Restructuring Reality: Signs of the Times

Abstract

It has often been pointed out that the Messianic creeds and extremist ideologies of our century represent the displacement of traditional by radically new world views. Similar and no less dramatic reconstructions of reality, implicit and explicit, are reflected in modern man's movement, evidenced most clearly since the Second World War, toward secular humanism. The purpose of this article is to explore some of the implications, both secular and religious, of this trend, and to delineate what seem to be the most conspicuous characteristics held in common by the new world views that have emerged. In doing so I must acknowledge considerable indebtedness to the preliminary explorations of several contemporary writers, notably Eric Voegelin and J. L. Talmon.