Criticism of Alan Gillespie’s Theological Roots of Modernity

Abstract

The present article is a critical analysis and evaluation of the book Theological Roots of Modernity written by Alan Gillespie. The said work is one of the successful socio-theological texts. The author develops his idea in the book with an optimistic and positive stance towards modernity. His main concern is to prove the role of religion and theology in the formation of modernity. A claim that has no place in the narrative of the Age of Enlightenment, Modernity is understood as an attempt to suppress superstition and religious authority. However, Glimpse believes that not only is opposition to religion not the basis of modernity, but modernity also has a religious origin. He understands modernity as emerging in a theological dialogue, not as a new problem that has nothing to do with modernity. The conflict over the issue of the will of God and man and the sum between the duality of predestination and free will shapes all subsequent philosophical disputes in any period. It has been established that Gillespie tries to analyze modern evil based on the transfer of divine attributes to humans or the secularization of these attributes. Thus, he speaks of the disappearance of secularization and blames the disasters of world wars and other modern evils on the basis of the secularization of divine attributes and their transfer to humans. He also discusses social forces and history.