“Irresistible grace” of secularization: subject deconstruction/ reconstitution in the changing structure of authority

Abstract

The article analyses the concept of secularization as an element of discourse
between knowledge and power, and as social practice constituting
a subject in a changing structure of power in the historic process. In this
context, the author proposes that, from a broad historical perspective, the
Reformation should be understood as a key event in the early modern period
when many existing points of reference to subjectivity such as social and religious
structures, the essence of time and understanding history were moved.
A subject experienced the fall of seemingly indestructible everyday practices
and former ways of living. This caused that subjectivity had to go through the
process of deconstruction of inadequate self-perception in order to achieve
epistemological maturity and reconstruct itself following new rules allowing
for practicing ethical existence. This centuries-long process of redefining the
subject recognising the changeable areas of the relation between authority
and knowledge that was started by the Reformation causes that secularization
does not have to be seen as the regression of subjectivity but as “irresistible
grace” facilitating the self-recognition of a subject who is better prepared to
active presence that is under the pressure of constant change.