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philosophic materialism unrelieved by the residue of Christianity in
the shape of humanism. Again, philosophic materialism must not be
confused with this- worldliness. This-worldliness without
the philosophic underpinning is defensive; it seeks to cover itself
behind some facade. Philosophic materialism (secularism) is
self-confident and aggressive. Powerful battalions are ranged behind
it in the form of modern scientists, technologist and what not.
This story began with the
Renaissance, if not much earlier, with St. Thomas Aquinas (who
replaced Platonic categories with Aristotelian ones and thus exposed
Christianity to split and erosion from within), proceeded via the
Reformation when the so-called individual conscience came to be
accorded primacy over the collectivity, and got consummated in the
French Revolution, preceded and followed by debunking of all
tradition, glorification of the individual, of change, of material
comfort, of speed and the whole rigmarole called modernism. Neither
the nation concept nor the secularism concept stands by itself. Both
are integral parts of a complex framework of which religion, any
religion, can constitute only a marginal component.
Notes And References
- Gai Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man, George Allen and
Unwin, London, 1985.
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