The Idea of Immanence in Charles Taylor’s Philosophy of Religion

Abstract

Enlightenment is considered the beginning of the process of secularization . Examining this process, in his work A Secular Age, Charles Taylor presents a view on religion which is closely connected with the philosophy of culture. According to Taylor, religion is always expressed in historical and cultural contexts, and the most important feature of the modern culture is a bent to impersonality, which creates the “Immanent Frame .” This is Taylor’s term for the overall context of thinking and acting among people in the modern West, where traditional religion is almost completely absent in the public sphere . According to Taylor’s view, religion can be, however, redefined as a set of beliefs, practices, and institutions that still exists in our contemporary society. He supplements the traditional meaning of religion in terms of belief in the transcendent with one related to the practical context. Thus, by analyzing the concept of the immanent frame against the background of the Western tradition and culture, Taylor explains to us the new shape that the idea of immanence takes on in the twenty-first century. His defense of the need for religion seems, however, problematic. Taylor reduces religion to the context of our everyday life, based on customary behavior, tradition, and social rules, but his concept of inner transcendence seems to remain without foundations, as his communitarian vision of man does not allow finding a place on which a sought-for God can be based. Indeed, Taylor does not attempt to find a metaphysical foundation for moral values and spirituality, but rather he offers a description of our secular modernity in which religion becomes a part of the material world.