In Chapter 5, Wiley began the second half of her book, which focused on the last 500 years.

Remember that terms “Renaissance”, “Enlightenment” and “Modernity” are labels in an anthropocentric rather than a theocentric symbolic order, will these labels change in the future.  Who knows?

Each of these periods mark an increasing erasure of the prior Latin Age, with its theocentric symbols, its feudal power structures, and its Biblical and Augustinian imagination.  Allow me to give a series of idiosyncratic snapshots:

In the Renaissance, “kingdoms” replaced feudal arrangements, the Church fissured into the Catholics and the Protestants, and wealth from trade began to enrich Europe.   This was the time of the Council of Trent.

In the Renaissance, people began to imagine a world different from the static world of “society as body”.  This is seen in the new art of perspective and illusion.  At this time, most everyone still believed that Genesis portrayed literal events, but some skeptics imagined that these stories could be mythological.   Theology was in the air.

In the Enlightenment, people began to symbolize images from the Renaissance plus the new situation of nation states plus the new situation of scientific discoveries. The Story of Adam and Eve was no longer regarded as literally true.  Skepticism gave way to the deification of Reason.  Religion was regarded as irrational.  The Genesis text was irrational.  Yet, the findings of the Council of Trent remained like a fortress.  Theology was in retreat.

In Modernity, people began to construct societies based on the symbols of the Enlightenment.  The great Religions of Reason were born: Communism (International Socialism based on the Reasoning of Marx); Fascism (National Socialism based on the Reasoning of … um … Marx); and later, Progressivism (Incremental Socialism … need I say the Reasoning?).   In the European colonies, the great Religions of Resistance were also born.

These Religions of Reason and Resistancewere formulated through – what I call -“cryptotheologies”.  Cryptotheologies claim that they are not “religious”, because they speak of “No Supernatural Being”.  Yet, their central claim is: By faith (in Reason) alone, you shall live.

The Religions of Reason and Resistance claimed the victories of Science as their own.

One of those victories was a new theory of origins: evolution.  The Evolutionary Sciences appeared to show that the Stories of the Fall were not historically true.  Genesis was mere fable.  There is no connection between these stories and the Real.

Furthermore, the languages of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Economics, Sociology and Psychology cannot admit God or anything Religious into their symbolic orders.  This provided more fodder for the cryptotheologies of Reason and Resistance.

The Story of the Fall is bogus.  Original Sin is irrelevant.  Long live Reason and Resistance.