally means ‘contained within’. It gives inherent structure to the personal
sphere or the realm of the world and remains within the person or the world.
Taylor states that from the Middle Ages onwards, “we have undergone a change
in our condition involving both an alternation of the structures we live within, and our
way of imagining these structures.”67 The change in our condition is marked by the
transition from the year 1500 to the year 2000. We have left the enchanted world behind
and replaced our porous selves by buffered selves. This buffered self has introduced
new oppositions: it has separated mind from world, the self from the other, the inner,
from the outer and beliefs from facts. Non-material notions like thoughts, beliefs, ideas,
and feelings are all interiorized. A barrier has also been placed between the sphere of the
immanent and the transcendent: “we have moved from a world in which the place of
fullness was understood as unproblematically outside or “beyond” human life, to a
conflicted age in which this construal is challenged by others who place it (in a wide
range of different ways) “within” human life.”68 The buffered self finds it difficult to
think of both immanence and transcendence as part of our reality. We used to connect
our moral and spiritual aspirations to God, but this is no longer evident or necessary in
an age where many people regard God as dead. Transcendence has become an option,
just like religion has become an option.
According to Taylor, we all share an immanent frame nowadays. This immanent
frame is a central concept in Taylor’s theory and one of his most influential and useful
67
Ibid: 594
68
Ibid: 15
32
notions. The immanent frame must be understood as a shared structure that constitutes a
natural and immanent order over against an order that is supernatural and transcendent.
Furthermore, the immanent frame is characterised by a modern scientific world view,
modern exclusive humanism, and the buffered self which is disciplined and
individualistic. Our lives take place in an order that is self-sufficient and immanent, on a
social, moral, and cosmic level. Here, a reference to a higher or divine realm lacks
necessity. We can do without a God, because we can attribute everything to “Nature”
and even to “developing human motivation”.69 Accordingly, our idea of religion has
changed. Nevertheless, despite our immanent frame and the lack of a necessity of
transcendence, we can still choose to be open to something beyond: to the transcendent
realm.
Taylor frames the idea of transcendence as an option as follows. He states that
the immanent frame can have two different ‘spins’. These spins can have a tendency
towards either closure or openness. Taylor calls immanent orders closed when they
ignore or deny the possibility of transcendence completely. Reasons for choosing an
immanent frame that is closed are fear for religious fanaticism; the attraction of the idea
that we belong to the order of nature; and the belief that there are no miracles or
mysteries. An immanent frame that is open keeps the option of transcendence open. The
main reason for open immanence is the belief in a higher, and possibly collective, good:
the idea that there exists a better, more moral, way of life which we can reach by aiming
at something higher. A second, negative, reason expresses that there is a need for
transcendence because we feel that something is lacking in the immanent order. We
cannot believe that this is all there is.
§3 Fullness and Transcendence
Taylor argues that there is a close relation between fullness and religious belief. He
defines fulfilment as “a mode of the higher, of fullness which we are called on to
realize.”70 Fullness is thus connected to the higher, to the transcendent. In Taylor’s
theory, the sphere of the transcendent is strongly connected to religious belief and
practice, even though he admits that religion is not the only way to reach the
transcendent.
69
Ibid: 543
70
Ibid: 607
33
In A Secular Age, Taylor develops the idea that people still have the desire for
experiences of fullness in the secular age: the rise of the secular has not brought forth a
decline in religious belief. On the contrary, the secular made diversity possible. Fullness
is also connected to secular practises, especially when an open immanent frame is
involved. Taylor declares that the immanent frame is “the sensed context in which we
develop our beliefs” and these beliefs can be religious, non-religious, or anti-religious.71
Therefore, it is this frame that is connected to the condition of Secularity 3. The sense of
fullness also occurs in the realm of Secularity 3. The secular can leave the option for
transcendence open and make a personal quest in the search of fulfilment possible.
Within the immanent frame, diversity of beliefs is embedded in the choice for
openness or closure. Taylor takes both positions seriously and in this line of
argumentation, he reveals himself as an open, tolerant, and respectful thinker. For
example, he argues in a beautiful manner how there is a variety of options between the
closed militant atheist and the open orthodox religious theist. Taylor believes that the
relation between these different world views is fragile; there is no strict boundary
between secular atheism and religious belief. The fact that people can adopt opposed
and contrasting world views accounts for this. In addition, many people have their own
inner struggles and are puzzled and searching.
The idea of a ‘search’ or ‘quest’ is a fundamental aspect of Taylor’s theory.
Finding answers to vital questions concerning how we can reach fullness and lead a
fulfilled life involves a quest. Within the immanent frame, everyone is searching, has
questions that cannot be answered by scientific reasoning alone, and needs to live with a
finite life. Transcendence is a fruitful option to approach and deal with these questions.
The transcendent view of fullness is that human beings have a deep-rooted inclination to
“respond to something beyond life”.72
I have already discussed some reasons why human beings are inclined towards
transcendence: people seek an “ultimate explanation”, “spiritual transformation”, or
“final sense-making”.73 In his last chapter, “Conversions”, Taylor elaborates on reasons
for embracing the transcendent view by focusing on the power of conversion. Through
conversion, many people break with the closed immanent world structure. Although
71
Ibid: 549
72
Ibid: 638
73
Ibid: 549
34
Taylor also defines conversion in terms of self-authenticating experiences, it is
essentially religious. Taylor discusses, for instance, the powerful experience of fullness
of mystics and the transformation of Francis, who could participate in God’s love.
Taylor acknowledges that stories about mystics and transformations form only a
limited aspect of the scope of our experience of the transcendent. This is important
especially because many contemporary non-religious thinkers would not be convinced
by this argument. The transcendent can be experienced in a variety of different ways,
two of which are the positive sense and the negative sense. An experience of the
transcendent is positive when the reality of transcendence is experienced, through
contemplation or by an event, as a deeper reality that is life-changing. It is negative
when the experience of the absence of fullness directs an individual towards
transcendence.
Contemporary conversion has the character of a paradigm shift. Systems of the
immanent order can be explained in their own terms, in natural terms. These terms are
easily accessible for us because we think of ourselves as being part of the immanent
sphere. In many cases, the natural terms are also sufficient for sense-making. Systems
that break out of this natural immanent order, the supernatural systems, therefore, have
to make a shift that goes further and beyond the familiar realm of the natural.
The first part of this thesis has pointed out that Taylor’s solution for leading a
fulfilled life in our secular age can be found within the Christian tradition. This becomes
very clear in the chapter about conversion. When Taylor elaborates on new paths we
need to look for in order to find the paradigm shift that leads to transcendence, he states
that we should search for “unprecedented itineraries” and that we are likely to succeed
this search when we understand our times “in Christian terms”. He concludes that the
itinerary will be a way “through the particular labyrinthine landscape we live in ... to
God.”74 He repeats this step when he continues that “the issue is ultimately one of
whether one gives a decisive privilege to one historically-embedded order of Christian
life, be it past or present”.75 Otherwise, the open immanent sphere cannot meet up to a
possible paradigmatic status at all. Thus, this is where Taylor comes clean about his
Christian premises.
74
Ibid: 755
75
Ibid: 766
35
I agree with Taylor that both the continuing background and the new
developments are of great relevance when you want to relate to a structure that is
present and historically embedded – a structure that is open and immanent. But, can an
open immanent frame only hold within a Christian framework? What happened to
Taylor’s own open and tolerant vision of the large varieties of possible beliefs, reaching
from the militant atheist to the orthodox theist? I would like to state, once again, that the
framework Taylor uses, is too narrow.
In the cluster of secularity and religiosity that Taylor describes, the immanent is
related to the sphere of the secular and the transcendent to the sphere of the religious.
This is a specific use of the terms and in different contexts, the concepts are applied
differently. Some religions honour immanent gods, and non-religious notions of
transcendence can be found in metaphysics. A sense of fullness can be connected to
God and therefore to a sense of transcendence, but this does not have to be the case.
The often-made and brute distinction between immanence and transcendence is
in practise quite delicate. As a dichotomy, the transcendent and immanent are
interconnected and complementary; they gain meaning in opposition. The monotheistic
Christian idea of transcendence is that the divine and religious are closely related to the
transcendent. Nevertheless, unlike what monotheistic world views often tend to state,
transcendence does not have to be connected to the sphere of the religious.
Transcendence can also be found in non-religious traditions such as metaphysics.76 As
we have seen in the previous chapter, elements of the secular have a premodern history
that dates back to Antiquity. Likewise, the notions of transcendence and immanence
have their source in Antiquity, namely in ancient philosophy. More than to religion,
transcendence and immanence were connected to philosophy and metaphysics.
§4 Ancient Conceptions of Transcendence and Immanence
Questions concerning the concepts of transcendence and immanence have played a
fundamental role throughout the history of philosophy. A beautiful anecdote and wellknown ancient joke of Thales of Miletus narrates how, during a nightly walk, Thales
was thinking about the nature of our cosmos. He was so fascinated by the sight of the
stars that he forgot to look at his surroundings. This caused him to accidentally fall into
76
It would be very interesting to elaborate on this point and provide insights about non-religious theories of the
transcendent in the history of metaphysics. Yet since this would extend the scope of this thesis. I will now only touch
upon this subject by the discussion of three ancient philosophers.
36
a well.77 A witty and wise Tracian slave woman who witnessed the fall, laughed and
said, “how can you know what happens up above, when you do not even know what is
going on right in front of you?” A common interpretation of the anecdote is that people
should keep their mind on earth. However, for Plato, a philosopher is born here:
someone who thinks about ontological questions and searches for answers in higher
spheres. Someone who is not only interested in the natural realm, but also in the
supernatural realm. This is similar to what Plato does himself: the higher spheres are his
source of inspiration for the sphere of the transcendent Forms.
In Vom Ursprungs und Ziel der Geschichte, Karl Jaspers introduces the idea of
the Axial Age78 and explains that in this period we know “-through Plato’s metaphysical
philosophy, the Buddha’s conception of Nirvana, and various religious notions of
Eternal Life – that there is a good beyond what we can find in the everyday conception
of human flourishing; that there is a transcendent good that is the nature of the
Divine.”79 The Axial Age revealed a transcendent dimension in the crux of our being:
there is a good with a divine character that goes beyond but which is, nevertheless, still
approachable for us. This idea has brought forth a new vision on human consciousness.
Taylor gives his own interpretation of the Axial Revolution: “The Axial
Revolution tended to place the Divine on the side of the ultimate good; while at the
same time redefining this as something that goes beyond what is understood as ordinary
human flourishing: Nirvana, Eternal Life.”80 In the quote from Taylor, we notice that in
Antiquity the idea of transcendence was connected to morality, the good, and the
practise of life, flourishing. This connection is very clearly presented in Plato’s,
Aristotle’s, and Epicurus’ theories. In the Politeia, Plato argues that all human beings
aim at happiness, fulfilment, and the life that is most worth living. Aristotle agrees with
this argument and also with Plato’s conclusion that wise people accept the requirements
of morality in their strife for the good life.81 However, the good did not simply go
77
Plato discusses this anecdote in the Theaetetus.
78
The ‘Achsezeit’ or Axial Age (800 - 200 BC) is an age of transition in which high forms of intellectual,
psychological, philosophical, and religious thinking developed. For Jaspers, important figures of the Axial Age are
Homer, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Thucydides, Archimedes, Socrates, and Plato.
79
Dreyfus and Kelly 2011: 164
80
Taylor 2007: 687, Dreyfus and Kelly 2011: 164
81
Urmson 1988: 2 - 3
37
beyond human flourishing; it did not transcend human flourishing. The good must be
understood as intrinsic to human flourishing.
Philosopher Pierre Hadot makes clear that the idea of philosophy as a movement
through which the individual transcends towards something that goes beyond his own
capacities can be found throughout Antiquity. A great and famous example of
philosophy as a movement can be found in Plato’s Symposium. In the Symposium, Plato
describes how individuals can transcend themselves by using of the logos, a great force
of rationality and wisdom. He states that the truth can only be found through the use of
reason. The Symposium narrates how the wise Diotima introduced Socrates to the true
story about love:
“Like someone using a staircase, he should go from one to two and from two to
all beautiful bodies, and from beautiful bodies to beautiful practices, and from
practices to beautiful forms of learning. From forms of learning, he should end
up at that form of learning which is of nothing other than that beauty itself, so
that he can complete the process of learning what beauty really is.”82
Diotima explains here how passion for a beautiful body can evoke love in a person and
how this love for an individual can develop into love for all the beautiful bodies. Once
this person is familiar with this kind of love, he evolves through the stages of love for
beautiful practices and learning, until he reaches the transcendent form of Beauty itself,
which is a universal truth.
In the development of a person’s rational capacity, attention must be paid to the
contemplative life. One must distance oneself from bodily and earthly aspects of life
and the mind must be open for the pure divine. Thus, the immanent aspect of life must
be surpassed in order to discover universal truths in the realm of the transcendent.
According to Taylor, Plato transforms the idea of God to a conception of
morality: “some code which is justified and made sense in terms of this higher Good.”83
For many moderns, Plato’s rigid rejection of bodily and worldly aspects of love and life
is problematic. We cherish the idea of friendships, relationships, sexual love, and bodily
sensuality. And why does there have to be a distinction between ethical demands and
82
Plato 1999: 61
83
Taylor 2007: 687
38
sexual love, a tension between personal, private forms of love and universal forms of
love? Can the notion of transcendence become more internalised? Martha Nussbaum
seems to propose this possibility. She states that “there is a great deal of room, within
the context of a human life ..., for a certain sort of aspiration to transcend our ordinary
humanity.” But we need “transcendence ... of an internal and human sort.”84 Taylor
agrees with Nussbaum up to a certain point, but states that exclusive humanism will
never be able to accept the notion of transcendence; it does not accept the idea of
something beyond and it does not recognise the human need for the transcendent
option.85 Is this really the case?
As I have pointed out in chapter two, Taylor dismisses the importance of the
exclusive humanism in Epicurus’ theory. When he makes his argument that selfsufficing or exclusive forms of humanism only developed within modernity, he states
that Epicureanism is the exception: “By my account, ancient Epicureanism was a selfsufficing humanism. It admitted Gods, but denied them relevance to human life. My
plea here is that one swallow doesn’t make a summer.”86 I would like to argue that the
ideas of the Epicureans cannot be denied. During the third, second, and first century BC
the philosophical way of life of the Epicureans was at times very popular. Furthermore,
the fact that some of Epicurus’ writings have survived the course of time proves that his
ideas were at some point wide-spread and popular.
As the quote from Epicurus’ letter to Menoeceus demonstrates, the Epicureans
had a well-developed idea about a self-sufficing form of humanism without a denial of
the existence of the gods. Exclusive humanism and the acceptance of something that
goes beyond can go together. However, because of the combination of humanism and
absent gods, one cannot apply Nussbaum’s idea of internal transcendence to the
exclusive humanism of the Epicureans. For Epicurus, the gods are not part of the world
of human beings. They live in the intermundia, a space between the world we live in
and a higher world. 87 The gods are somehow connected to us because we can dream
about them, their appearance is anthropomorphic, and they have the same uses and
habits as human beings. Nevertheless, the gods do not interfere with human beings,
84
Ibid: 627
85
Ibid: 638
86
Ibid: 19
87
Dodds 1951: 240
39
since that would ruin their own perfect state of happiness of the gods. For the
Epicureans, the gods must be understood as the embodiment of rationality.
A philosopher who did develop a theory in which an internal and human form of
transcendence can have a place is Aristotle. Aristotle respects the bodily and worldly
aspects of life, but also argues for the life of contemplation. He makes a different
connection between transcendence and immanence than Plato and Epicurus do – one
which is very suited for our contemporary age. In contrast to Plato, Aristotle puts less
emphasis on abstract notions of universal truth and more on the practical notion of
flourishing. As opposed to Epicurus, Aristotle believes that the intellect of human
beings has direct part in the divine realm. Aristotle develops a practical and systematic
theory of the best way of life. This theory teaches us how to act through the deepening
by contemplation of our rational capacities and understanding.
Aristotle focuses less on the divine, or higher, sphere than Plato. This is because
the immanent has another status for him. Our reality is immanent and, in accordance
with Taylor, we life in an immanent sphere. Aristotle’s argues that beauty and truth can
be found in the world around us, in the earthly and embodied world in which we live
and which is our reality. Aristotle believes that it is important to study every aspect of
nature. In De partibus animalium Aristotle makes clear that the presence of beauty and
truth is everywhere around us. He states that:
“we should venture on the study of every kind of animal without distaste; for
each and all will reveal to us something natural and something beautiful.
Absence of haphazard and conduciveness of everything to an end are to be found
in Nature's works in the highest degree, and the resultant end of her generations
and combinations is a form of the beautiful.”88
Besides this focus on the immanent character of beauty and truth, Aristotle also refers to
notions of transcendence. In the Ethica Nicomachea, he discusses his virtue ethics about
human happiness, eudaimonia. Through the act of praxis human beings can acquire
certain virtues that make it possible for them to flourish and fulfil their happiness. The
Greek verb ‘praxis’ can be translated as ‘act’ or ‘action’. For Aristotle, praxis refers to
88 Aristotle
1912: I.5, 644b23 - 645a37
40
processes in which a thought-out act is realised.89 Through praxis human beings can
flourish. In the end, flourishing can only take place when we train our cognitive
abilities. As real and true the immanent world around us is, we have to relate ourselves
to something higher in order to reach actual happiness.
Aristotle pictures God as the unmoved mover. The unmoved mover must be
understood as pure intuitive reason. The unmoved mover is the primary cause of
processes and becoming in the sublunary world. But, similar to the Epicureans, God is
not concerned with the world of human beings. God contemplates only itself and is
perfect, infinite, and indivisible.90
Since human beings are ‘anima rationale’, they take part in the pure intuitive
reason of the unmoved mover. In book X of the Ethica Nicomachea, Aristotle states:
“If reason is divine, then, in comparison with man, the life according to it is
divine in comparison with human life ... [we] must, so far as we can, make
ourselves immortal, and strain every nerve to live in accordance with the best
thing in us; for even if it be small in bulk, much more does it in power and worth
surpass everything.” 91
Through the life of contemplation, the life of reason, we can transcend our human
capacities, because we, as rational creatures, take part in something divine when we use
our reason virtuously. But we do not only transcend our human capacities; we are part
of this transcendent realm as human beings because of our intellectual capabilities. This
idea of transcendence can be regarded as a human and internal form. Furthermore,
Aristotle’s theory of transcendence accepts the idea of something beyond and it
recognises the human need for the transcendent option. Therefore, I believe that
Aristotle’s idea of the relation between human beings, the transcendent, and the
immanent can have a place within Taylor’s framework.
89 Aristotle
2008: 303
90 Aristotle
2008: 40, Urmson 1988: 121
91 Aristotle
2008: 291. Book X, 7.8. Translated in English by W. D. Ross, from the Web site: http://classics.mit.edu//
Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
41
§5 Conclusion
In Taylor’s theory, we have noted that the combination of transcendence and fullness
has a practical implication. The immanent frame that we all share is more likely to be
closed than open, while the human need for transcendence has not declined. We need to
search for new itineraries in order to meet up to a possible paradigmatic status that
makes open immanent world structures possible. Aristotle’s classical concept of praxis
and flourishing seems to aim at something similar; it takes place within an immanent
sphere, but wants to leave room for transcendence. Ancient theories and Taylor’s
contemporary theory also share another idea. The idea that all human beings aim at
fulfilment and the life that is most worth living is argued for by Plato, Epicurus, and
Aristotle.
It seems to be the case that in Taylor’s theory, people who do not believe in (old
and new) Christian religions or who do not regard themselves as theists will not have
genuine access to the open immanent sphere. The narrowness of Taylor’s theory and the
possibilities of ancient theories would be a good match. Within Taylor’s discussion of
the immanent and the transcendent, the incorporation of ideas of ancient philosophy can
broaden his Christian framework. This goes particularly for the theory of Aristotle, who
has developed an internal and human form of transcendence within an immanent
‘frame’.
The question remains whether the philosophical frame of the ancient
philosophers is capable of fulfilling the same role as Taylor’s religious frame. In the
next chapter, I will argue why the reconciliation between the idea of fullness of
believers and non-believers does not have to be a Christian reconciliation, because it
can be a philosophical reconciliation as well. I will explore whether the ideas of
polytheism and philosophy as a way of life have the potential to leave certain aspects of
closeness of the Christian framework behind, without closing the window for
transcendence.
42
4 Christianity and Antiquity
Philosophy, to interpret the world, is nothing else but the pursuit of
wisdom; and wisdom, as the old philosophers defined it, consists in
knowledge of things divine and human and of causes by which
these things are maintained. 92
Alfred Jules Ayer
§1 Introduction
The old philosophers of Antiquity tried to establish a harmonious relation between the
divine and the human, the transcendent and the immanent, the natural and the
supernatural. Even though the concept of the secular as we know it today did not exist
in Antiquity, elements of both the religious and the secular already existed in this period
of history. These concepts were not strictly defined by each other and opposed to each
other. Their fragile relation, as it can still be regarded today, was more fluid. This
chapter examines the differences and similarities of two different traditions, namely the
tradition of Antiquity that Taylor excludes from his theory and the Christian tradition
that expresses his framework and leads to a ‘circular mode’ in his reasoning. We have
already investigated to some extent how the religious and the secular were experienced
and interpreted differently in Antiquity and Christianity. Elements of the secular
developed within the tradition of ancient philosophy and these elements gained the
status the secular has today through developments within Christianity.
In this chapter, I address the question of where the traditions of ancient Greek
philosophy and Christianity differ about the status of philosophy and thus the relation
between the divine and the human, the transcendent and the immanent, the natural and
the supernatural. Where do they meet and where can they complement each other? And,
most importantly, can a comparison between these two traditions open up the way in
which we receive the concepts of the religious and the secular? Can it open up and
broaden Taylor’s narrow Christian framework?
These questions will be explored by discussing the theories of philosophers
Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly and of philosopher Pierre Hadot. These
92
Guthrie 1962: xiii
43
thinkers have discussed the relation between Christianity, Antiquity, and philosophy. In
addition, they have developed an alternative for the monotheistic Christian tradition. All
three thinkers are inspired by ancient philosophy and culture, and argue for the potential
of ancient forms of thinking and living for our contemporary age. In All Things Shining,
Dreyfus and Kelly plea for the notion of the sacred and investigate the possibility of
polytheism in our secular age. In Philosophy as a Way of Life, Hadot focuses on the role
philosophy played in the lives of ancient thinkers.
Polytheism can function as an alternative to monotheism and the ancient
philosophical idea of ‘philosophy as a way of live’ as an alternative to ‘Christianity as
the way of life’. These ideas are interesting in relation to Taylor’s ideas: firstly, since
Taylor acknowledges the reality of pluralism as a multiculturalist, and secondly, because
Taylor is a secularist as well as a Christian. Regardless of his modesty for his ‘Christian
solution’, we have seen in the previous chapters that he concludes that through a
Christian religious belief, people are able to fulfil a human need for transcendence. By
no means do I intend to exclude the option of Christian belief, nor do I want to argue
against its possibilities. What I want to make transparent is that Christian belief is not
the only option to fulfil the human need for transcendence. It is one option among
others.
§2 Dreyfus and Kelly’s Polytheism
In All Things Shining, Dreyfus and Kelly have an intuition that is also a central concern
in this thesis. They state that they are
“more skeptical than Taylor that Judeo-Christian monotheism can be culturally
satisfying in the modern age. Even if it could be, there are other religious
traditions in the history of the West that allow one to live a life guided by
something experienced as beyond oneself.”93
In this thesis, I have argued that Taylor’s theory is based on a Christian framework and
that the choice for this monotheistic foundation can be too limited for people who want
to live a life within an open immanent frame, but do not share the Christian faith.
93
Dreyfus and Kelly 2011: 21
44
Dreyfus and Kelly are also sceptical about Taylor’s Christian and monotheistic solution.
In their scepticism, they seek answers in ancient Greek culture and philosophy.
An important element of the relation between secularity and religion is the
identity, or self, of human beings. For Taylor, this element is brought forward in his
central question: what does it mean to be a modern subject in a secular age and how can
we understand ourselves as modern subjects? In our modern age, our attention is drawn
to individualism and authenticity rather than to collectivity. This is a heritage from the
tradition of Enlightenment. Today, the individual is the source of the moral and social
reality. Taylor argues that the self of this individual is a modern invention and he
characterises it as a buffered nature.
Along the lines of Taylor, Dreyfus and Kelly acknowledge that we live in an age
of individualism. What Dreyfus and Kelly do not agree with is that we live in an
disenchanted world: they argue that we have not left the disenchanted world behind.
Neither the nostalgic thinker, like Taylor, nor the thinker who believes strongly in
scientific progress is right. An absolute story of loss or progress does not exist. Dreyfus
and Kelly state, “The story of how we lost touch with these sacred practices is the
hidden story of the West.”94 We have ignored the sacred and the wonders of the world,
but we have not overcome them. The sacred is around us everywhere; we have only
closed ourselves off.
In the transition from porous selves to buffered selves, we have learned to shut
ourselves off from the world around us. As a result, we have mastered the art of
introspection; we understand our experiences and beliefs as private and inner. In the
modern world, inner experiences and intentions define a human being, rather than
external actions. In short, our moods are private, we give meaning to the world around
us by ourselves, and we close ourselves off from the external world.
Dreyfus and Kelly continue that, in contrast, the selves of the ancient Greeks
were porous and open to the surrounding world. The moods they had were shareable
and public. Everything had a meaning; wonders occurred, as well as things beyond their
own control. The ancients believed that they were not solely responsible for their own
existence. This is an aspect that belongs to enchantment and Dreyfus and Kelly explain
that the Homeric and the Medieval worlds have this in common.
94
Ibid: 89
45
In the Homeric world, excellence was thought of as having a right and grateful
response towards the sacred. The notion ‘arete’, which means ‘excellence in life’, is
essential to the ancient Greek understanding of morality. Arete is often translated as
‘virtue’, but must not be confused with Christian or Roman notions of virtues. Dreyfus
and Kelly explain that the notion of arete is ultimately connected to “one’s sense of
gratitude and wonder.”95 Etymologically, the word is related to ‘araomai’, which is the
Greek verb for ‘to pray’. Human excellence must, therefore, be understood in terms of
being in an exemplary relationship with what is sacred in society. For Plato, arete was
also connected to rationality, since virtues were a technique in a rational way of living.96
Furthermore, the gods have a crucial role in understanding what it means to be a
human being. For the ancient Greeks, human beings do not have control over every
central aspect of their lives; we do not know when we are caught by luck, illness or
death. We can experience moments that go beyond the realm of our responsibility. The
ancient Greeks acknowledged this and tried to cope with unexpected situations by
referring to the influence of the gods. The gods symbolized the aspect of life which
human beings have no control of. They were regarded as “whatever stands beyond us
that requires our gratitude”.97 The transcendent realm was, thus, understood as that part
of life which goes beyond our control and which needs to be ascribed to the gods.
An idea of excellence defined in relation to the sacred is very different from the
modern moral idea of agency. Today, we often think people live an excellent life when
they have a good career, a great social life, a lovely family, a nice house, or, to put it
differently, when they have it all. In the idea of the ‘American Dream’ with its political
dimension of neoliberalism, all the facets of the excellent life can be accomplished
within the realm of our own responsibility. Thus, the excellent life is within reach,
within our own control, and we can take all the credit for our personal achievements and
failures.
While the notion of luck is wide spread in our secular age, its content is
meaningless. Dreyfus and Kelly state that in our secular age, “the notion that blind luck
determines the course of our lives leads quickly to the nihilistic idea that our lives have
95
Ibid: 61
96
Dodds 1951: 208
97
Dreyfus & Kelly 2011: 64
46
no meaning.”98 For the ancient Greeks, this notion of being lucky had a deep meaning.
They believed that luck happens to human beings, but is nevertheless meaningful
because it is taken care of by the gods.
Taylor explains that one reason for the human longing for transcendence is that
we want to escape from the modern situation in which nothing really seems to matter.
Taylor mentions the notion of the ‘death of God’ in A Secular Age and criticises the
nihilistic outcomes of this notion.99 I have already discussed in chapter three how the
idea of the death of God makes it unnecessary for many contemporaries to connect their
moral and spiritual aspirations to God or transcendence. As a result, Taylor states that
transcendence, just like religion, has become an option.
Dreyfus and Kelly agree with the unfortunate outcome of nihilism. They state
that this nihilistic world view – that nothing really matters – is the burden of our age.
However, what is also part of this modern burden is that while nothing really matters,
we have to make decisions all the time. Dreyfus and Kelly are therefore not keen on
Taylor’s idea of transcendence and religion as an option. They feel that the idea of
religion as a personal choice can be problematic. Choice can be understood as a burden
that “proliferates in a world that no longer has any God or gods, nor even any sense of
what is sacred and inviolable, to focus our understanding of what we are.”100 The
burden of choice belongs to the reality of the modern and secular age. The problem is
not that we do not ask questions about the importance of the choices we make. It is
problematic that we do not have a ground for existential questions to refer to: they do
not seem to make sense in our contemporary age. Our identity is not determined by fate
or god, like people in the enchanted Middle Ages experienced it.
The ancient Greeks were also not familiar with this burden of nihilism and
choice. They wondered at the world and were amazed by the wonderful things that
happened in their lives outside their control. When these were favourable, they felt
gratitude. In ancient Greece, a meaningful life was a life open to the transcendent, open
to being overwhelmed by the realm of the sacred, open to that which lies outside
people’s control. Their polytheism helped the ancient Greeks to avoid nihilism. Life
itself was meaningful. According to Dreyfus and Kelly, the revival of the Greek
98
Ibid: 65
99
‘The death of God’ is a theory developed by Friedrich Nietzsche and is first mentioned in Die fröhliche
Wissenschaft.
100
Dreyfus and Kelly 2011: 7
47
Homeric gods is a great option to save ourselves from this threat of nihilism and choice,
since it saves the possibility of gods after the death of God. Polytheism entails the
possibility of theistic plurality and thus the possibility of gods after the death of a
monotheistic God.
Dreyfus and Kelly’s idea of polytheism as an option to have gods,
meaningfulness, and wonders after the death of God is a wonderful theory, but still
somewhat underdeveloped. Further research is required to explore its full potential for
and applicability to our contemporary age. Nevertheless, some conclusions can be
drawn from their polytheistic approach. The idea of the return of polytheism goes
against the enlightened ideas of individualism and autonomy. It also goes against
Taylor’s idea that religion is a matter of choice. Within Dreyfus and Kelly’s theory,
meaning is everywhere around us and one cannot choose ‘the meaning’ of one’s life.
Nevertheless, the argument that polytheism fits a pluralistic society can work up to a
certain point for Taylor, since he seeks to find a solution for living together within the
reality of a pluralistic society.
When we compare the historical narrative of Dreyfus and Kelly to that of Taylor,
great differences crop up. Taylor tells the story of a disenchanted world that we have left
behind. In contrast, Dreyfus and Kelly discuss how the sacred has always been
everywhere around us, but that this fact of reality has been ignored and neglected. As I
have noted in chapter three, Taylor argues in line with Hegel for a history in which we
have overcome earlier conditions. Along the lines of Thomas Kuhn’s theory, Dreyfus
and Kelly argue that the transition between historical periods is a ‘Gestalt switch’; the
two periods are incommensurable and we perceive things differently in modernity. The
sacred has not vanished, but we have closed ourselves off from it, because we see the
world in a different light nowadays.
The interpretations of transitions in history of Taylor, on the one hand, and
Dreyfus and Kelly, on the other hand, start from different premises. Is the choice for this
premise influenced by the specific framework – the philosophy of Antiquity and the
religion of Christianity respectively – used by these thinkers?
The religious experiences of the Judeo-Christian tradition were defined by and
against philosophical concepts of the ancient Greeks. In the Scholastics of Thomas
Aquinas, as well as in the Dominican traditions, Aristotle’s systematic theory was
48
studied thoroughly. Augustine and the Franciscans were largely influenced by Plato’s
idea of the elevation of the individual soul towards a higher realm.
The traditions of ancient philosophy and Christianity complement each other up
to a certain point, but are also incompatible. Dreyfus and Kelly explain how the Hebrew
tradition focused on the historical and local sphere, rather than on the idea of
universality of the platonic objective and eternal realm of the Good. The special relation
with God was important and this had less to do with the life of rationality and
contemplation of Platonism. Both traditions, thus, have another essential point of focus:
Christianity focuses on the sacred, because of the special personal relation with God,
where Platonism focuses on the rational aspect of life, since we can gain an
understanding of the Good through contemplation.
Dreyfus and Kelly use the traditions of Platonism and Christianity to
demonstrate the strong opposition between “Greek abstraction and Christian
embodiment”.101 The attempt of Christianity to define itself in abstract Platonic terms,
such as for example in the theory of Augustine, has been unsuccessful, because it led to
a rejection of all things bodily and worldly. However, not all Greek philosophical
concepts entail this strong focus on rationality. As has been discussed above, Aristotle’s
philosophy is well suited to embrace both abstract philosophical notions and a worldly
and embodied life. According to Aristotle, material things are real and not mere
mimesis, or imitation, of the higher Forms.
§3 Hadot’s Philosophy as a Way of Life
In order to understand the dynamics between Christianity and Antiquity more
thoroughly, Pierre Hadot’s theory is a good way to continue this investigation. Hadot
has developed a theory that demonstrates even more clearly how the relation between
Christianity and philosophy should be understood and adds a new and interesting
element to the discussion.
Hadot explains in an interview that, for him, philosophy is a historical
phenomenon.102 The word philosophia was coined by the ancient Greeks, and most
strongly by Plato, to describe their love for wisdom – philos means ‘friend’ and sophia
101
Ibid: 115
102
Hadot 1995: 281 - Postscript: an interview with Pierre Hadot.
49
means ‘wisdom’. 103 As a historical phenomenon, the idea and use of the concept of
philosophy has changed and is still changing constantly. Therefore, the idea we have of
philosophy nowadays differs from its original meaning.104
The ancient Greeks had a very specific idea of philosophy. For them, a
philosopher was someone who lived in a philosophical way; his or her actions were
accompanied by morality and reason. As a consequence, everyone who was interested
in wisdom could become a philosopher. 105 During the Hellenistic era (323 – 146 BC),
philosophy was broadly understood as a way of life. It was not only a moral conduct,
but also a mode of existing in the world. Philosophy had practical implications, it was
lived and exercised. Plato’s dialogues, in which Socrates’ harassment of questions
awakes people’s moral consciousness, presents such an exercise. Behind these questions
lies Socrates’ message: people should take care of themselves, since this will contribute
to good development of reason. 106
Hadot explains that “philosophy was a method of spiritual progress which
demanded a radical conversion and transformation of the individual’s way of being.”107
In every facet of life, philosophy had to be exercised and practiced. This could be so
powerful that it transformed a person’s will, way of thinking, and life. This
transformation of a person’s being is the goal of philosophy.
Here, I would like to note that Hadot connects the idea of a conversion to the
spiritual method of philosophy. He states that the philosophical act, which brings forth a
process in which one’s being and self can become more “fully”, is a conversion. This is
similar to what Taylor does with Christian religion. For both Hadot and Taylor, the
conversion can cause a transformation in a person’s life. However, Hadot demonstrates
that a conversion does not have to be a religious conversion.
For the ancient Greeks, philosophy was aimed at receiving true wisdom. This
form of wisdom differs from the contemporary idea of wisdom. It must not be regarded
as a form of knowledge of a certain element of life, but as a holistic principle that makes
it possible to transform one’s sense of being. Pursuing spiritual progress formed the core
103
I have mentioned this notion of love of wisdom in chapter three when I discussed a quote from Plato’s Symposium.
104
Hadot 1995: 281
105
Plato 2006: 221. 475B - D
106
Plato 1995: 58. 36C
107
Ibid: 265
50
of the idea of philosophy as a way of life. And even though the Greeks did not believe
that they would really reach a state of a stable, true, universal, and eternal form of
wisdom, the pursuit was necessary because wisdom could occur in specific wonderful
moments. Furthermore, the ancient Greeks recognised that they had a longing for the
transcendent. For them, wisdom was the transcendent norm and the path towards a life
worth living. The connection between wisdom, or rationality, and transcendence is
fundamental to the theories of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicureans.
Hadot explains that the path of wisdom is beneficial for three reasons. Firstly,
philosophy has a therapeutic character. It can bring about a form of ataraxia. The
Epicureans understood ataraxia as the form of true personal happiness. It is equivalent
to a peaceful state of mind, or mental tranquillity, as the Stoics refer to it. Secondly,
philosophy constitutes autarkeia. Autarkeia can be translated as self-sufficiency, mental
independence, or, as Hadot prefers, inner freedom. The notion of autarkeia is used by
Aristotle to demonstrate that the life of contemplation is an independent life in which
human beings can free themselves from external situations. The third beneficial aspect
of philosophy can be found in Epicureanism and Stoicism and is ‘cosmic
consciousness’. Hadot defines cosmic consciousness as the “consciousness that we are
part of the cosmos, and the consequent dilation of our self throughout the infinity of
universal nature”.108 Cosmic consciousness is, thus, to place oneself in a harmonious
relation with the world, the cosmos, and life itself.
Philosophy as we know it today is often divided into categories or disciplines,
like logic, metaphysics, and ethics. In ancient Greece, this division was also known, but
only in a specific way. The ancient philosopher used the different disciplines in order to
teach. The division was practical and the disciplines belonged to a philosophical
discourse. Philosophy as a way of life had a different status. Philosophy in itself was
understood as a unitary, holistic act: it was lived. This idea of philosophy had a practical
importance. This is similar to Aristotle’s ethics, in which moral action and excellence
of character become a disposition of a person’s way of being:
“the agent also must be in a certain condition when he does them [acts in
accordance with the virtues]; in the first place he must have knowledge,
108
Ibid: 266
51
secondly he must choose the acts, and choose them for their own sakes, and
thirdly his action must proceed from a firm and unchangeable character.”109
For Aristotle, ethical living must be practiced until one can act according to the right
disposition. Philosophical theories and practical exercises help human beings to master
the art of living and achieve a philosophical life.
Two philosophical schools that are exemplary for the development of
philosophy as a way of life are Epicureanism and Stoicism. Both schools promote a
holistic world view that focused on the life in ‘the here and present’. The schools also
have in common that they regard wisdom as equally valuable, true, complete, and
perfect at each moment in time, whether throughout eternity or at a single moment.
However prominent Epicureanism and Stoicism are in Hadot’s theory, these ideas about
philosophy are as old as the philosophy of Socrates and also fundamental to Plato’s and
Aristotle’s theories.
Throughout Antiquity, the essence of philosophy has been a way of life and a
technique of inner living. In Plato’s Politeia, philosophy is defined as a training for
death. Hadot explains that Plato understands the philosopher “as the person who does
not fear death, because he contemplates the totality of time and of being.”110 A
philosopher loves wisdom, finds spiritual desires the most important desires, has a
bright mind and learns quickly, and is harmonious and even-minded. Because of his or
her predisposition, the philosopher can grasp the essence of things.111 Aristotle regards
philosophy as the way of life according to the mind. Aristotle states that “so far as
possible one should act as an immortal and strive to live according to the highest in
oneself.”112 The human intellect takes part in the divine intellect. Therefore, the life of
the mind is most related to the divine life of the eudaemon being: the unmoved mover
who is the highest form of actuality.
109 Aristoteles
2005: 106. Book II 4.3. Translated in English by W. D. Ross, from the Web site: http://
classics.mit.edu//Aristotle/nicomachaen.html
110
Ibid: 269
111
Plato 2006: 235 - 486D
112
Urmson 1988: 121 - in Ethica Nicomachea 1177b 33-34
52
§4 Christianity as the Way of Life
Inspired by the philosophical concepts of Antiquity, Christianity presented itself as a
philosophy. The concept of logos was the central notion that the Christians incorporated
in their religious world view. For the Greeks, logos had many different meanings,
ranging from ‘word’ to ‘argument’ to ‘reason’. In Christendom, a connection was made
between Jesus as the son of God and the eternal logos. The Christians believed they had
fulfilled the notion of logos by this transformation. This eternal logos, also understood
as the divine reason, was the path that should be followed. Similar to ancient
philosophers, Christians regarded themselves as human beings who lived their life in
accordance with reason. Thus, both traditions have, from their very beginnings, been
conceived as a way of life.
Christendom presented its practices as ‘the Christian way of life’.113 I purposely
state ‘the way of life’ instead of ‘a way of life’. In the Christian way of life, the divine
principle was guiding in a life lived in accordance with reason. Spiritual exercises are
connected to this way of life. These spiritual exercises are various and often familiar to
exercises of ancient philosophical schools. However, fundamental to all of them is the
notion of taking care of oneself. Because the original meaning of philosophy is a way of
life, the Christians could define the ideal world view and lifestyle in philosophical
terms.
In the course of time, the primacy of philosophy faded, as its main role became
to serve the Christian theology. For Christians, the primacy was the beholding of the
divine realm, of God itself. This moment of experience and observation could not be
‘calculated’ or argued for. Philosophy as an abstract and theoretical discourse was thus
not sufficient enough. Theology was the discipline that made a preparation for the
observation of God possible. Consequently, philosophy degraded to a second order and
supplied theology with ideas, theories, and arguments. Thus, in the Middle Ages,
philosophy became understood as a genuine discourse: abstract and theoretical. Because
of the close relatedness between theology and philosophy on the one hand, but different
interpretation of philosophy between the two traditions on the other hand, ancient
philosophy was often and wrongly primarily considered a discourse.
The strong opposition between the two traditions of ancient Greek philosophy
and Christian theology, can explain Taylor’s exclusion of the ancient tradition from his
113
Hadot 1995: 269
53
historical narrative. For Taylor, the Christian framework is his point of focus. As I have
concluded previously, his historical narrative is embedded in developments within
Christianity. In the second chapter, I have pointed out how the exclusion of ancient
Greek culture and philosophy is part of the monotheistic world view of Latin
Christendom. In the third chapter I have demonstrated how, for Taylor, Christianity is
the most preferable way for human beings to reach fullness in life. Might it be the case,
then, that because of the Christian framework, Taylor has a specific idea of Antiquity
that is coloured by Christian ideas of ancient philosophy?
Taylor’s theory in A Secular Age can be interpreted as a modern version of
‘Christianity as the way of life’. In his chapter “Cross Pressures”, Taylor states that
contemporary forms of religion are often related to practical and worldly aspects of our
lives; it can be part of our political identity and contribute to a civilizational and moral
way of life. Our way of life has a fundamental ethical dimension and religion is a way
to deal with the ethical dimension. However, for Taylor, religion is not just a way to
deal with it: it is the most suitable way to deal with it. As I have pointed out in chapter
three, Taylor believes that our search for unprecedented itineraries is most likely to
succeed in Christian terms.
§5 Conclusion
This chapter has attempted to demonstrate that Christianity as the way of life is closely
connected to philosophy as a way of life. It is interesting to see how much the two
traditions have in common, especially since many values that are important to Taylor
and that he ascribes to Christianity are also embedded in the tradition of the ancient idea
of philosophy as a way of life. Just as Taylor’s modern version of Christianity as the
way of life has potential for human beings in our secular age who are longing for
fullness and transcendence, the ancient idea of philosophy as a way of life can be
appealing to modern people too.
Dreyfus and Kelly and Hadot have ascribed many values to ancient Greek
culture and philosophy that Taylor ascribes to Christianity. In Antiquity, human beings
longing for fullness and transcendence could find it within the realm of philosophy.
Partly because philosophy was open to the sacred dimension in life; partly because
philosophy was conceived of as a holistic way of life. Philosophy as a way of life can be
interpreted as a quest in search of a way to deal with the ethical dimension of life. Here,
54
a conversion is required. Furthermore, philosophy as a way of life knows many spiritual
practices. Philosophy as a way of life helped the open selves of the ancient Greeks to
have a cosmic consciousness and be in harmony with the surrounding world.
A modern person will always live, think, and act within a groundwork or
perspective that is related to the cosmos, because, as Hadot points out, all human beings
feel a need to belong to a whole that transcends the boundaries of their own
individuality. Taylor argues along similar lines: our individuality is too limited. We live
in a world among others and we all have our beliefs and ideas. Similarly, Dreyfus and
Kelly demonstrate that we cannot have control over everything that happens to us.
Moments, events, and experiences occur and we have to realise that the world is not
solely constructed by us. We have to deal with these aspects of life that transcend us.
On could say that Hadot as well as Dreyfus and Kelly find the path of ancient
culture in their quest for how to relate with what goes beyond. Hadot states that like in
Epicureanism and Stoicism, we should be focused on the here and now, embrace the
value of each moment, and be in a harmonious relation with the cosmos surrounding us.
Wisdom can guide us there and the ancient philosophical school can give us the tools to
transform and gain a better relation with ourselves, the cosmos that surrounds us, and
other human beings who live beside us. Dreyfus and Kelly are inspired by the
polytheistic heritage of the ancient culture and show that excellence in life is to react
appropriately towards things that happen beyond our own responsibility and control.
55
Conclusion
Taylor’s historical narrative is significant because he develops a whole new way of
looking at the relation between the religious and the secular. Through his exposition in
A Secular Age, he demonstrates that the historical narrative of Latin Christendom is
essential for properly understanding the status of the secular age and the contemporary
role of religion. He points out that the relation between the religious and the secular is
fragile, that there are many options possible between the militant atheist and the
orthodox believer, and that a longing for transcendence and fullness is still very much
alive in a secular age.
The darker side of his wonderful exposition is that Taylor’s theory is in the end
very limited because of its Christian framework, while his theory has potential to appeal
to every modern human being who seeks for transcendence and fullness in life. In the
introduction to this thesis, I asked how Taylor’s historical narrative can become more
valuable, appealing, and open for all believers, whether they are monotheistic,
polytheistic, non-religious, anti-religious, or agnostic. I have used the method of the
historical narrative to look for a solution and I have found this in a tradition preceding
Christianity: the tradition of ancient Greek culture and philosophy.
The aim of this thesis has been to open up Taylor’s Christian oriented historical
narrative of religiosity and secularity, by introducing the broader narrative of ancient
Greek culture and philosophy. Taylor excludes the role of ancient Greek culture and
philosophy too much in the historical narrative of A Secular Age. I have revealed
Taylor’s implicit reasons for this exclusion. The first reason is that the exclusion of
ancient Greek culture and philosophy is part of the monotheistic world view of Latin
Christendom – Taylor’s framework. Secondly, Taylor has a specific idea of Antiquity.
This idea is coloured by Christian ideas of ancient philosophy. Thirdly, ancient Greek
culture and philosophy belong to a condition that we have overcome in the course of
history. Lastly, for Taylor, Christianity is the most preferable way for human beings to
reach fullness in life.
The idea of overcoming earlier traditions in history is problematic for two
reasons. Firstly, as Dreyfus and Kelly’s theory has shown, the hermeneutic approach of
overcoming is not the only possible philosophical method to investigate historical
transitions. Thus, the idea of overcoming is a presupposition that is connected to a
56
choice for a method. Secondly, and more importantly, a meta-narrative is involved in
Taylor’s theory. As has been discussed in the introduction, Taylor uses a strong
historical framework in which the ‘past’ is represented by the year 1500, and the
‘present’ by the year 2000. This timeframe belongs to the history of Latin Christendom.
Behind this framework, a meta-narrative can be distinguished, namely the story of
historical development within the Christian tradition.
Furthermore, a hermeneutic method does not have to arrive at the primacy of the
Christian tradition. Peter Gay concludes that elements of the secular already existed in
ancient Greek culture and philosophy. The history of the secular did not begin during
the period of Enlightenment but already existed in the enchanted period of Antiquity.
Thus, Taylor’s meta-narrative reveals some underlying intentions of A Secular Age.
I have argued that the primacy of the Christian tradition in Taylor’s theory leads
to a circular mode of reasoning in A Secular Age. Throughout this thesis, I have
demonstrated that the incorporation of ancient Greek culture and philosophy in Taylor’s
theory can be a solution to solve his problem of circularity. This is quite paradoxical,
because a great philosopher such as Taylor, would obviously not exclude the historical
tradition of Antiquity if he did not have good reasons for it. Yet, due to his premise of
Christian tradition, his reasons are coloured and do not entirely justify the course of
history. Taylor has developed his own historical construct. An alternative historical
construct can open up and broaden Taylor’s theory and can break out of circularity and
the limited Christian perspective.
As has been discussed in the first chapter, Secularity 3 is connected to a modern
context of understanding. It is in this condition that the religious, moral, or spiritual
search for and experience of fullness occurs; that people are enabled to relate
themselves both to secularity and religiosity; and that it is acknowledged that religions
and beliefs have become optional and accepted that the idea of God and the belief in
God are no longer self-evident, axiomatic, or socially obligatory. According to Taylor, in
the condition of Secularity 3, people have the freedom to make a personal choice for
whatever form of belief they prefer, whether religions, non-religious, or anti-religious.
However, Taylor’s chapter about conversion prescribes a specific direction in
which one’s quest for fullness should occur. Regardless his openness of mind, Taylor
has a preference for a specific form of belief: religious, monotheistic, and Christian.
Taylor has a specific idea of what religion entails. In our modern age, religion has
57
become a personal choice and a result of a personal quest. Since human beings can
adopt any world view they prefer, religion is not an evident choice anymore. Therefore,
it requires a personal quest that leads to a surrender to an authority that is transcendent.
This surrender requires a conversion and for Taylor, this conversion is most likely to
succeed when we understand our times “in Christian terms”. This limited Christian
perspective is problematic for Taylor’s theory, since it can never meet the standard of
the open realm of the condition of Secularity 3.
In the third chapter, I have argued that the way in which Taylor approaches the
distinction between immanence and transcendence is also questionable. The opposition
between the transcendent and the immanent, as Taylor describes it, is a result of
historical developments within Latin Christendom. This is, again, a construct.
Therefore, for Taylor, the religious idea of the transcendent is opposed to the immanent.
The place of moral fullness always refers to something transcendent. The belief in a
transcendent authority or reality is connected to a form of ultimate flourishing and
fulfilment. The only other possibility is the option of finding fullness within the range of
human life, in the atheistic or faithless immanent. This is a possibility that Taylor
denies. The only option Taylor truly accepts and argues for is Christian faith. However,
Christian faith is only one faith among many; it is not the universal faith of mankind.
Taylor’s historical narrative with its universal claims about flourishing and fulfilment,
therefore, suffers from the defect that it can only be valid for believing Christians. The
claim, Taylor’s claim, that Christianity is the solution is problematic, because it
excludes many other world views and beliefs. Christianity is not the way of life: it is a
way of life.
The tradition of ancient Greek culture and philosophy demonstrated that the
Christian tradition is not the only option and that there are alternatives to Christianity
that leave room for transcendence. The ancient tradition has multiple benefits. Ancient
Greek culture and philosophy brought forward a harmonious and open relation between
a person, the surrounding world, and other human beings. It also constitutes a
harmonious relation between scientific, philosophical, religious, spiritual, emotional,
rational, and irrational thinking. The reconciliation between the idea of fullness of
believers and non-believers does not have to be a Christian reconciliation because it can
be a philosophical reconciliation as well. The ancient tradition as an addition to Taylor’s
58
historical narrative can open up his theory for all human beings who look for fulfilment
and transcendence.
Furthermore the ancient tradition can bring forward the same values that Taylor
ascribed to the Christian tradition. Hadot’s and Dreyfus and Kelly’s theories have
demonstrated that in Antiquity, human beings were longing for fullness and
transcendence and they found it within the realm of philosophy; that philosophy as a
way of life functioned as a quest in search of a way to deal with the ethical dimension of
life; that a conversion was required; and that philosophy as a way of life knows many
spiritual practices.
Taylor describes a more positive outlook on the Christian tradition than the
humanist Petrarch. But both their world views are too one-sided; they are biased.
Neither the Christian tradition which Taylor defends, nor the tradition of Antiquity to
which Petrarch escapes, can be denied or neglected. The heritage of the ancient Greek
culture and philosophy and the tradition of Christian religion are related to each other.
Even though these traditions differ in many aspects, they belong to one history of the
Western world. Let us not regard these traditions as having a history of their own. Let us
not understand these traditions as conditions that we have overcome. The ancient
tradition and the Christian tradition belong to the past of every human being that lives in
the secular age of the modern West. Let us be open to the beautiful ideas, theories, and
possible ways of life they have created for us.
In this light, Taylor’s theory can be suitable for all individuals who are looking
for openness of their immanent frame, for all human beings who are on a quest and
want to see their longing for transcendence fulfilled – as a monotheist, polytheist, nontheist, or anti-theist. This would truly open up the secular realm for every possibility of
believing and practicing and make it suited for the plurality of world views and beliefs
we choose in our secular age.
59
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