A year or two ago I worked carefully through Stephen N. Williams' book, Revelation and Reconciliation: A Window on Modernity (Cambridge, 1995).  I found it particularly helpful because Williams was offering a certain interpretation of modernity which differed from the account I would normally read.  Williams, who teaches theology in Belfast (Northern Ireland), argues that modernity is not first and foremost simply an epistemological issue (that is part of the picture), but rather a moral issue, or an issue of the will.  That is, it is common for folks to  try and unpack or diagnose modernity as a question of how do we know, and particularly how do we know anything like a divine being or this divine being's will.  Williams suggests that the more fundamental issue in coming to terms with modernity is to see that modernity is fundamentally a moral issue.  Williams follows thinkers like Pascal and Kierkegaard in arguing that modern man tends not to believe in a divine being because modern man simply does not want to believe.  Williams can quote Karl Barth, who in speaking of Friedrich Nietzsche (a prototypical modern man) can speak of Nietzsche's "crusade against the cross" (what a wonderful phrase!).  Thus, for Williams modern man's problem is that he resists the fact that he is a creature in need of reconciliation (hence the title of the book).  We do see certain epistemological issues as central to modernity.  However, it is likely the case that the moral issue is prior, and leads to, or influences, the epistemological issues.  As Williams writes, "The theology of the Reformers themselves consistently reminds us that the biblical drama is about the tragedy of a world alienated and loved in spiritual rebellion, root of our cognitive dysfunction" (p. 173).  In short, as Christians think through the nature of the modern age, we must do so with a thoroughly biblical and theologically-rich understanding of what it means to be human (and now fallen), and that there is every reason to think that often apparently simply "intellectual" conundrums or difficulties often have a much deeper and difficult root.

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