The Secularization of Knowledge in the Age of Reformation

Abstract

This article argues that the process of secularization of knowledge is essentially related and derived in complex and unintended ways from the doctrinal disagreements of the reformation era. The doctrinal disagreements were dual, between the Christian belief systems and between the monastic, scholastic and humanist movements. These disagreements in many forms also existed in the Islamic intellectual traditions in which the period of the three movements differed from that of Christianity. Conversations between various intellectual movements shall facilitate us in understanding the character of Christendom’s vibrant, varied and sometimes contentious intellectual culture during the reformation, with its monastic, scholastic, scientific and humanistic strands. This will, in turn, enable us to see how this culture and its institutional settings were affected by the reformation. The article will also discuss the contrasting claims of Islamic knowledge tradition on the secularization of knowledge through the development of intellectual movements of scholasticism and humanism in Islam. A significant part of the argument is that the secularization of knowledge in the West was not an inevitable product of the enlightenment. It was rather more of a contingent process derived from the interaction between people, institutions, assumptions, metaphysical belief systems, the exercise of power and human desires. This work has primarily referred to the secondary literature to draw historical inferences, debates and departures in intellectual movements of reformation times, to understand the process of secularization of knowledge.