1995 Special Issue Secularism

Abstract

The definition of secularism as the separation of church and state
has gained currency and has become more or less universally
accepted, probably because of its tameness. It confines the secularizing
processes to the political and economic realms. Although it could
be extended to cover what is commonly called the realm of "public
life," it never goes beyond that. The term suggests that processes of
secularization are explicit and quite identifiable, and that an individual's
private life (i.e., dreams and nightmares, tastes and aesthetic
sensibilities) can be hermetically sealed off and thus remain free of
the ravages of secularism.
One glance at life in the modern West demonstrates the fallacy of
this assumption. The state, far from staying out of the realm of public
life, has penetrated deeper and deeper and into to the farthest comers
of our private lives. The corporations and pleasure industries have
infiltrated our dreams, have shaped our images of ourselves, and have
controlled the very direction of our libidos.
Like most, or probably all, world outlooks, secularism revolves
around three elements: God, humanity, and nature (nature is hereafter
referred to as "nature-matter" in order to emphasize the philosophical
dimension of the concept and to dispel the romantic aura that has
surrounded it and weakened its analytical and explanatory power).
The attitude of God-is He transcendent or immanent; is He above
nature and humanity and history or immanent in (namely reducible
to) them-is what defines the status of a human being in the universe
and hisher relationship to nature-matter.
Secularism declares that it is immaterial whether or not God exists,
for He has very little to do with the formulation of our epistemological,
ethical, aesthetic, and signifying systems. If God exists, He
takes two extreme forms: a) He could be too transcendent and removed
from humanity and nature, indifferent to human suffering, or
b) He could be seen as completely immanent in both humanity and
nature (or in either) and as having no existence separate from them.
This view, which is the more common of the two, is known as immanence.
Immanence implies that a) the world as given has within it all
that is necessary for its full understanding and utilization, and b) that
the human mind is so equipped that it could acquire all of the knowledge
necessary for a full understanding of, and dominance over,
nature. If nature is autonomous and self-sufficient, then so is the
human mind. This duality (or dualism) produced two orientations
within the same secular outlook: ...