Theological Origins of Modernity

356 notes to pages 270–274
23. Indeed, as we have seen, even Hobbes had already ceased to consider theology a
part of science.
24. In 1896 George Jacob Holyoake asserted: “Secularism is a code of duty pertaining
to this life, founded on considerations purely human, and intended mainly
for those who fi nd theology indefi nite or inadequate, unreliable or unbelievable.”
English Secularism: A Confession of Belief (Chicago: Open Court, 1896), 60.
25. On this point see Alexander Koyré, From Closed World to Infi nite Universe (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957).
26. Th is notion of secularization has been repeatedly defended. See, for example, Peter
Berger, Th e Sacred Canopy (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967); Brian R. Wilson,
Religion and Secular Society (London: Watts, 1966); David Martin, A General
Th eory of Secularization (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978); and Steve Bruce, God Is Dead:
Secularization in the West (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).
27. Th is was the conclusion of A. P. Martinich, who is as sensitive to the importance
of religion in Hobbes as anyone. Th e Two Gods of Leviathan: Th omas Hobbes on
Religion and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 337–48.
28. Th is issue is at the heart of the debate about the nature of secularization between
Karl Löwith and Hans Blumenberg. In his Reason in History (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1949), Löwith portrays the modern world as an essentially
Christian project that attempts to realize the millennium through secular means
Blumenberg, by contrast, argues that while many elements in modernity appear
to have Christian roots, these similarities are only formal, the result of modernity
“reoccupying” abandoned Christian positions. Modernity in his view is not the
result of an attempt to attain Christian ends by non-Christian means but the consequence
of a new attitude of “self-assertion.” In part their diff ering assessments
arise from their diff erent conceptions of the nature and extent of modernity.
Löwith sees modernity culminating in the chiliastic projects of totalitarianism,
while Blumenberg sees the essence of modernity in the Enlightenment. Th e argument
presented in the preceding chapters is sympathetic to Blumenberg’s formulation
of the nominalist crisis of the late Middle Ages but sees the continued
importance of theological elements in modernity as more than merely formal. In
that respect, it shares Löwith’s concern that the theological radicalism that played
such an important role in the Wars of Religion was not expurgated by the modern
turn toward nature and remains a hidden, and at times not so hidden, danger
for the modern world. On this point, see also Eric Voegelin, Th e New Science of
Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952). In contrast to Blumenberg,
Voegelin sees modernity not as the solution to the Gnostic impulse but as the
embodiment of it. He argues that it is crucial to distinguish this Gnostic impulse,
which is responsible for the horrors of modernity, from authentic Christianity
which can still serve as at least part of a solution. Löwith, by contrast, is convinced
that no Christian solution is possible and thus believes the problems of modernity
can only be solved by a return to a non-Christian natural law theory like that of
Stoicism.