Between Realities: Dawkins Vs. Voegelin‪.‬

Life in the twenty-first century is easier said than done. One of the main postmodern tribulations to be dealt with is the unrest of the ''God confusion" The variety of personal experiences, understandings, and symbolizations of divine reality in the contemporary world--or the lack of them--has created worldwide religious tension. The intellectually disordered language symbols, as pointed out by Eric Voegelin, have bewildered our modern world over the last epoch with confused images of "God" and religious terrorism. Till now, the various human weaknesses that we have encountered in the crisis have not battered our need for divine reality, but they have afflicted many of us with disappointment and anger about religion and fierce doubts about God's existence. "God" is said. "God" is argued. "God" is lost. According to the philosopher Martin Buber, the crisis of deformed existence has entangled the human heart in an estrangement from God and human beings. (1) Voegelin formulated this kind of breakdown as follows: Voegelin is calling for a radical conversion to transcendent order (3) by turning to what he terms "the flow of presence." (4) The deepest reason for attuning to the Presence does not lie in the weakness of our irrationality but in the possibility of recovering a spiritual understanding of what gives meaning to our lives. Our personal reorientation to the divine is the first step in bringing an elementary recognition of transcendent reality to our whole civilization. In a culture of an ever-growing information overload, amidst a global economic crisis, it is not easy to maintain our integrity, faith, and morals. In the midst of this climate of confusion, someone like Voegelin can encourage us to find an orientation towards the divine which is a little more palatable and hopeful. The divine inspiration present in his life and works might seep through as we search for meaning and clarity in a very complex time.