Musings on <i>The Secular Age</i>: And the Christian and the Atheist Shall Lie Down Together

I am slowly working through Charles Taylor's The Secular Age. I say slowly because the book is long and discursive. I'm about a third of the way through. At this point in the book I had a thought or two I'd like to share about Christians and atheists and the enjoyable conversations we have between us on this blog.

Taylor's thesis in The Secular Age is that secularism and exclusive humanism (as opposed to devout (i.e., "theistic") humanism) cannot be solely explained by the rise of reason and rationalism, what Taylor calls the "subtraction story," the story that once we "subtracted out" religious superstition (via the ascent of reason) humanism sprung forth. In this account religion was a kind of prop that needed to be discarded. Once religion was tossed on the trash heap of human history reason and virtue could proceed unimpeded. The trouble is, for secular intellectuals governed by this story, religion is still with us. Thus, for humans to make further progress the last remnants of religion need to be systematically killed off and eradicated. God isn't dead yet. There is still killing to be done. So says the work of Dawkins, Hicthens, and Harris.

Taylor contends that the mere removal of "superstition" cannot explain the rise of secularism and humanism. True, reason aided the move from an enchanted to a disenchanted world. But a simple negation or subtraction cannot explain the creative, positive thrust we find in the advent of secularism. Maybe facets of religion were "in the way," obstacles to progress, but what was driving the engine? Where was the motive force? As Taylor writes:

"The new natural science did indeed threaten some of the outlying forms which had become intricated with religion...it did, of course, hasten the disenchantment of the world, helping to split spirit from matter; more seriously, its conception of exceptionless natural law would later raise questions about the possibility of miracles. But this by itself can't explain the turning from devotion and religious experience to an external moralism." (p. 226-227)

Taylor, interestingly, contends that the motive force of secularism was religion itself. In his view, secularism, atheism, and humanism are the products of religion. They are the children of the faith, the logical outcome of certain religious impulses.

The specific religious engine of the birth of the secular age was the reforming influence that began to take hold of Latin Christianity about 500 years ago, most notably in the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation.

According to Taylor a few important things happened with the Protestant Reformation and its sequela. To begin, the division between the clergy and the laity was dissolved. This had two related effects. First, this hastened disenchantment. The division between sacred and profane places, offices, and rituals was broken down. For example, Protestant churches became functional "meeting places", a disenchanted space in contrast to its forebear: the enchanted Medieval cathedral. The second outcome of the clergy/laity fusion was an increased moral burden upon the laity. In Medieval Christianity holiness was an occupation carried out by church professionals: The clergy, the monastic orders, and the saints. The "holiness professionals" built up reserves of merit that could be appealed to, purchased, and generally relied on. These "merit reserves" spiritually carried the more profane laity. But with reform holiness specialists were no more. Everyone was now a saint and was expected to behave like one. This moral pressure on the common person was unprecedented and was, as we will see, the primary force in the rise of secularism. As Taylor writes, with the rise of reform there was "an attempt to make the mass of the laity...shape up more fully as Christians" (p. 265). Here is Taylor on the breakdown of the spiritual/monastary versus world/town distinction:

Now "all valid Christian vocations are those of ordinary life, or production and reproduction in the world. The crucial issue is how you live these vocations. The two spheres are collapsed into each other. Monastic rules disappear, but ordinary lay life is now under more stringent demands. Some of the ascetic norms of monastic life are now transferred to the secular." (p. 266)

Why would this moral pressure on the masses produce secularism? Taylor suggests that the moral intensification on the laity (along with disenchantment) made morality the telos, the goal of the Christian faith. What we owe to God is goodness. In short, as a result of disenchanted reform Christianity becomes less spiritual but more moral. Further, while this moral reform was going on, there was an increased valuing of mechanistic, instrumental reason (e.g., Newtonian physics). Consequently, in reform we see religious groups apply instrumental, mechanistic reason to the problem of morally educating the polis. Reform goes civic. This moral and civic reform, the implementation of a kind of "moral engineering", was clearly seen in Calvin's Geneva as well as in other Protestant sects. In effect, the entire city or nation becomes the monastery.

But it is only a short step from those reforming Protestant political experiments to secular humanism. That is, if goodness (or its more public face: "civility") is the goal and if reason alone can be used to create well-functioning moral communities then God becomes less and less important. In fact, it dawns on people: Do you even NEED God to be a good person or structure a just society? Doesn't civility just "make sense"? In the words of our Founding Fathers, are not these truths self-evident? Who needs a priest or preacher to tell us what is now obvious to reason? Being a good person is beneficial to both self and state. And so is born the secular age.

Let me quote a bit from Taylor on this movement from reform to humanism:

"In a sense, one might argue that reform, re-awakening, re-organization, re-newed dedication and discipline has become a part of the standing culture of all the churches which have issued out of Western Christendom...Around 1500, this drive begins to take a slightly different direction. It begins to take up a more ambitious goal, to change the habits and life-practices, not only religious but civil, of whole populations; to instill orderly, sober, disciplined, productive ways of living in everyone. This is the point where the religious drive to reform begins to become interwoven into the attempts to introduce civility, thus to 'civilize', as the key term came to be. This was not a simple take-over, a deviation imposed on the drive to religious reform; because religious reformers themselves concurred that the undeniable fruit of Godliness would be ordered, disciplined lives. They also sought to civilize, for good theological reasons." (p. 244)

The primary moral virtue required for this type of broad-based civic reform was a "universal beneficence." That is, the Golden Rule had to be built into the fabric of society. This "universal beneficence" became the hallmark of humanism, seen blandly today in tolerance and political correctness. The generic niceness that is the defining moral virtue of secular societies. Yet this moral feature is simply the Christian notion of agape made political and civic. It is a civic form of love that produces social cohesion and conflict reduction:

"The locus of the highest moral capacity had to be a source of benevolence, and the aspiration to universal justice. Now benevolence and universal justice are precisely the hallmarks of eighteenth century exclusive humanism." (p. 295)

"There is a specific drive to beneficence in modern humanist moral psychology, independent of pre-existing ties. Its scope is in principle universal. This is the historic trace, as it were, of agape." (p. 247)

"...there is something remarkable in this retention of an agape-analogue...it would probably not have been possible to make the transition to an exclusive humanism on any other basis." (p. 247)

To summarize: Secularism and humanism are the logical products of religious reform. In religious reform we see moral intensification directed at the entire polis guided by disenchanted reason. What is demanded from the polis is "universal beneficence," goodness and goodwill to all ("civility"). The rise (from religion itself) of this instrumental, disenchanted, civic morality is what produced the secular age.

Okay, now a few musings on Taylor's book.

First, I've always felt comfortable talking to most atheists. I've always felt that we are kindred spirits. If Taylor is right, we are. We are siblings. That is, secularism is a moral reforming movement that grew out of religion. The reason why secular impulses toward tolerance and justice seem so Christian is that they are. There is a historical connection. Thus, in many ways, atheists and I see the world the same way. We share the same values. Yes, the "God Question" divides us, but we are not strangers. We are family. We understand each other. We both want to be good people. We want a better world for our children.

Second, this means that I'll often feel more connection with an atheist than a fellow "Christian." For example, why do I feel more connection with an atheist who advocates for legal rights for same-sex couples than the Christian who thunders from the pulpit that "God hates gays"? I think Taylor provides an answer: The sympathies I share with the secular humanist have the same source: The Christian notion of agape. In short, I feel Taylor has given me an explanation for why I've felt comfortable with many atheists and secular humanists and repulsed by many "Christians."

Finally, I don't feel comfortable with all atheists. And again I think Taylor helps me understand why. If Taylor is correct there are some atheists who are still working with the "subtraction story": Only by killing off religion can we advance as a species. These "subtraction atheists" I do not resonate with. I feel they paint with too broad a brush and discount the positive moral influence of Christianity.

But in contrast to the "subtraction atheists" I think there are "reforming atheists," persons who respect goodness wherever they find it. They don't hate religion, they just don't feel they need it. They are good not for God's sake but, as the Christmas song goes, for "goodness sake", for the sake of being good and for that alone. To date, every conversation I've had on this blog with an atheist has been with this "reforming-type" atheist. I use the word "reforming" because, according to Taylor, that is how they emerged in the secular age and that is what they are still seeking to do: Make the world a better place.

And as a Christian I join them in that task.