Religion, pre-modernity, modernity, and postmodernity:Brief explanations and perspectives:

1: Pre-modernity (10,000 BCE to 1650 CE): All major world religions, with the exception of
Baha’i (ca: 1850 CE), arose during pre-modernity: Revelation is the foundation!
a: the cosmos, atmosphere, earth, and subterranean world is inhabited by spirits;
b: supernatural events are common occurrences and commonplace explanations for why
things happen as they do;
c: God and/or gods, goddesses, or angels communicate via revelations that occur
through oracles, dreams, visions, historical events, and/or literary activity in sacred texts;
1: Sacred texts preserve revelations in a variety of literary forms including both
history and myth; hence, the historical and the mythical become blurred and difficult at times to
distinguish;
2: Revelation is preserved via sacred traditions and institutions;
d: In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, monotheism separates God from nature freeing
nature up for the study of and promotion of science;
1: reason, experience, and experimentation serve as handmaidens to theology,
the queen of the sciences;
2: Metaphysics is the first philosophy, assumed as theistic; next comes
epistemology, then axiology;
e: a major phase of pre-modernity is what is referred to as the axial age (ca: 900 to 200
BCE); the following are characteristics of axial age emphases: 1: there is a transcendent
dimension in the core of a human being (traditionally understood as the “image of God”): 2:
faith is a matter of personal and existential trust rather than mere adherence to a set of
propositions; 3: humility, awe, wonder, and silence are the most appropriate responses to the
sacred; 4: compassion and empathy toward others is the major manifestation or fruit of being
in proper relation to the sacred;
f: for pre-modernity, religion is central; the worldview is theocentric;
2: Modernity (1650 CE to 1950 CE): several factors work together to help make the shift to
modernity; Reason and/or science constitute the foundation!
a: The Renaissance (1400 to 1700 CE) brings a revival of emphasis upon the human
person as an individual with a subjective experience. This is seen especially through art, music,
literature, and poetry;
1: Theism remains but shifts to a humanistic theism;
b: The Reformation (1500 to 1600 CE) brings a challenge to institutional authority and
promotes free thought in the realms of philosophy and religion;
c: Rene Descartes (d. 1650 CE) promotes independent reason as the starting point of
knowledge thus downgrading revelation or church authority as the foundation for certainty;
d: David Hume and John Locke promote empiricism over reason as a starting point, thus
postulating a more scientific or experimental foundation for certainty;
e: Immanuel Kant attempts a synthesis of rationalism and empiricism which
marginalizes religion to the realm of ethics or aesthetics;
f: Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton further challenge pre-modern religious authority
ushering in the age of science; these challenges continue to mount with the discoveries of
Darwin, Mendel, Einstein; and “big bang cosmology”;
1: religious thinkers develop differing responses in differing ways:
a: fundamentalism=conform reason and science to religious revelation;
b: isolation=attempt to make religious truths independent of reason and
science;
c: accommodation=reformulate religious beliefs in light of the new
findings of science;
g: epistemology is the first philosophy; metaphysics takes a backseat;
1: reason is absolute and universal;
2: individuals are autonomous and capable of transcending culture;
3: universal principles are objective;
3: Postmodernity (1950 to the present): several factors work together to help make the shift
to postmodernity; the worldview of our current era is much more difficult to narrowly define or
pin down; Nothing in particular constitutes the foundation!
a: Werner Heisenberg (d. 1976): his postulation of the “uncertainty principle” in physics
lent itself to the notion that all knowledge is “perspectival”;
b: W. Quine (d. 2000); advocated “epistemological holism” or “pluralism”; certainty does
not rest upon any single foundation but upon a web or network of systems;
c: Thomas Kuhn’s 1962 publication “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” argued that
science itself is paradigm based and that science is constantly revising itself by means of new
paradigms;
d: Literary studies develop a variety of methods that generate an “incredulity toward
master or totalizing meta-narratives”
e: metaphysics (premodern) and epistemology (modern) give way to postmodern’s
“hermeneutic of suspicion”;
f: correspondence and coherence theories of truth give way to pragmatic theories of
truth;
g: postmodernism rejects the epistemology of modernism (see 2:g: 1-2-3 above);

Note: the study of religion from premodern, modern, and postmodern perspectives continues,
overlaps, and is often mixed together in a variety of ways. This makes the study of religion
anything but neat and tidy. The trick here is to be aware of what lens or lenses one is using
when studying religion. This handout may be helpful in relation to religious theory.