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Abstract
Theologians and philosophers remain rather indecisive about the notion of desecularisation. I suggest that desecularisation should be considered relevant insofar as it interacts with other notions belonging to contemporary thought, namely: radical secularisation, desacralisation, deconstruction, and dis-enclosure. I argue that desecularisation can be understood as belonging to the same movement as the one marked by deconstruction and dis-enclosure. Staging this interaction will yield the following: the necessity of secularising secularisation itself, the importance of differentiating between secularisation and desacralisation, the rightful belonging of desecularisation to the events of deconstruction and dis-enclosure at the “end” of metaphysics, and the need to rewind the ideological abuse of secularisation.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 See also Meganck, “Ratio est Fides” 162–63.
2 The brackets will show that this end is not to be read in the usual way, as denoting how something is definitely over at a definitive moment. The “end” is an event that could continue forever, as in an endless ending. It evokes the experience of a dissolution that is at the same time a salvation and not a loss. It has been called deconstruction. During its “end,” metaphysics is under deconstruction. Under deconstruction, metaphysics can only endlessly end.
3
Nous sommes […] nous sommes là dans un moment qui, je crois, n’est pas du tout un moment de crise, c’est un moment de mutation complète et cette mutation est aussi forcément une mutation du temps, une mutation de la temporalité dans laquelle nous sommes; et notre «maintenant» aujourd’hui est je crois un maintenant qui nous fait signe, justement, vers l’ambiguïté du signe de l’appel ou de la promesse qui ouvre à l’avenir. (Nancy, “Le présent du temps” 30)
4 Twenty years ago, Phillip Blond edited Post-Secular Philosophy. Between Philosophy and Theology (London: Routledge, 1998). Recently, this notion was honoured with a real textbook by Justin Beaumont, The Routledge Handbook of Postsecularity (London: Routledge, 2018).
5 I found the notion of hermeneutic ground in Vattimo’s “Toward an Ontology of Decline.” He never elaborated on this, though I think it is very useful, especially if inspired by a Heideggerian understanding of Gadamer’s notion of horizon in Truth and Method.
6
For us, the character of the conversation with the history of thinking is no longer Aufhebung (elevation), but the step back. Elevation leads to the heightening and gathering area of truth posited as absolute, truth in the sense of the completely developed certainty of self-knowing knowledge. The step back points to the realm which until now has been skipped over, and from which the essence of truth becomes first of all worthy of thought. (Heidegger, Identity and Difference 49)
7 One can compare this, perhaps, to Lyotard’s hermeneutic ground: the “end of the grand narratives.” This end does not imply the disappearance of the great historical ideologies that are still familiar to us all, but just establishes its vanishing potency.
8 In the term “laicism,” it is the suffix “-ism” that points at an ideological trait. It has moved from explanation to obligation. Instead of describing the problematic relation between State and Church, laicism holds that State and Church should be separated, ever more than is actually the case.
9 This strong version of the secularisation thesis is defended by the “Four Horsemen”: Richard Dawkins, Tom Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. Here, religion is depicted as a primitive and untrue form of knowledge that needs to be replaced by science. A less rigid or strong position would hold religion to be untrue, but valid as poetic or therapeutic discourse.
10 Secularisation became ideological when it justified the ignoring of certain insights or phenomena that could contradict or at least temper the claim to absolute and objective validity of the secularisation paradigm and its thesis or theses. Because these phenomena failed to establish this thesis or support this paradigm, they were epistemologically condemned to philosophical and theological excommunication. Whatever would be capable of disturbing the explanatory potential of secularisation was ideologically reduced to marginal disturbance, nostalgic spasm or re-confessional reflex. Indeed, arguments that tended to “sidestep” secularisation were accused of ideological strategy, namely, conservative interests or even ultramontanism. That secularisation is hereby identified with the progressive run of history is made clear by those who indignantly exclaim “How is this possible in 2020!” when someone dares to have doubts or reserves about “expanding” abortion or euthanasia legislation. This is where political debate turns secularisation into ideology and strategy: when thoughtfulness is considered a symptom of thoughtless adherence to alleged religious dogma.
11 This way, Lyotard’s proclamation of the “end” of the “grands récits” (see The Postmodern Condition) can be read as the confirmation of Löwith’s doubts about secularisation, about the thesis that progress is an absolute historical imperative.
12 According to Derrida, such forms of delay are not temporary or secondary, but they mark the impossibility of the fulfilment due to an endless process of reference – endless since there is no mechanism or institution that is able to allow this process to debouch into pure eternal spiritual ideas.
13 For a more extensive elaboration of the problem of “end,” see my “Is Metaphoricity Threatening or Saving Thought?”
14 Whereas criticism seems to presuppose an external point of view from where something is criticised, critique is concerned with a “rerun” or retake to enable one to see where and how things went awry.
15 Some will argue that science does not aim at total explanation, because totality is not really a scientific notion. Science aspires to a new explanation when a current one is not or no longer adequate. But when I include modern philosophy as the legitimation of science, the totalisation aim remains valid.
16 Secularisation theories exclusively belong to modernity, are typical of modernity. This does not imply the contention that secularisation itself exclusively belongs to modernity. Only its theorisation does. Some even consider creation as a first secularisation “event.”
17 See my “Philosophia Amica Theologiae” and “God Returns as Nihilist Caritas.”
18 The impact of Derrida on anglophone philosophers of religion around the year 2000 revealed the same “hope.” Thinkers like John Caputo, Kevin Hart, Merold Westphal, and Richard Kearney enlisted “deconstruction as a chastening fire through which Christianity must go for its own sake” (Joy 41 – see also Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida; Hart; Westphal; and Kearney).
19 Vattimo’s arbitrary nature of metaphysics is not quite the same as its decision-character in Derrida or Heidegger’s elaboration of the notion of “clearing.” In fact, Heidegger and Derrida consider metaphysics to be a history or the effect of an eventuality, within this decision or clearing, each theory can be seen as a convergence of “prepared” and “arbitrary”; while Vattimo only considers the arbitrariness of each theory. As far as metaphysics as such is concerned, he follows Heidegger in that he accepts its historico-destinal character.
20 As in music, a theme is not meant to be heard, it serves as a basic guideline when composing music. It also enables one to recognise “tunes.” In the same vein, the original scene of the sacrifice never really took place in history, but serves as an abstract prototype of all the historical, mythical, and aesthetic (e.g., literature) variations.
21 At this point, Girard supposedly loses his scientific credibility. I think this is unfair, because Girard insists on only considering the anthropological meaning of Christianity, not articles of faith. The anthropological meaning of Christ’s message results from a literary study of the Gospel.
22 This accords with Caputo’s analysis in The Weakness of God.