Transition to Modernity as a Transformation of Interactions

Abstract

The article is devoted to an important perspective of the genesis of modernity, namely, the transformation of the interaction regime, that is, those semantic dispositions and presumptions that made modern forms of life possible. The key theoretical concept for this is the order of reality and the place of man in it. The medieval interaction regime is based on the understanding of reality as God's creation, which gives all interactions a sacred meaning. Accordingly, human life unfolds in the perspective of the soul's afterlife; at the same time, the practice of "Christ-likeness" becomes the defining intention of all Christian relationships. The process of secularization played a decisive role in the transition to the modern interaction regime. Two main forms (and stages) of this process are distinguished – the Renaissance secularization of the Christian worldview, carried out by Renaissance humanism, and the Protestant secularization of the position of the human person in society. In the mechanism of the humanistic secularization of the worldview, two fundamental reductions played the main role: first, the reduction of the diverse, teleologically assigned to the providences of the hierarchy of order to a homogeneous natural order of speech (“nature”); second, the reduction of man as the “crown of creation” with a central place in the world drama (which implied strict inclusion in the sacred order) to man in his original Christian meaning of “the image and likeness of God”, which entailed the universalization of the way of human existence in the form of freedom. The mechanism of the secularization of the social life of the person, carried out by the Reformation, is revealed on the basis of Luther’s criticism of church dogmas and canons. It is shown how Luther refutes the omnipotence of the church and clergy, relying on his three confessional principles: sola fide (faith alone), sola scriptura (Scripture alone), sola gratia (God's grace alone). The analysis shows two paradoxes of the genesis of the modern regime of interactions: Renaissance humanists base the secularization of the medieval worldview on classical Christian ideas of understanding man and the creation of the world, while the movement of religious fundamentalism, which was the Reformation, disavowed the universal role of the church in the life and structure of society.