The Persistence of the Sacred in Modern Thought

422 Pages·2014·2.293 MB·English

by  Chris L. Firestone, Nathan Jacobs

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
THE PERSISTENCE OF
THE SACRED IN
MODERN THOUGHT
Edited by
CHRIS L. FIRESTONE
and
NATHAN A. JACOBS
•
THE PERSISTENCE OF
THE SACRED IN
MODERN THOUGHT

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
THE PERSISTENCE OF
THE SACRED IN
MODERN THOUGHT
Edited by
CHRIS L. FIRESTONE
and
NATHAN A. JACOBS
•
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
Copyright © 2012 by University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
Manufactured in the United States of America
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The persistence of the sacred in modern thought /
edited by Chris L. Firestone and Nathan A. Jacobs.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-268-02906-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-268-02906-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
E-ISBN: 978-0-268-07974-1
1. God. 2. Philosophy and religion. 3. Philosophy, Modern.
I. Firestone, Chris L., 1957– II. Jacobs, Nathan.
BL473.P46 2012
210—dc23
2012015583
∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability ofthe Committee
on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity ofthe Council on Library Resources.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
To
STEVEN R. POINTER
First-Rate Administrator, Historian, Mentor, and Friend

Contents
Introduction 1
 .  &  . 
Chapter 1 The Desecularization of Descartes 15
 
Chapter 2 Law and Self-Preservation in Leviathan: 38
On Misunderstanding Hobbes’s Philosophy,
1650– 1700
.. 
Chapter 3 The Religious Spinoza 66
 
Chapter 4 God and Design in the Thought of Robert Boyle 87
 . 
Chapter 5 God in Locke’s Philosophy 112
 
Chapter 6 The Myth of the Clockwork Universe: 149
Newton, Newtonianism, and the Enlightenment
 . 
viii • Contents
Chapter 7 Pierre Bayle: A “Complicated Protestant” 185
 
Chapter 8 Leibniz and the Augustinian Tradition 209
 . 
Chapter 9 Hume’s Defense of True Religion 251
 
Chapter 10 The Illegitimate Son: Kant and Theological 273
Nonrealism
 . 
Chapter 11 The Reception and Legacy of J.G. Fichte’s 300
Religionslehre
 
Chapter 12 Metaphysical Realism and Epistemological 319
Modesty in Schleiermacher’s Method
 
Chapter 13 Schelling’s Turn to Scripture 335
 
Chapter 14 Hegel and Secularization 352
 . 
Chapter 15 Kierkegaard’s Critique of Secular Reason 372
 . 
List of Contributors 392
Index 397
Introduction
 .  &  . 
The collection of essays to follow looks at the role of God in the work
of major thinkers in modernity. The philosophers of this period are,
by and large, not orthodox theists; they are freethinkers, emancipated
by an age no longer tethered to the authority of church and state. This
side of the story, which portrays the great minds of Western thought as
cutting ties with the sacred and moving increasingly toward the secu-
lar, has received ample attention in classrooms and throughout the
literature. The essays in this volume, however, are united around the
belief that this is only one side of an even more complex and diverse
story (or, more exactly, collection of stories), and that treating this
side as the whole story, as is often done, hopelessly distorts the truth
of the matter. The flipside of the story is about theologically astute,
enlightened philosophers, bent not on removing God from philoso-
phy but on putting faith and reason on more sure footing in light
of advancements in science and a felt need to rethink the relation-
ship between God and world. This book is focused on this oft-ignored
side of the story—that is, the theologically affirmative dimensions of
major philo sophical figures stretching from René Des cartes to Søren
Kierke gaard. Our purpose is to help halt and indeed reverse the slow
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