Gnosis and Modernity: A Postwar German Intellectual Debate on Secularisation, Religion and ‘Overcoming’ the Past

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Abstract

The following paper elaborates on the compound character and the importance of an intellectual discussion regarding Modernity, secularisation and theology that raged within a cluster of German scholars during the 1950s and 1960s (Hans Jonas (1903-93), Hans Blumenberg (1920-96), Gershom Scholem (1897-1982) and Eric Voegelin (1901-85)). It argues that these scholars were united discursively owing to the appearance of the concept of Gnosis in their postwar debate. Challenging the thesis of Karl Lowith (1897-1973), in which he defined Modernity as secularised Christian theology, they connected Modernity with the Gnostic theology. By innovatively returning to late antiquity and re-introducing the obscure Gnostic theology, these scholars interwove the intellectual debates of the early twentieth century - in which the concept of Gnosis was redefined - into an acute post-1945 moral crisis, in order to make a case either for or against Modernity. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)591-608
Number of pages18
JournalTotalitarian movements and political religions
Volume8
Issue number3-4
DOIs
StatePublished - 2007

Keywords

  • Church & state
  • Cultural studies
  • Debate
  • Epistemology
  • European history
  • Germany
  • Intellectual History
  • Intellectuals
  • Modernism
  • Modernity
  • Post-war history
  • Secularism
  • Secularization
  • Theology

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