Conclusion: God’s Intent – The Re-enchantment of the Sacred in the Age of History

Abstract

The ‘modern’ understanding of the nature of religion transformed the relationship between God and mankind, from one characterized by external recognition of the immanence and ‘supernatural’ power of God, to one characterized by the internalization of the Divine in man, and the centrality of individual consciousness. Modern religion folded humanism into an enduring eschatological framework, whereby God’s intent was consistent with civilizational progress of humankind. Religious Modernism’s fundamental project was the unification of religion and modernity. Historicism problematized and revealed Tradition to be constructed, yet in its deconstruction lay the possibilities of reconstruction. Freedom from Tradition and dogma enabled freedom to rediscover essence, to re-contextualize essence in contemporary context – to reinterpret, and reconstruct religion. Modern Islam was cast as a return to truth, the rectification of the distortions of Tradition and the reignition of Islam’s essential capacity for progress and civilization. Modern Islam was the fulfilment of the eschatological promise of God’s intent, folded into new conceptions of progress and civilization. Like other religious modernisms, Islamic modernism drew on Historicism as disenchantment with Tradition, to affect a re-contextualization of religion – the re-enchantment of Islam in the modern.