Vulnerable Gods and Mutual Learning between Religion and Secularism

Abstract

The author explores the possibility that modern secularism and axial religions engage in a process of mutual learning on the basis of ethical premises they may share, and argues that the outcome of this process depends on the extent they share a sense of the intellectual and moral limits (fallibility, failing character) of all agents involved. He also suggests that a particular version of modern secularism, which corresponds to the social imagery of ‘vulnerable gods’, exhibits in fact an elusive sense of such limits.