The Theological Origins of Modernity

by Michael Allen Gillespie

Exposing the religious roots of our ostensibly godless age, Michael Allen Gillespie reveals in this landmark study that modernity is much less secular than conventional wisdom suggests. Taking as his starting point the collapse of the medieval world, Gillespie argues that from the very beginning moderns sought not to eliminate religion but to support a new view of religion and its place in human life. He goes on to explore the ideas of such figures as William of Ockham, Petrarch, Erasmus, Luther, Descartes, and Hobbes, showing that modernity is best understood as a series of attempts to formulate a new and coherent metaphysics or theology. “Bringing the history of political thought up to date and situating it against the backdrop of contemporary events, Gillespie’s analyses provide us a way to begin to have conversations with the Islamic world about what is perhaps the central question within each of the three monotheistic if God is omnipotent, then what is the place of human freedom?”—Joshua Mitchell, Georgetown University

Genres: Philosophy, History, Theology, Religion, Nonfiction, Politics, Christianity

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Amir · Rating 5 out of 5]

در اینجا آسوده سلطنت خواهیم کرد و به گمانم پروردن سودای
سلطنت، ولو بر دوزخ، به زحمتش می ارزد؛ سلطنت بر دوزخ به از بندگی در آسمان.

میلتون | بهشت گمشده


سخن گفتن از ریشه های الیهاتی مدرنیته در نگاه نخست تناقض آمیز به نظر می رسد. مدرنیته خود را همیشه به عنوان گسستی از گذشته معرفی می کند. گذشته ای که در آن دین و الهیات در مرکز توجهات قرار داشته. گذشته ای که قادری مطلق بر آن حکمرانی می کرد‌. تفسیر رایج از مدرنیته، آن را با سکولاریزاسیون‌ این‌همان میگیرد‌. در این تفسیر رایج، انسان هرروز در حال افسون زدایی از جهان است. جهانی که پیش از این دخل و تصرف خداوند در آن مشروع به حساب می آمد حال به جهانی تبدیل شده که خدا و الهیات، عنصری زائد در آن به حساب می آید. دیگر به خدا نیازی نداریم. دیری نیست که او برای همیشه ناپدید شود‌.

مایکل آلن گیلسپی اما نظر دیگری دارد. او معتقد است که مدرنیته همچون فرزندی است که سالهاست سعی می کند از زیر سایه سنگین پدر ستمگرش قدم بیرون بگذارد. اقتدار پدر را بشکند و برای خود کسی شود. انسانی متفاوت؛ بریده از گذشته خویش. اما آینه‌ی رو به رو چیز دیگری می گوید: هر قدم دور شدن از پدر، یک قدم به او نزدیک تر شدن است. کسی که با غول پنجه می افکند همیشه در معرض این خطر هست که خود به غولی دیگر بدل شود‌. با این حساب آیا مدرنیته با پنهان کردن هویتش، هویتی که در گذشته ریشه داشته، ریاکاری پیشه نکرده؟ گیلسپی ‌تلاش کرده همین ریاکاری را بر افتاب نهد.

مدرنیته این ادعا را دارد که پادشاهیِ خدای قادر مطلق را سرنگون کرده. اما گیلسپی معتقد است که این ادعای مکرر شاید انچنان هم به حقیقت نزدیک نباشد. ساده انگارانه خواهد بود اگر تصور کنیم بتوان الهیات نومینالیستی را که خدای اراده مند و قادر مطلق در هسته آن قرار دارد به کتاب مقدسی که تنها دلمشغول تقدیر معنوی انسان است تقلیل بدهیم. گیلسپی می نویسد: الهیات پیشین نقش مهمی در توضیح اتفاقات این جهان داشته. نومینالیست ها خدا را موجودی می فهمیدند که آزادانه عمل می کند، در مقام خالق نامتناهی و قادر مطلق آسمان و زمین، در مقام علت اول و سرچشمه‌ی کل حرکات، در مقام وحدت همه امور و سرچشمه همه معیارهای خیر و شر.

با این حساب کنار گذاشتن چنین خدایی، انچنان هم کار ساده ای نیست. خدایی که مشرق و مغرب را به نام خود زده و به هر طرف که سر بچرخانیم بار دیگر به اوست که روی آوردیم. گیلسپی مدعی است که "آنچه واقعاً در مسیر مدرنیته اتفاق افتاد نه صرفاً حذف یا نابودی خداوند بلکه انتقال صفات و به ویژه قدرت ها و قابلیت های او به دیگر موجودات یا قلمروهای وجود است. بدین ترتیب فرایند موسوم به افسون‌زدایی، فرایند افسون زدگی مجدد هم انسان و هم طبیعت بود که از برخی صفات یا قدرت هایی برخوردار شده اند که قبلاً به خداوند منتسب می شد...طبیعت تجسم اراده عقلانی است؛ جهان اجتماعی تحت سلطه دست نامرئی است که به طرز معجزه اسایی توزیع عقلانی مواهب را ممکن‌ می کند و تاریخ، سیر رو به رشد انسان برای نیل به کمال است"

علیمراد داوودی در مقاله "اضطراب متافیزیک در دوره معاصر" کانت را فیلسوف انفصال توصیف می کند. شاید که این دقیق ترین توصیف از فیلسوف روشنگری است. کانت،‌ در اثر سترگش، نقد عقل محض، در بخش قضایای جدلی الطرفین، تناقضات عقل مدرن را اشکار می سازد. تناقضاتی تراژیک‌ که در سومین مسئله جدلی الطرفین به اوج خود می رسد، آنجا که آزادی و خودانگیختگی رویاروی قوانین طبیعت و ضرورت قرار می‌گیرند‌‌ و بزرگترین سرخوردگی رقم می خورد: سرخوردگی برای عقلی که همزمان هم انسان را آزاد می خواهد و هم می خواهد بواسطه مفهوم ضرورت و علیت، او را بر طبیعت مسلط گرداند. اگر‌ انسان آزاد است، چگونه می توان از ضرورت سخن‌ گفت‌ و اگر ضرورت در طبیعت جاری و ساری است، چه جایی برای آزادی انسان باقی می ماند؟

این تناقض تراژیک و تراژدی تناقض، ارثیه‌ی الیهات مسیحی برای مدرنیته است. ارثیه یک پدر برای فررندش. هرچند که چهره‌ی این تناقض تغییر کرده اما باطن کماکان همان است: اگر خداوند قادر مطلق است پس جای آزادی بشر کجاست؟ تناقضی که تاریخی خون بار در پس‌ِپشت دارد و همچنان تشنه‌ی خونی بیشتر است

[Vagabond of Letters, DLitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10.

Difficult to review. Author has deep historical and philosophical insight but is either borderline theologically illiterate or believes that Christianity begins and ends with free will. Read with discernment as a good second companion to Gregory's Unintended Reformation.

[Christopher Blosser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished reading The Theological Origins of Modernity , by Michael Alan Gillespie. (University of Chicago Press, 2009).

Brief summary: Gillespie turns the conventional reading of the Enlightenment (as reason overcoming religion) on its head by explaining how the humanism of Petrarch, the free-will debate between Luther and Erasmus, the scientific forays of Francis Bacon, the epistemological debate between Descarte and Hobbes, were all motivated by an underlying wrestling with the questions posed by nominalism, which according to Gillespie dismantled the rational God / universe of medieval scholasticism and introduced (by way of the Franciscans) a fideistic God-of-pure-will, born of a concern that anything less than such would jeopardize His divine omnipotence.

Subsequent intellectual history is, in Gillespie's reading, a grappling with the question of free will and divine determinism. Protestantism involved at its core fideistic, denying free will will in order to preserve God's absolute power. However, this in turn culminated in an ambivalence about salvation. If God simply wills whom to save, human action has no real merit (ex. Luther's "sin boldly"). Gillespie's chapter on the debate between Erasmus-Luther was among the most interesting in bringing this out.

Also fascinating is Gillespie's detailed analysis of Rene Descartes and Thomas Hobbes. The latter is usually depicted as an atheist (or his religiosity dubious at best) and his philosophy as chiefly political but Gillespie believes him sincerely religious (if not exactly orthodox) and reveals the underlying metaphysical concerns behind his thought.

And so Gillespie says, even in modern times, we are bequeathed with a similar wrestling between humanity's political ambitions (the expansion of freedom) and the inability to reconcile this with science's inherent determinist worldview. Likewise, in the post-9/11/ confrontation with Islam (which makes a brief appearance at the end) we are again confronted with the fideism and absolutism of Islam which sees the West's assertion of individual autonomy as a challenge to God's omnipotence, for whom our only response ought to be obedience.

Here is fundamental point of Gillespie's thesis

… the apparent rejection or disappearance of religion and theology in fact conceals the continuing relevance of theological issues and commitments for the modern age. Viewed from this perspective, the process of secularization or disenchantment that has come to be seen as identical with modernity was in fact something different than it seemed, not the crushing victory of reason over infamy, to use Voltaire’s famous term, not the long drawn out death of God that Nietzsche proclaimed, and not the evermore distant withdrawal of the deus absconditus Heidegger points to, but the gradual transference of divine attributes to human beings (an infinite human will), the natural world (universal mechanical causality), social forces (the general will, the hidden hand), and history (the idea of progress, dialectical development, the cunning of reason). …

That the deemphasis, disappearance, and death of God should bring about a change in our understanding of man and nature is hardly surprising. Modernity … originates out of a series of attempts to construct a coherent metaphysic specialis on a nominalist foundation, to reconstitute something like the comprehensive summalogical account of scholastic realism. Th e successful completion of this project was rendered problematic by the real ontological differences between an infinite (and radically omnipotent) God and his finite creation (including both man and nature).

I found the last chapter of the book a bit rushed and inconclusive -- the post-9/11 spectre of Islam makes a cursory appearance at the tail-end, but Gillespie offers little in the way of a prescription as to how we are to apply what we have learned to the encounter. Nonetheless, I found Gillespie's revisionist intellectual history of modernity on the whole immensely informative -- a provocative challenge to the conventional, secular reading of history.

Some far more insightful reviews

Religious Modernity, by Lee Trepanier. University Bookman Fall 2011 offers a more detailed summary of the path of Gillespie's argument.

David Burrell identifies some problems in Gillespie's philosophical treatment of "nominalism" and "scholasticism,", contrasts Gillespie's examination of modernity with that of Charles Taylor's, and concludes: "the rich historical genealogy we have been following loses much of its richness by the author's attempt to trace its exuberance to an ill-defined singularity like 'nominalism,' as crucial as that sea-change has been." (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 11/09/08).

William Edgar concurs that the categories of realism and nominalism don't quite work as a master narrative, yet heralds The Theological Origins of Modernity as "intellectual history at its best" -- "a very good read and full of insights into some of the most significant voices that have shaped the modern world."

Edward Feser finds that Gillespie's account of the long-range consequences of nominalism is compelling and important, but the defense of his overall thesis and his suggestions for contemporary application are surprisingly underdeveloped" (The Review of Metaphysics 12/01/09).

Massimo Fagioli (University of St. Thomas) believes "its overall vision of the relationship of Christian theology and modernity needs to be integrated with other issues the book only deals with marginally -- [such as] -- "the critical relationship between nature and grace, a problem that has had a huge, perhaps disruptive impact on the balance of the western (Catholic and non-Catholic) theological tradition, especially from the seventeenth century on."

[withdrawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm addicted to this type of book, one which sets out to show us the religious roots of our modern thinking, our mores, our most basic thinking. There is something so obviously true that where we are today is, to a large extent, a product of where our ancestors have been. I read these books in hopes of better understanding the underpinning of my own view of myself and the world. Gillespie wants us to better understand ourselves so that we can better understand this post-9/11 world where religious strife seems to have become, once again, a dominant concern.

For his purposes, Gillespie does an excellent job. He is the best philosophical writer that I have ever read. In the book he focuses on the ideas of Petrarch, Erasmus, Luther, Descartes, and Hobbes. Gillespie does a wonderful job of making the ideas of these writers clear. This is no Philosophy for Dummies. Gillespie presupposes an intelligent, diligent reader who is willing to put the effort into understanding. On his side, he comes through with detailed, well developed explanations of complicated ideas. It takes time and effort but is well worth it. I have read a great deal by and about Descartes and Hobbes but have never felt that I had such a clear understanding.

As with any book of this type, The Theological Origins of Modernity is limited by size. Gillespie has chosen his subjects for explanation for the purposes of his task. The title is thus somewhat misleading in that Gillespie is focusing on philosophers who were alive during times of religious strife. The book would have needed to deal with many more philosophers as well as institutions such as the churches, governments and popular movements to accomplish the task of the title. For Gillespie's task, however, this is fine. He makes his point. If he had done the same fine job of writing with such complicated ideas, the book would have been several times longer. The longer attempt at this is Taylor's the Secular Age. It takes a much broader view of the development of our western world and is much more informative. However, Taylor's writing is not as understandable, although it is pretty good. If Taylor wrote like Gillespie, his book would have run to several volumes.

Highly recommended for anyone wanting to make an effort to understand modern philosophy.

[John David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modernity, broadly understood as a “realm of individualism, of representation of subjectivity, of exploration and discovery, of freedom, rights, toleration, liberalism, and the nation state,” is often assumed to be rooted in a growing hostility toward, or at least indifference to, theological ideas. Michael Allen Gillespie, a professor of political science and philosophy at Duke University, uses this book to argue against this point. Rather than a disengagement from theological discourse, he suggests modernity has actually been a completely different set of answers to questions that we would recognize as explicitly theological.

He begins his discussion by going all the way back to medieval Scholasticism, and in particular looking at the rift between Scholastic realism (or universalism) and nominalism. Scholasticism was dominated by realist thought, which said that everything in the world was merely a kind of Platonic simulacra of the only thing that was real – the perfectly rational, divine mind of God. During the early fourteenth century, William of Ockham became one of the most outspoken opponents against realism and for a position known as nominalism. Nominalism rejected the central position of realism, and suggested that such a divine reason which human beings could access and understand didn’t even exist in the first place. (Ockham was not, for clarity’s sake, proposing atheism. He was instead saying that the mind of God was something so distant from the frailties of the human intellect that we will never understand it – i.e., the deus absconditus of Martin Luther.) This got him into a lot of trouble with Pope John XXII, who eventually excommunicated him. The important thing to take away from Gillespie’s discussion of Ockham is that Scholasticism’s marriage of the human and divine intellect is ruptured by nominalism, which “replaced it with a chaos of radically different beings” and focused on a God of extreme will and omnipotence instead of one whose rational mind was reflected in the perfection of nature.

The rest of the book is taken up with how these ideas have been taken up in subsequent thinkers. The first person Gillespie understands as being in conversation with Ockhamite nominalism is Petrarch, Ockham’s contemporary. Petrarch’s idea of the moral life is one, starkly in contrast with Aristotle’s conception of the zoon politikon, pursued mostly in private conflicts drastically with the Roman authors, especially Cicero, whose lives and works he so cherished and revived. His several books, including “Rerum Memorandum” (“Memorable Things”) and “Africa,” an epic poem presenting the parallel lives of Scipio, Caesar, and Hannibal, serve to detail his ideas in these respects.

Next, Gillespie moves on to give a rather conventional account of Renaissance humanism and some of its major figures, including Machiavelli, Salutati, Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Erasmus. He argues, very much in line with mainstream historical understanding, that these humanists placed an emphasis (or, as Gillespie phrases it, “ontic priority”) on human reason and cognitive faculties, rather than a divine being, even though almost none of the memorable humanists concluded anything like atheism.

Much of the rest of the book discusses two pairs of thinkers, and uses each pair to compare and contrast the influences of nominalism and humanism that each offered. The first of these pairs is Luther and Erasmus. Gillespie never assumes too much of the reader, and therefore spends quite a bit of time giving introductory information about each of these. He suggests that both, but especially Luther, were influenced by nominalism and therefore God’s radical separation from man. He sums up the differences and similarities between the two thus: “…modernity proper was born out of and in reaction to this conflict [the debate between Luther and Erasmus], as an effort to find a new approach to the world that was not entangled in the contradictions of humanism and the Reformation. To this end, thinkers such as Bacon, Descartes, and Hobbes sought a new beginning that gave priority not to man or to God but to nature, that sought to understand the world not as a product of a Promethean human freedom or of a radically omnipotent divine will but of the mechanical motion of matter. Modernity in this sense was the result of an ontic revolution within metaphysics that accepted the ontological ground that nominalism established but that saw the other realms of being through this new naturalistic lens” (p. 132). Gillespie then goes on to discuss the second pair, Descartes and Hobbes, and their relative understanding of physics, human psychology, and epistemology. He gives a heavily historical account of their thought refracted through personal and biographical experiences.

Gillespie’s last chapter discusses some more ideas of modernity, including those of Kant (“Sapere aude!”), Hegel, and the German Romantics. One of the most interesting ideas he talks about here is how Heidegger formulated this problem, namely not one as a de-theologizing or secularization, but as God becoming increasing “concealed” or “withdrawn” from public discourse. I’ve always found Heidegger an enigmatic, but fully rigorous thinker and thought that this was an interesting way to resituate an extraordinarily complex historical question.

There are a couple of critical things I have to offer about the book. I find it perhaps not flatly wrong, but at least odd, to suggest that much of the above thought is explicitly answering theological questions. To say that “The Enlightenment was all about theology, because many of its thinkers disavowed theism” seems to be self-consciously defining a movement negatively, instead of taking its real, central concerns to heart. Could one not just as easily write a book called “The Platonic Origins of Modernity,” arguing how all of modernity was a response to the Platonic forms?

This shouldn’t detract someone from the book, though, especially if they’re interested in a great synthetic treatment of all these thinkers backed up by solid historical and philosophical understanding. I may not have agreed with all of Gillespie’s conclusions, but this book offers up a lot of questions for anyone with a soft spot for intellectual history.

[Mazen · Rating 5 out of 5]

على الإطلاق.

يتحدث الكتاب، كما هو واضح من العنوان، عن أصل الحداثة في الديالكتيك الميتافيزيقي داخل المسيحية، ولماذا الحداثة هي منتج ثقافي غربي معني بالأطر الثقافية الغربية فقط. ذلك لأنها نشأت نتيجة صراع ثقافي بدأ منذ أرسطو وسقراط وأفلاطون حول طبيعة الإله وتفاعله مع الإنسان، وانتماء الإنسان للطبيعة حوله.

هناك تصور خاطئ بأن النزعة الإنسانية الأوروبية، التي تولت إرساء قواعد الحداثة، نشأت كعداء واضح للدين أو كشكل من أشكال الإلحاد. ولكن في الحقيقة، كانت النهضة الإنسانية (Humanism) عبارة عن رؤية مسيحية ركزت على الممارسات الأخلاقية الفعلية أكثر من الطقوس (Rituals) والإيمان.

يقوم الكاتب بتتبع نشأة هذه الأفكار، ليس فقط من مارتن لوثر، بل من الشاعر الإيطالي بيترارك، الذي يرى أن الفضيلة والممارسة الأخلاقية هي التي تجعلنا منتصرين في حربنا الأزلية ضد القدر والموت. وأن ممارسة الإيمان نفسها هي ممارسة الفضيلة، وليست في حاجة إلى إله شخصي متحكم في جميع تفاصيل حياتنا، بل إلى إله منعزل قام بخلق هذا الكون وجعلنا مسؤولين عن مصيرنا من خلال تفاعلنا مع ذواتنا الآثمة التي تتوق إلى الشهوات والمتع.

يتتبع الكاتب منشأ الإصلاح الأصولي في المسيحية، وكيف ثار لوثر على الكنيسة الكاثوليكية، مما أدى إلى الحروب الدينية الأوروبية التي أودت بحياة مئات الآلاف من المسيحيين. وكيف أن سلب سلطة الكنيسة في تحديد الخلاص (وهي اللحظة البطولية في المسيحية، كلحظة الوصول إلى النيرفانا في البوذية) لأتباعها، هو ما جعل المسيحية ديانة سلطوية وليست ديانة داعية للفضيلة والحكمة في نظره.

يتتبع الكتاب أيضًا محاولة ديكارت أن ينزع عن الإله صفته كإله عدمي ترك الخلق وتوارى في عزلة أبدية، ولا سبيل لنا للتواصل معه بسبب ذواتنا المتناهية وكليته اللامتناهية. من خلال ذلك، حاول ديكارت أن ينزع تلك الصفة اللامتناهية غير المرصودة عن الإله ويمنحها لنا، معتبرًا أن فكرة الإله نفسها هي فكرة مجردة عن الكمال، مصدرها غير إنساني، ووجودها يتطلب وجود الإنسان نفسه. وهكذا، فتح ديكارت الباب لإنسان كلي القدرة والإلهام.

ثم يتولى هوبز ما انتهى إليه ديكارت، حيث يرى أن الإنسان في الحالة الطبيعية لا يختلف كثيرًا عن الحيوان؛ فهو من الطبيعة ولم ينشأ مختلفًا عنها كثيرًا. ولكن لجوءه إلى القوانين والدولة نشأ نتيجة عجزه عن مواجهة الموت والعنف وأهوال الطبيعة وحده. لذلك، يكون الإنسان دائمًا في حاجة إلى جماعة، وأن يكون محكومًا بشروط تلك الجماعة. ولكن من أين تأتي تلك الشروط؟ هل هي من الدولة نفسها (État) أم من الإله نفسه؟

وُلد هوبز في خضم الحروب الدينية الأوروبية، ورأى أن الدين لا يوفر مصدرًا مطلقًا للحكم والأخلاق. ففي عصره، كان الرهبان والقساوسة وآباء الكنيسة في حروب، وأشاعوا الإرهاب في أنحاء أوروبا، في حروب قضت على حوالي 15% من سكان أوروبا. ولكن هوبز لم يكن متفائلًا مثل ديكارت، بل عارضه في نظرته إلى أن الإنسان يمكن أن يكون مصدرًا لتلك القوانين، وأنه قادر على إشاعة النظام والحيلولة دون الفوضى.

إلى أن جاء كانط بكتيبه الصغير "نقد العقل المحض"، مشيرًا إلى أن عقل الإنسان في أقصى قدرته هو حسي، وأن تلك الصور والأسماء هي استعارات مصدرها نحن ونقدها نحن أيضًا. ووصل هوبز إلى أن أقصى ما يستطيع الإنسان فعله هو إقامة دولة يكون على رأسها حاكم يأخذ على عاتقه إقامة العقد الاجتماعي وتأويل النصوص الدينية لكي يتبعها عامة الناس، وأن العقل غير قادر على التفوق على إله من صنعه أو على نفسه.

كانت الحداثة في لحظة هامة من تطورها بعد الثورة الفرنسية والمحاكم الثورية التي أودت بعشرات الآلاف إلى الإعدام. كما أشار شبنجلر إلى أن أفول الغرب قد حان. ويمكننا من هذه الناحية تفهم نقد نيتشه الدائم للمسيحية، التي قضت على المظاهر الوثنية، خاصة الألمانية. فالألمان كانوا هم من تولوا الحركة الرومانتيكية التي جاءت كرد فعل على الإنسانية الحديثة. حتى يذهب الكاتب إلى أن الاشتراكية القومية لها أصل جرماني قديم في الجماعات الألمانية، وأنها كانت من ردود الفعل أيضًا.

[Benedict · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book definitely rewarded the serious brainpower it required of me! Gillespie's got a tour-de-force of Western culture's canons of philosophy and theology, and sometimes literature as well. The book traces the way in which theological ideas about what God must be like became hidden in scientific and philosophical commitments after the challenge of nominalism to scholasticism. Plus, it argues that Western political science can't understand the theological commitments of religious extremists because we've forgotten where we put our own theological commitments. Lucky for us, Gillespie's done the hard work of charting a path back to them, and while it can be a real mountaineer's climb to follow him, the view from the top is breathtaking.

If that all sounds Greek to you, the book takes the time to explain each step. I probably need a new copy to re-read because so much of my original is underlined or annotated in the margins with referrals back-and-forth to other pages. It's a very solid piece of work and writing. I read it slowly over several months, letting myself chew on it and digest it as I went (and I could still use another read-through or two).

This has become one of the major works for defining my orientation to a lot of the history of Christian and philosophical thought in the West, as well as that shape-shifting topic: "modernity."

[Wayfarer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exposing the religious roots of our ostensibly godless age, Michael Allen Gillespie reveals in this landmark study that modernity is much less secular than conventional wisdom suggests. Taking as his starting point the collapse of the medieval world, Gillespie argues that from the very beginning moderns sought not to eliminate religion but to support a new view of religion and its place in human life. He goes on to explore the ideas of such figures as William of Ockham, Petrarch, Erasmus, Luther, Descartes, and Hobbes, showing that modernity is best understood as a series of attempts to formulate a new and coherent metaphysics or theology.

[Charlie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A wonderful topic and intriguing premise ruined by poor execution. Nominalism was more dismissed than dealt with. Protestantism was represented almost exclusively by Luther's Bondage of the Will, one of the less careful works of the Reformation. The relationship between nominalism and Protestantism was overstressed. The chapter on Hobbes was good.

[Stefani · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's all Nominalism's fault.

[Alireza Farahani · Rating 5 out of 5]

کتاب "ریشه‌های الهیاتی مدرنیته" نوشته مایکل آلن گیلسپی به بررسی تأثیرات و ریشه‌های الهیاتی بر شکل‌گیری مدرنیته می‌پردازد.

گیلسپی در این اثر به تحلیل پیچیدگی‌های فکری و فرهنگی که منجر به ظهور مدرنیته شده‌اند، می‌پردازد و نشان می‌دهد که چگونه باورهای دینی و الهیاتی نقش اساسی در شکل‌گیری اندیشه‌های مدرن ایفا کرده‌اند.

گیلسپی به تعریف مدرنیته و ویژگی‌های آن می‌پردازد و توضیح می‌دهد که مدرنیته نه تنها یک دوره تاریخی، بلکه یک تغییر بنیادین در نحوه تفکر بشر است. او بر این نکته تأکید می‌کند که مدرنیته به طور مستقیم از تغییرات الهیاتی و فلسفی نشأت گرفته است.

گیلسپی به بررسی تأثیرات مسیحیت بر تفکر مدرن می‌پردازد. او توضیح می‌دهد که چگونه اصول مسیحی به شکل‌گیری مفاهیم مانند حقوق بشر، آزادی فردی و عقلانیت کمک کرده‌اند. این اصول به عنوان پایه‌های فکری برای توسعه نظریه‌های سیاسی و اجتماعی جدید عمل کرده‌اند.

نویسنده به نقد نظریه‌های سکولاریسم می‌پردازد و استدلال می‌کند که سکولاریسم به معنای حذف دین از زندگی اجتماعی نیست، بلکه تحولاتی را در نحوه تعامل دین و جامعه به وجود آورده است. او نشان می‌دهد که دین هنوز هم در بسیاری از جنبه‌های زندگی مدرن نقشی اساسی ایفا می‌کند.

گیلسپی به بررسی تأثیرات فلسفه رنسانس بر مدرنیته می‌پردازد. او توضیح می‌دهد که چگونه فلسفه رنسانس با تأکید بر انسان‌گرایی و عقلانیت، زمینه‌ساز تغییرات عمده‌ای در تفکر علمی و اجتماعی شد.

نویسنده به نقش اصلاحات دینی اشاره می‌کند و توضیح می‌دهد که چگونه اصلاحات پروتستانی موجب بروز تغییرات عمیق در نگرش‌ها به دین و عقلانیت شد. این اصلاحات به تقویت فردگرایی و تأکید بر تجربه شخصی در دین منجر گردید.

گیلسپی به بررسی تأثیرات فلسفه دکارت بر تفکر مدرن می‌پردازد. او نشان می‌دهد که دکارت با تأکید بر شکاکیسم و عقلانیت، پایه‌گذار رویکردهای جدیدی در علم و فلسفه شد که تأثیرات عمیقی بر مدرنیته داشت.

نویسنده به تحلیل نقش علم در شکل‌گیری مدرنیته می‌پردازد و توضیح می‌دهد که چگونه پیشرفت‌های علمی موجب تغییر در نگرش‌ها نسبت به جهان و جایگاه انسان در آن شد. او بر این نکته تأکید می‌کند که علم نه تنها ابزار شناخت جهان، بلکه ابزاری برای تغییر آن نیز بوده است.

گیلسپی به بررسی چالش‌های اخلاقی و اجتماعی ناشی از مدرنیته می‌پردازد. او توضیح می‌دهد که چگونه تغییرات سریع اجتماعی و فرهنگی موجب بروز بحران‌های هویتی و اخلاقی شده‌اند.

نویسنده به تأثیرات فلسفه هگل بر تفکر مدرن اشاره می‌کند. او نشان می‌دهد که چگونه هگل با مفهوم دیالکتیک خود، تفکر تاریخی را وارد عرصه جدیدی کرد که تأثیرات عمیقی بر اندیشه سیاسی و اجتماعی گذاشت.

نویسنده به چالش‌هایی که مدرنیته با آن‌ها مواجه است، اشاره می‌کند. او توضیح می‌دهد که بحران‌های زیست‌محیطی، نابرابری‌های اجتماعی و چالش‌های فرهنگی از جمله مسائلی هستند که نیازمند بازنگری در مفاهیم مدرن هستند.

گیلسپی نتیجه‌گیری می‌کند که مدرنیته باید با توجه به ریشه‌های الهیاتی خود مورد تجدید نظر قرار گیرد. او بر این باور است که ادغام اصول دینی با تفکر مدرن می‌تواند راه حلی برای چالش‌های کنونی باشد.

اما در مورد بررسی عمیق تر اصطلاح و مفهوم کاربردی نومینالیسم در این کتاب:

تعریف نومینالیسم: گیلسپی در ابتدا نومینالیسم را به عنوان یک مکتب فلسفی معرفی می‌کند که بر واقعیت‌های عینی و عینی‌گرایی تأکید دارد و معتقد است که مفاهیم عمومی تنها نام‌هایی هستند و وجود مستقل ندارند. این دیدگاه به چالش‌های جدی برای فلسفه و الهیات منجر شده است.

انتقاد از نومینالیسم: نویسنده به نقد نومینالیسم می‌پردازد و استدلال می‌کند که این مکتب توانایی توضیح و تبیین واقعیت‌های پیچیده انسانی و اجتماعی را ندارد. او نشان می‌دهد که نومینالیسم نمی‌تواند به سؤالات بنیادین درباره وجود و حقیقت پاسخ دهد.

تأثیرات تاریخی: گیلسپی به بررسی تأثیرات تاریخی نومینالیسم بر فلسفه غرب می‌پردازد و توضیح می‌دهد که این مکتب چگونه به تفکرات مدرن شکل داده و برخی از اصول اساسی را زیر سؤال برده است.

پاسخ‌های فلسفی: در ادامه، گیلسپی به پاسخ‌های فلسفه غرب به چالش‌های نومینالیسم اشاره می‌کند. او نشان می‌دهد که فیلسوفانی مانند دکارت و هگل چگونه سعی کرده‌اند با ارائه نظریات جدید، نقص‌های نومینالیسم را جبران کنند.

نقش دکارت: گیلسپی بر اهمیت دکارت تأکید می‌کند و توضیح می‌دهد که دکارت با تأکید بر عقلانیت و وجود حقیقت عینی، سعی کرد تا پایه‌های فلسفی محکمی برای رد نومینالیسم بنا کند.

نقش هگل: نویسنده همچنین به هگل اشاره می‌کند و توضیح می‌دهد که چگونه هگل با مفهوم دیالکتیک خود، به فهم عمیق‌تری از واقعیت و تاریخ دست یافت که در تضاد با نگرش‌های نومینالیستی قرار دارد.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A staggering work of intellectual genius. This was hands down the best work of philosophy I have read in the past year. A “prequel” of sorts to Dr. Gillespie’s previous work “Hegel, Heidegger, and the Ground of History,” this book charts the origins of the crisis of modernity and illuminates the enduring relevance of our cultural inheritances, both Greek and Christian.

I take this book in many ways to be an addendum to the German-American philosopher Leo Strauss’s interpretation of the origins of the modern age, which he identifies with the Renaissance humanism of Machiavelli. However, Dr. Gillespie stresses (and I think accurately) that while Machiavelli represents the first of the moderns, his philosophy did not arise from nowhere but evolved in an organic fashion from a theological debate that predates his time— most primarily between “realists” (Aristotelian-Aquinian) and “nominalists” (Ockhamite) camps that would form the basis for the Protestant reformation, the wars of religion, and subsequently the newfound popularity of modern rationalism as exposited by Descartes and Hobbes.

However, the author does not allow this to become simply a political critique of modernity. Rather, it is a work of scholarship revealing at once that modernity is not unique in its contradictions, which follow a long history in philosophy going at least as far back as the division between Pelagius and the Manichaeans on the subject of free will versus determinism. Instead, modernity is unique in so far as it does not so much attempt to resolve or even disguise this contradiction but instead does not even acknowledge its existence. As a result of the fact that by its very logic modernity is a faith in the progressive perfectibility of of mankind, it does not acknowledge the history much less the relevance of its origins as its focus rests entirely on the future.

In this sense, Dr. Gillespie’s work (as was Strauss’s philosophy) is inextricably indebted to Heidegger’s notion of the forgetting or the concealment of “Being”— or the absence of an acknowledgment of the relevance of metaphysics or first philosophy as the defining self-conscious source of the contours of all social thought. Modernity rather takes itself to be neutral and independent, charting a new course and a imperishable future. Yet, precisely because of this faith in human perfectibility, it becomes continuously disaffected with itself when it is forced to face the consequences of the Kantian antimony between freedom and nature continuously rearing its head. Modern man becomes frustrated and even anxious by the continual reminder that despite his aspiration to become master of nature, he is nonetheless natural himself.

The result has been the emergence of the post-structuralist philosophical movement (or the postmodern cultural movement) that is itself deeply theological in its antagonism toward modern science, individualism, and globalization. With its deep antagonism to all that is “Western,” it stoops as low as to quietly applaud the 9/11 conspirators for their resistance to modernity and their willingness to bring about a cultural-historical “event.”

Yet, looking back upon the theological origins of modernity, Dr. Gillespie provides us with the philosophical hindsight to realize that the modern age is not in fact so frightful as to require an “event” to overcome it. Rather, the seeming contradictions of modernity instead reflect an enduring human contradiction between our aspirations for the world and our experiences with the world. In this sense, by recovering a historical perspective that revises the secular narrative of our standpoint, we can begin to recognize that while the modern age is uniquely technologically advanced it does not in fact face fundamentally different political problems.

To borrow a phrase from Nietzsche, we remain human, all too human—and perhaps this is all we can aspire to be.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It will be difficult to remain Protestant after reading this book. This was written by a non-Christian philosopher at Duke, but it seems the evidence points to Protestantism (via nominalism) as a major influence and contributor to modernity and its many problems. Gillespie is very readable as a philosopher (something hard to find), but this does not change the fact that his work here will take you a while to read carefully. Very much worth the read!

[Seyed-Koohzad Esmaeili · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب خوبی بود در مورد ریشه‌های الهیاتی مدرنیته به ویژه چالش بین خدای قادر مطلق نومینالیستی و رابطه آن با انسان و طبیعت و تلاش متفکران اروپایی برای پاسخ دادن به این مسئله. نکته‌های مثبت و نقدها در مورد این کتاب در این چند خط قابل گفتن نیست. مهم این است روایت متفاوتی است که باید خوانده شود.

[Emmanuel Ortega]

This book is blew my CABEZA!!!!

[Adam Carnehl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like his other wide-ranging and intellectually stimulating book, "Nihilism before Nietzsche," Gillespie's latest book (published by University of Chicago Press) also delivers a big idea with even bigger consequences. In "Nihilism before Nietzsche" Gillespie showed how the philosophy of nihilism, of negation, has its origins in the "promethean" achievement of late-medieval Nominalism. This theological anthropocentrism spread to Italian and Northern European humanism, and its metaphysical assumptions about God exerted enormous influence in the German and Swiss reformations. From the ashes of the sixteenth century religious wars, thinkers arose who were steeped in Nominalist principles and who wanted their kingdoms to never fall into such violent, religious conflicts again. These early modern and then Enlightenment thinkers continued to elevate the powers of man and the omnipotence, infinity, and inaccessibility of God. The period culminates in Kant and his antinomies in the first Critique, antinomies that were not resolved, but argued over by all of Kant's German successors. The first and most crucial one, as Gillespie explains in "Nihilism before Nietzsche," is Fichte, who sought to totalize the will, the power of the "I" in an attempt to overcome the dualism of will (freedom) and nature (necessity). From Fichte various radical approaches developed and blossomed into Russian nihilism, which sought to undo and destroy all conventional social, political, and moral norms in an attempt to make man (the "I") the ultimate master of all nature and of God Himself. So when Nietzsche arose, he was not so much forging a new, nihilistic path, as he was reflecting and commenting on the tumultuous century of nihilism before him.

In this book, Gillespie expands his search into certain areas of thought he briefly touched upon in his previous book. Here, now, we get a fuller exploration of Ockham and the Nominalist "revolution" more generally. We see how the attribute of omnipotence was elevated above God's other attributes (e.g., love, beauty) in a radical re-formulation of theology itself, as part of the via moderna. Nominalism rejects neoplatonic or Dionysian hierarchies which involve procession, return, and abiding as all things move upward, via the proper channels, on their way toward union with God. Nominalism instead focuses upon the immediate power of God, channeled according to His will, which human beings cannot 'make sense of' as God is hidden, above our powers, above of our mortal ken.

Gillespie argues that it is essentially Nominalism (or Nominalism's major concerns, emphases, etc.) that affected the Italian humanist project represented by Petrarch, as well as Luther and the Reformation, the revolutionary project of Descartes, the anti-Cartesianism of Hobbes, and the entire secular project of modernity. This project has its origins in theological debates, and the debaters were, for the most part, all Christians trained in theology. Indeed, one might even compare the Descartes-Hobbes debate to the Erasmus-Luther debate. The issue is always how man and God go together. One side (humanist-Nominalists) attempts to expand man's power, dignity, and will at the expense of God; the other side (determinist-Nominalist) attempts to limit man's power while highlighting God's power, sovereignty, and will. This is Kant's third antinomy. Does the idea of "nature" solve it? Mechanism and processes and moving bodies? Hobbes thought so, and believed this mechanistic universe of monads saved God from being the author of evil. He accused Descartes of falling into the humanist trap of extending man's powers beyond what the Bible and experience declare them to be. Descartes, on the other hand, accused Hobbes of taking too much from humans, reducing them to the level of all other things as they move around in the nasty, brutish, short experience of life on this earth. Gillespie brilliantly compares this seventeenth century debate to the Luther-Erasmus debate of the early sixteenth century, and he shows how the next several hundred years of philosophical debate originate right here.

Modernity therefore has theological rather than anti-theological or atheist origins. Nominalist philosophers were attempting to delineate God's role and man's role, but in so doing, they put a vast gap of separation between them which the ancients never conceived, and they carved out a separate space for 'nature.'

This book is important and Gillespie's argument is brilliant.

[Kevin Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consisting of eight distinct chapters, entitled "The Nominalist Revolution and the Origin of Modernity," "Petrarch and the Invention of Individuality," "Humanism and the Apotheosis of Man," "Luther and the Storm of Faith," "The Contradictions of Pre-modernity," "Descartes' Path to Truth," "Hobbes's Fearful Wisdom," and "The Contradictions of Enlightenment and the Crisis of Modernity," Michael Allen Gillespie's book "The Theological Origins of Modernity" is an effort from its very beginnings that promises to makes its contents up to date (it was published in 2008). And, to a certain extent, Mr. Gillespie is quite successful in making his thesis, that modernity's roots are necessarily theological to the core, relevant to the world in which he was writing (the world of the "War on Terror" brought about by the events of 9/11). He does this by making a connection between the plight of the Islamic World in the late 2000s to the world of Europe at the time of the Reformation and the 'shaking out' of the Early Modern Period. In fact, as the author clearly shows, there are many similarities between the Islamic World's 'troubles' with the ideals of Modernity and the problems of Europe in its transition from the Medieval World to the period of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. The method by which, in the book proper, that the author does this feat? By carefully, and painstakingly, explaining the times of the relevant thinkers, the main tenets of their thought or projects, and how they interacted with each other. And boy does Mr. Gillespie marshalls a comprehensive view of 'his' thinkers. For the ideas, and motivations, of thinkers as diverse as scholastics such as Thomas and his master Aristotle are contrasted with the Nominalists, such as William of Ockham, and how they engendered a 'dialogue' in Western ideas that propelled the engine of history through the Reformation, to the Wars of Religion, to the graveyards of the 20th century, is a joy to read: enlightening and satiating to the mind. And all the thinkers are here: Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, Luther, Erasmus, Descartes, Hobbes. But no mere summary is given, rather the interrelationships, the dialectical interactions, are offered up to the reader like so many delightful treats at a cocktail party. The result? Deep knowledge and appreciation of the role theological issues have played in the history and development of modernity, and the effects on our world today (once again, the 9/11 reference). Enjoyable, profound, delightful. Rarely are those adjectives used to describe and theology/philosophy book, but here they are particularly pertinent. This is a fine book, relevant for the generalist as well as the expert in the field!

[CJ Bowen]

"What actually occurs in the course of modernity is thus not simply the erasure or disappearance of God but the transference of his attributes, essential powers, and capacities to other entities or realms of being. The so-called process of disenchantment is thus also a process of reenchantment in and through which both man and nature are infused with a number of attributes or powers previously ascribed to God. To put the matter more starkly, in the face of the long drawn out death of God, science can provide a coherent account of the whole only by making man or nature or both in some sense divine." - 274

Not a critique of the book, but in response to it:
In other words, we can't replace God; but we can recreate Him in the aggregate. The Bible has a word for this, of course: this is exactly the idolatry described in Romans 1, the only possible answer to which is Jesus Christ, God's answer to the antinomies between God and man.

Theological conundrums abstracted from the Christ-centered drama of redemption and the life of the Church open space for sin and rebellion to be disguised as crippling internal tensions and insoluble intellectual puzzles. If "theology" refers only to theology proper, with a smattering of anthropology in order to discuss free will, then it is not surprising that this denatured theology shorn of sin, incarnation, atonement, and the world-renewing gift of Pentecost was not seen by the early moderns as providing 'a coherent account of the whole.' God's nature is revealed in His actions, as interpreted by His Word, most fully and clearly in Christ. As the creation of a personal Creator, the world cannot be accounted for without reference to a personal encounter with God. Man, created to be homo adorans, cannot discover his and the world's true nature by unnaturally pursuing of various idolatries; futile thinking is the sure result.

[Ethan Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a very good book. It is essentially a speedrun of the modern existential issue at hand. I agree with other reviewers that his appraisal of Christian theology is limited, but also that it doesn't really deny the overall impact and cohesion of the book.

Ultimately, my final view is that it is great but very limited. Even beyond his seemingly superficial understanding of theology (incredible, given the title), the book is limited generally. For example, he goes into great detail about the debate between Luther and Erasmus, and between Hobbes and Descartes, and these sections are certainly interesting and thoughtful. However, the end of the book feels like it was written in a single night or something, and is very rushed. The author clearly is more interested in the former events, and dedicates only a few pages to Kant and a few paragraphs to Hegel, although they undoubtedly have incredible significance for history. He covers them, but whereas he dedicates an entire chapter to Erasmus and Luther, and then another to their debate, but sees fit to summarize all events beyond Hobbes and Descartes in what is essentially a singular chapter. Perhaps he was dealing with constraints on time or just lost interest in the work, but I was left wishing that he had applied the rigor to the subsequent history. Then, at the very end, he also attempts to summarize the entirety of radical Islam in a couple pages. It works, but is disappointingly short.

That said, the very fact that it leaves one wanting more just goes to show that it is an engaging, interesting, and fun read.

[Dio Mavroyannis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Luther's pamphet a while back because Nassim Nicholas Taleb had mentioned it but found it rather dull so I moved on. This book tries to show how Christian debates have had an important impact in the present. This is the way Atheists should read about theology, it dispels many myths and really frames ones own thought by juxtaposing them to the past.

I read the Luther chapter with the most attention, it is absolutely absurd that Luther had the impact that he did, his arguments were nonsensical! Erasmus and others pointed this out, but to no avail. Interestingly, we see here the origins of the eradication of free will. Luther refuses to make room for it, he says that either you are gods puppet or you are satans, either way, no free will.

[Rasputin V · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author comes from a political science background and intends to show how much of the current political and ideological landscape is formed by the vestiges of antecedent historical problems/ viewpoints formed in relation to theology ( especially wrt the Christian scriptures). The text takes us through a whirlwind of ideological conflicts between different Christian sects mainly about humanity's relation to God. It also deals with the different interpretations of human conduct vis-a-vis God's relevation ,most notable in its effect ( and also most notorious ) being the conflict between Erasmus and Luther.

I will not spoil the whole thing here,but it was interesting to see how things like humanism evolved not from a disregard for religion or how Hobbes' Leviathan and his view of the State in relation to the individual was framed in regards to his own view of the Deus Absconditus.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a dense, slow read but packed with fascinating insight. As a history major, I really appreciated viewing how Western modernity came about through the various religious and philosophical thoughts. Petrarch was a revelation and I also better understand Decartes and Hobbes after reading this.

[Sebos · Rating 4 out of 5]

For whatever reason seems incomplete, author also seems to be stuck in the paradigm of the myth of religious violence (without which some of his thesis would fall flat), though recognizing Cavanaugh's work, but stepping over it without drawing conclusions.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great. Nominalism's relationship to theology is really confused in this. He's a good writer and knows a lot of stuff. But get this quite right.

[Judson Marvel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diogenes Allen's Philosophy for Understanding Theology was the front porch to this massive volume. It is helpful to see the nominalist influence upon Calvin.

[Amo Te · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's beautiful and amazing

[Círdan · Rating 4 out of 5]

显然书中描述的这个主要问题并不是13世纪才开始有的，基督宗教内部的张力远不止这样一个问题，只是在一定社会环境下并且被局势裹挟才让这一问题变得很具破坏性，而且不断延续衍生。然而，凭我所有的极其不入流的神学看法和非常浅薄的宗教经验看来，这书中描述的主要人物的神学观念简直匪夷所思。

这书在goodreads标的似乎只有178个标的人，在豆瓣却有604个人的评价，所以，果然是平台的受众上有区别么？

[Alex J · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books in the problem of modernity

[Joshua Finch]

Gillespie does exactly the kind of history I want to read, since I assume history's course and our wellness is decided predominantly by the truths we hold. I.e. the most over-arching or fundamental ideas are the ones that exert the most influence upon us.

Yet while he brings the reader to such spectacular views, when we use the binoculars he stations for us verbally, we find these sights are still quite obscure. This is probably because he does not explicate the subject of his thesis, scholastic realism, for more than two pages when you compress it together. And even there he says many things about it, but not precisely what it is. The whole 294 page book is hinged upon this, e.g. how it was denied in ~1050AD and about the denial's bad cultural consequences ever since. But how is it that universals are needed to solve the 'freedom vs. necessity' paradox? My memory may be failing me, or my intelligence had, but I re-read those two pages at least four times closely and re-checked it against later parts of the book, and I think it's more likely that the central concept was just not sufficiently clarified. It was disambiguated in all sorts of ways throughout the text possibly, which may have accounted for the book's fluctuation between clarity and obscurity.

The clearest I can summarize the book is like this.
God's power and the idea that there are unchangeable, necessary natures of things were at some point seen as incompatible. The nominalists denied those fixed natures, in attempt to better honor God's sovereignty. They thought God's omnipotence would mean he couldn't be held back by any necessity, so he could change those natures at will, make humans have a different essence than their minds for example. What would be left? Who knows. We aren't all humans because of sharing in that nature, to the nominalist, we merely all resemble each other and 'human' is a name (nomen - nominal) we use to mark out that family of resemblence. And from this seemingly innocent move, our culture has been falling apart the faster ever since.

Well I agree with the gist. Overall I was happy enough that all these things were pointed out, even with the above mentioned flaws and even if they weren't all tied together in a clear, logical way. This is the beginning of a fruitful line of inquiry, which I think I will now follow up with David Bradshaw's Aristotle: East and West. He seems to clarify a single, philosophical concept there, whose loss was even more decisive for everything than the loss Gillespie outlines here, and which happened further back in the chain of reasoning and history.