Theology in a post-secular context: origins, problems, and prospects

The article reconstructs the cultural conditions of the possibility of theology as a specific intellectual practice. The author proceeds from the understanding of the divine as non-anthropic, that is, beyond the controlof man, but at the same time exerting an irresistible influence on him. In this context, the divine appears as unintelligible,which casts doubt on the project of theology as a form of cognition of the divine. However, despite this, in theancient Greek Poleis, the divine becomes the subject of theology as a contemplative practice; it is the contemplativeattitude to the deity that allows making the divine an object of cognition. A contemplative attitude to the divine hasaccompanied theology throughout its history. However, it is supplemented by a practical (liturgical) attitude.The secularization of Western European culture led to the separation of theology from religious practice. In moderntimes, there is a specific form of theology (crypto-theology) that allows thinking about the divine and its attributes,regardless of the experience of communion with God. Besides, extra-institutional theology is being formed, freefrom dogmatic restrictions and even a kind of amateurish theology, whose representatives did not have special,“school” training. All these transformations eventually led to the crisis of theology and the decline of its influence.At the same time, at the beginning of the XIX century, there were conditions for the emergence of a “moderntheology” that responds to the challenges of secularism. In the second half of the twentieth century, the topic andproblems of modern theology were also influenced by the programs of “overcoming metaphysics” (M. Heidegger)and “deconstruction” (J. Derrida). Modern theology basically positions itself as post-metaphysical and generatesmore or less radical projects of phenomenological theology (J.-L. Marion, J. Manoussakis) and negative theology(J. Derrida).