On the path towards "New Enlightenment": representations on the post-secular in modern scientific discourse

Lepeshkin Dmitrii Germanovich Postgraduate student, the department of Culturology and Visual Art, Shuya Branch of Ivanovo State University; Senior Educator, the department of Theology, Svyato-Alekseevskaya Ivano-Voznezenskaya Orthodox Theological Seminary of Ivanovo-Voznezenskaya Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church 153012, Russia, Ivanovskaya oblast', g. Ivanovo, ul. Marii Ryabininoi, 29 uventus@internet.ru Other publications by this author

On October 14, 2001, the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas delivered his famous speech at the ceremony of awarding him the Peace Prize of the Exchange Union of the German Book Trade. Since the New York tragedy happened a month earlier, which shocked the whole world, the thinker touched on the problem of religion in the modern world. The resulting program text is remarkable for introducing the concept of "postsecularity" into scientific discourse.

The scientist puts forward two fundamental theses. Firstly, the process of secularization in the West is not only dialectical, but also incomplete. Secondly, secularization has strayed from the "right path" of its development: its development takes place in a post-secular state of society, "caring about the continued existence of religious communities in an incessantly secularizing environment" ^[1].

Regardless of Habermas and also influenced by the events of September 11, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Lord Jonathan Sachs, without using the term "post-secularity", quite accurately indicates the essence of the problem of modernity, which led, among other things, to the American tragedy of 2001. "Religion has not become what it should be according to the European Enlightenment: a quiet, provincial, unassuming force. (...) After a long period of decline, it was revived with enormous and at times destructive force."^[2]

Thus, both a secular scientist ("devoid of religious hearing"), and a rabbi speaking from the standpoint of classical Orthodox Judaism, denote the same problem: the crisis of secularization in the conditions of a new phenomenon of modernity, designated, with the light hand of Habermas as post-secularity.

However, the reading of the newly designated phenomenon still turns out to be extremely different, sometimes mutually exclusive, which requires some kind of systematization of views, the experience of which is presented in this article.

Post-Secularism as desecularization

The revival of the former role of religion or its new role was discussed a little earlier than Habermas introduced the concept of "post-secularity" into scientific circulation. Back in 1990, Alvin Toffler considered world religions as one of the global warriors of modernity, which, along with transnational corporations, could lead to the denationalization of real political power. Toffler will define such a world system as heterogeneous ^[3].

Samuel Huntington in 1993 started talking about the "clash of civilizations", defining their (civilizations') main identifier as religious ^[4]. And even the classic of liberalism Friedrich von Hayek emphasizes the crucial role of world religions in stabilizing our world ^[5]. Let's add an active role. All this allows some researchers to declare the crisis of secularism and religious revenge, which consists in the institutional, socio-cultural and value return of religion ^[6].

In 2004, Martin Knechtges focused on the "new evidence of the religious", while emphasizing that Habermas' reflections in the traditions of his theory of communicative action are clearly insufficient for an adequate reading of the concept of "post-secular society" ^[7]. Commenting on the report of Dr. Knechtges, P.A. Sapronov made an attempt to designate the "post-secular" as a situation of the presence of God, who has become someone unknown, which leads to a change in secularism, which becomes ready to reckon with Christianity ^[8].

Peter Berger is talking about desecularization, about the return of religion to politics.  Contrary to the logic of the development of secularization, religion has not declined, on the contrary, there is a surge of religious faith. The author identifies three types of secularism (moderate, allowing the existence of religion in the private sphere and focused on its complete suppression) and notes that all of them are currently actively contested ^[9].

Charles Taylor argues that religion and religiosity have never completely left society. Another thing is that secularism presupposes a system of immanent guidelines in human self-realization, whereas the Church, religion as a whole, offers a transcendent system that modern man no longer seeks within the framework of organized religions. In addition, openness to transcendence is fraught with danger.

The researcher, following M.N. Epstein, believes that the restoration of the pre-atheistic past is impossible without taking into account its (this past) consequences. The result is such a desire for "fullness of spirit", which is unlikely to be retained within the framework of historical confessions. Tsch.Taylor draws parallels with "post-secular" Europe. At the same time, he makes a reservation that he understands by post-secularity not the designation of an era that replaced the rise of faith with its decline, but "a time when the hegemony of the dominant mainstream narrative of secularization will experience more and more new challenges" ^[10].

M.N.Epstein uses the term "post-atheism", meaning by the latter "the result of a double collapse: both atheism and those religious traditions that were crushed by atheism" ^[11]. This understanding of the processes of modernity was born in the scientist's correspondence with one of the founders of the theology of the "death of God" Thomas Altitzer, who claimed that God died in Christ. As a result, "... the self-destruction of the original reality of God leads to a total transformation of all things." However, it is impossible to find evidence in the orthodox teachings of Christianity that reveals the meaning of this event," the author summarizes ^[12].

At the same time, the remark of Kristina Steckl is interesting, who insists that de-secularization is different from post-secularization. If in the first case, we are dealing with the revival of religion in its former form, opposing secularism, then in the second – about the phenomenon of religion in a new quality. The researcher argues that the state of post-secularization implies the possibility of compatibility of religion and modernity, which is not suitable for desecularization.

K. Steckl reasonably believes that postsecularity cannot be read as "after the secular" (in time). In this case, it would be correct to write the term with a hyphen after the prefix, and this situation occurs only in some regions of the world (including Russia). Postsecularity (without hyphen) is a condition of conscious coexistence of secular and religious worldviews in a single time, generating tension in consciousness and society ^[13].

Post-Secularism as counter-secularization

P. Berger points out directly: the idea that we live in a secularized world is wrong. Desecularization takes the form of counter-secularization and today's world is more fiercely religious than it has ever been, therefore, those who neglect the role of religion in the analysis of modern events put our world in danger ^[14].

Half a century ago, Daniel Bell predicted a similar religious response to the challenges of secularism: it is religion that seeks living meanings at the deepest level of being, itself becoming the most advanced response. The researcher notes that it is religion that restores the continuity of generations, returning only the existing prerequisites that are the basis of humanity and concern for others ^[15].

The American researcher of the problem Vyacheslav Karpov, who attempted to conceptualize the ideas of Peter Berger, correctly noted that the concept of desecularization did not receive any further significant development. The author sees the reason for such inattention to the processes of desecularization in the "cultural lag" - the inertia and inability of the cultural ideations created by us to reflect the rapidly occurring social changes. V. Karpov shares the idea of the development of desecularization into counter-secularization, focusing his attention on this.

Desecularization, according to the author, can be symmetrically conceptualized as including three counter-secularization processes: rapprochement between once secularized institutions and religious norms, the revival of religious beliefs and practices, and the return of religion to the public sphere. At the same time, counter-secularization processes may be weakly connected or completely unrelated to each other ^[16].

The domestic researcher of the problem A.I.Kyrlezhev notes that the beginning of postsecularity coincides with the beginning of postmodernity. He regards the latter as a spiritual counter-revolution, a reaction to the monologue of the Enlightenment. At the same time, postmodernism with its lack of ideas is no less antagonistic to religion than secularism. The whole difference is that the latter is trying to eliminate religion, and the former is trying to dissolve it in itself. The response of religion to the new challenge of postmodernity while maintaining the challenges of modern secularism is the essence of the post-secular situation.

The researcher defines post-secularity as "secularization of secularism", as a result of which secularism loses its socio-integrative function, again transferring it to religion, which is a natural result of an unconvincing secular attitude to the world ^[17].

In this sense, A.I.Kyrlezhev is in tune with Philip Riff, who offers a method of destruction of destructions, literally read by scientists as "killing". The riff suggests that secular culture seeks to dismantle the theistic culture that preceded it, but the sacred meanings of the latter are not completely destroyed and are quite capable of resisting secularism. This confrontation is the true nerve of modernity ^[18].

Pinar Bilgin, considering civilizations in the Huntington line as autochthonous formations united by religion, notes the importance of dialogue between them, which may be hindered by the phenomenon of postsecularity, assessed by Bilgin as a problem. Since the dialogue is ensured by the recognition of pluralism of opinions, recognition of the peculiarities of each of the participants in the dialogue, and postsecularity, based on the perception of one's own exclusivity, prevents this. This refers to the religious dominant of post-secular development, which is the foundation for every civilization ^[19].

In this regard, Joseph Camilleri speaks about the dialectic between conflict and dialogical approaches to cultural and geopolitical pluralism, which is one of the four characteristics of a rapidly changing world order. Others, according to the researcher, were the transnational nature of many religious discourses and practices; the decline of the West and the corresponding shift in the economic and geopolitical center of gravity; the complex relationship between the revival of religion and the broader phenomenon of identity politics. These changes set the coordinate system of post-secularity, understood by the researcher as the Revival of religion in the public sphere, the loud expression of fundamentalist worldviews and the intensification of conflicts within and between religious traditions, as well as between religious and secularist views ^[20].

Post-Secularism as the "New Enlightenment"

Luca Mavelli, studying the phenomenon of the post-secular in the context of the Islamic model, notes that it, first of all, calls into question the very existing border between the secular and religious, turning this border into a space of new forms of embodied political will and imagination ^[21].

In this regard, it is interesting to look at the post-secular by Adrian Pabst, who considers post-secularism to be a consequence of secularism. Moreover, the latter is based on the invention of the category "religion". Thus, there is a desacralization, and then a re-sacralization, but already of the secular space, which is given a quasi-sacral meaning. Developing his thought, Professor Pabst argues that Habermas mistakenly considers secular modernity as metaphysical universalism, which he seeks to replace with metaphysical pluralism. In fact, post-secularity is the "end of metaphysics", which excludes a transcendent ontology that can challenge the foundations of secularism ^[22]. In other words, Pabst views postsecularity as the completion of secularism.

The domestic researcher of the problem D.A.Uzlaner is also extremely close to Pabst's constructions, who sees in the postsecular the work of the secular from within himself, as a result of which "as if he steps over himself and becomes postsecular" ^[23].

To a certain extent, the ideas of Pabst and Uzlaner are in tune with the conclusions of Jonathan Fox and Shmuel Sandler, who argue that modernity and modernization itself gave rise to a religious revival, strengthening its role in society and politics. However, scientists take the position that the processes generated by this revival are not the fulfillment of modernization, but its response to it, which distances them from Pabst's views.

Fox and Sandler have identified eight such processes: the failures of modernization itself in third world countries; the undermining of the traditional way of life, values and morals by modernization; the expansion of the spheres of activity of the state and religion as a result of modernization and the resulting clashes; mass participation in politics, characteristic of modernity, leads to it and religious participants; the media contribute to the dissemination and assimilation of religious ideas; freedom of choice itself made it possible to choose religion rather than secularism; in many, especially undemocratic, societies, religious institutions become instruments of political participation; the secularization of religions leads to their inclusion in economic processes, which, in turn, leads to the search and support of non-secular religious systems and communities ^[24].

The editors of the special volume of the series "International Studies of Religion and Society", entitled by them as "The Study of the post-secular", note that the concept of post-secularity does not imply that we now live in a radically different age than half a century ago. It is another matter when it comes to the very significant presence of religion in secularized social institutions. The religious aspect within the framework of secularization can be considered only in combination and in distinction with the secular and secular. Post-secularity means pluralism, not the revanchist dominance of something different and opposed to the secular. Such a reading of postecularity requires an interdisciplinary approach ^[25].

Jose Casanova also believes that becoming postsecular does not mean becoming religious, but an attempt to break out of the secular immanent framework or admit the possibility of transcendence within it ^[26]. In other words, pluralism, openness and open–mindedness are the basic principles of the post-secular.

S.S. Khoruzhy also writes about multidimensional post-secular dialogue, who considers post-secularism itself as a special paradigm within which new relations are being built not only between the secular and the religious, but also interreligious dialogue, which is designed to actualize the formation of the modern image of an Ontological person. Only in connection with anthropology does post-secularism acquire its true value ^[27].

John Caputo also believes that the post-secular is a necessary consequence of the secular, but for a different reason. The researcher believes that the statement about the death of God marked the beginning of extreme relativism, because it assumed the fundamental mortality of any institutions and ideas, even if it was science as a whole. The death of God is the death of Truth, which is replaced by a multitude of interpretations that are no more than they are. And if so, then any interpretations of the world, including unscientific, religious ones, not only have the right to exist, but also need to be updated. As a result, there is a relativization of the secular and rational, which leads us to the post-secular. Extremely important, although controversial, is the central idea of a researcher who understands postsecularity as religiosity without religion, as spirituality not fully rooted in traditional confessions ^[28].

At the same time, postsecular thinking goes beyond the dichotomies of Modern Times, on the one hand, and does not have a certain standard of its own on the other hand. It (thinking) is entirely subjective and depends on how exactly the thinker reads secularity. And this is followed by the relativity of the spirituality of postsecularity itself. Based on this, the researcher comes to the conclusion that post–secularity is a new Enlightenment that follows a "royal", middle way between conservative religious revanchism and leftist relativistic irrationalism ^[29].

Conclusions

So, the post-secular in modern scientific discourse has different readings. The first of them is the rejection of the secular, accompanied by the revival of the religious, the entry of religion into the sphere of active social relations, the comprehension of the fallacy of secularization and the beginning of work on its mistakes. In this sense, the concept of desecularization is appropriate.

The second reading of post-secularism as counter-secularization. This is a process of desecularization, reinforced by revanchist sentiments of reviving religiosity. For such post-secularism, it is important not to "work on mistakes", but to completely dismantle everything secular, which generates natural tension at all levels: within a person, within society, between religious and secular, within the civilizational space (in the interpretation of S. Huntington) and between civilizations. Counter-secularization is not dialogue-oriented and is potentially dangerous with its fundamentalist continuation.

Third view: post-secularism is a natural, self-generated continuation and (or) development of secularism. A kind of "new Enlightenment", which, on the one hand, should, avoiding extremes, find the way of dialogue between all participants in the main processes of modernity, and, on the other hand, due to its non-religious religiosity, extreme relativism, devalues the reviving sacred, generating either its transformation from traditional religiosity into something ecumenical, or the emergence of something new in essence, pseudo-transcendental, which, in fact, will be the final victory of the secular.

At the same time, it should be noted that the first two readings are related to the attitude to the sacred as immanently inherent in a person who is a kind of Homo religiosus ("religious person"). In this sense, one can quite agree with Charles Taylor: the religious has never left humanity. Therefore, in our opinion, religious revival is only the degree of openness of the manifestation of this religiosity in society, the involvement of church institutions in the social processes of modernity. Often, such inclusiveness is sharply opposed to secular processes, which generates the phenomenon of counter-secularization.

However, post-secularity is not limited, in our opinion, only to a simple "surge" of the influence of religion on world processes. Both desecularization and counter-secularization are only its external manifestations. Extremely important, it seems to us, is the emergence of the possibility of transforming the secular into the post-secular in the sense that the denial of the transcendent turns into the recognition of the pseudo-transcendent.

In this sense, the "New Enlightenment" still seeks to eliminate traditional religiosity, creating a fundamentally new spirituality, the product of which may well be both Homo Deus ("deified man") ^[30] and other forms of alternative spirituality.

Actualization of the possibility of choice and the choice itself between Homo religiosus and Homo Deus, between transcendence and pseudo-transcendence, in our opinion, is the essence of the phenomenon of postsecularity.