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Document Details : Title: De dubbele franciscaanse erfenis Subtitle: Een 'ontbrekende schakel' in het Löwith-Blumenberg-debat Author(s): VANHEESWIJCK, Guido Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie Volume: 74 Issue: 1 Date: 2012 Pages: 11-44 DOI: 10.2143/TVF.74.1.2152711 Abstract : In the famous Löwith-Blumenberg debate on the origin of secularization, two different explanations are given for the modern belief in progress. Whereas the former emphasizes the strong link between Jewish-Christian eschatological belief and the modern belief in progress, the latter highlights the role of nominalism and God’s inscrutable transcendence. In this article I first intend to show that these two phenomena do not separately function as explanatory factors for modern secularization, but are intimately interrelated, as they arose within the womb of the same Franciscan tradition. Furthermore, I want to make it clear how, due to the intertwining of both phenomena, the concept of God itself has been modified as well. Due to nominalist influence the original belief in a providential God - a God guiding humanity throughout history - has gradually made room for a feeling of dependence on God’s gratuitous grace. From this very relation of dependence on God’s grace - in which the distance to God as a Deus absconditus is at the same time gradually increasing - the modern idea of human autonomy and self-control will eventually arise. |
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