Dialogues Between Faith and Reason: Rebuilding Europe After the First and Second World Wars and the Role of Heritage Preservation

Abstract

The goal of this book, however, is not to take sides in this debate, as there are enough polemics promoting proofs for the existence or nonexistence of God. 1It is not my interest either to support radical skepticism or to “dis-place the secular economy” with a new theology. 2Rather, I will be arguing that the two positions have in fact been historically interconnected for at least four centuries. Specifically, I will be retracing the course of a “slip-pery slope” that has led from belief to unbelief, from God to the death of God, resulting not so much from attacks from the “outside” of religion as from intellectual and philosophical developments within modern Christian theology. Many thinkers along this path who intended to support or at least grasp the essence of Christian faith with reason ended up undermining it.