"Transcendence" in a secular age and enchanted (un)naturalism

David Stewart

David James

pp. 93-114

in: Charles W. Lowney (ed), Charles Taylor, Michael Polanyi and the critique of modernity, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

In this chapter, Stewart questions aspects of the distinction between transcendent and immanent that Taylor seems to take for granted in A Secular Age. Stewart suggests that the Modern historical project of removing supernaturalism does not leave us with naturalism per se, but rather a Hegelian form of "unnaturalism." He introduces a perspective that does not default to a material reductionism, but also does not take the notion of a transcendent God as unproblematic. Starting from an encounter with Taylor, he sees both Polanyi and Hegel as providing ways to understand Christianity from this skeptical yet "enchanted" perspective.

Cited authors

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich