How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor

by James K.A. Smith

The Reformers “all see the reigning equilibrium as a bad compromise” — a Pelagian assumption of human powers and thus an inadequate appreciation for the radical grace of God and for God’s action in salvation. If anything of salvation is under our control, then God’s sovereignty and grace are compromised. This leads Reformers like Calvin to reject the “localization” of grace in things and rituals, changing the “centre of gravity of the religious life” (p. 79). Taylor considers John Calvin as a case study: in emphasizing the priority of God’s action and grace, Taylor notes, “what he can’t admit is that God could have released something of his saving efficacy out there into the world, at the mercy of human action, because that is the cost of really sanctifying creatures like us which are bodily, social, historical” (p. 79). It is the (relatively immaterial) spoken Word of God and not magical things like the Host that is the means of grace.