> Re: Fred Dallmayr:
> http://www.nd.edu/~rop/recent.forthcoming/fall99/Dallmayr.html
> Rethinking Secularism (with Raimon Panikkar)
> Fred Dallmayr
>
> More than a century after Nietzsche's proclamation of the "death of
God,"
> some recent books speak alarmingly of "the revenge of God" and the
prospect
> of a "new cold war"--a conflict pitting religious "fundamentalists"
against
> agnostic secularists on a worldwide scale. Remembering the cultural
> struggles of nineteenth-century Europe, one might say that today
Kulturkampf
> has been globalized. At this juncture it seems timely to reexamine
the
> meaning of secularism and secularization against the backdrop of the
> pervasive secularizing tendencies of (Western) modernity. While the
opening
> section reviews the "secularization thesis" as advanced by prominent
social
> scientists and social theorists, the second part turns to the work
of one of
> the most influential philosophers of religion in our time, Raimon
Panikkar,
> focusing chiefly on his views regarding the "secular" character of
religion,
> and the possibility of a "sacred secularity." Taking some cues from
> Panikkar, the concluding section reflects on the "religion of the
future"
> and the "future of religion" in our globalizing world.
==========
Whitehead spoke briefly in Process and Reality about the need to
'secularize God's function in the universe' because as a mathematician
who knew quite a bit of physics he felt pure randomness was an
intrinsic possibility. As he has had as much if not more of an
influence as Heidegger on the syncretic and ecumenical approaches to
theology/cosmology since the "death of God" movement of the 60's
tapped out [he thought his models had more in common with Taoism and
some Indian philosophy]. People like Panikkar and others who've been
doing the comparative theology/philosophy semiosis since that time
have been looking at the whole sacred/secular binarism with the via
negativa [the "ancient's" version of deconstruction and aporias-- the
practice at/of which Nagarjuna was a total genius] with Whitehead's
idea at the back of their minds, so to speak.
Ian