The Relevance of Louis Dupré's Works for Addressing Today's Challenges in Australia's Secular Culture

Abstract

Eminent scholars extol Louis Dupré’s works for their relevance to spirituality. The purpose of this thesis is to show that his writings also should be recognised as providing a framework for helping Australians understand and address today’s challenges in Australia’s secular culture, and to highlight and rectify this Australian (and possibly global) oversight to demonstrate the significance of his total authorship. This requires not only an investigation of Dupré’s works in relation to the topic of this thesis, but also a demonstration of how his works can be relevant to, and can enhance the value of, the current Australian dialogue about responding to those challenges. It is necessary to take serious account of Dupré’s deep, cultural analyses of modernity, modernity’s process of construction, and his responses to its secular challenges, together with the convergences and divergences of that framework in dialogue with contemporary authors on Australian culture. Their reflections are presented in the chosen schema of this dissertation to show how to understand more easily the relevance of, and the implications in, those writers’ works, especially Dupré’s, in relation to this thesis’ task. Although this study has been completed within the School of Arts, it began under the School of Theology and continues, broadly speaking, to be a thesis in the field of theology. As such, its primary focus is on the Roman Catholic Church, while not excluding Protestant and other Churches generally. To achieve the objectives of this thesis, firstly, an examination is made of Dupré’s Historical deconstruction of modernity from the 13th Century to the present time, to show how today’s deep, cultural worldview came about, and to highlight what options are available to take its people forward. Secondly, further investigation demonstrates Dupré’s framework as consisting of at least two types of reflections. To facilitate this study, the first are categorised as analytical, which are deemed to be masterly reflections; examination of Dupré’s and indeed many overseas scholars’ works shows that this type of reflection provides an accurate understanding of that current worldview and its secular challenges. The second, as responsorial, are implied as being simply profound reflections — not solutions; the above examination further indicates that this type of profound reflection only can help pave the way towards solutions for addressing and overcoming those challenges. This investigatory study scrutinises Dupré’s and those overseas authors’ reflections via seven topics especially vi chosen to help elucidate this thesis’ argument, with each topic depicting a different aspect, while highlighting its following challenge as assessed from Dupré’s framework, of that worldview: today’s godlessness; the sense of meaninglessness of human existence in the current immanent humanistic world; secular anthropocentrism’s dominance of the universe nowadays; the supreme reign of economic consumerism in today’s secular society; the uncertainty and loss of truth through the prevalent antagonistic forces of the dualisms of faith and reason/nature and grace; religion being no longer essential to world culture; and some of today’s Evangelical/Pentecostal-type religions perpetuating superficial ‘spirituality’. Thereafter, an understanding of the current Australian perspective and its secular challenges is gleaned through the analyses of 10 principal and numerous other selected Australian authors, and how they address these challenges is evidenced in their responses to them. Their reflections about the above seven topics are examined, but with each topic depicting a different aspect of Australia’s current, cultural perspective. Then, these analytical and responsorial reflections are compared with Dupré’s more robust assessments of today’s worldview and its secular challenges and are classified as either ‘almost identical’, or ‘similar’, or ‘varied’, or ‘unlike’. This process demonstrates how and why Dupré’s works are relevant to the Australian context and this thesis’ purpose. Subsequently, appropriations from Dupré’s framework and from other authors with compatible frameworks are made showing how Australians might address and overcome the secular challenge in each of the seven topics. Finally, having narrated the specific and important functional issues played in its argument, this thesis shows and recognises that Dupré’s works have very definite relevance and implications for helping Australians understand and address Australia’s current secular challenges, and that rectifying the omission of this recognition is also necessary to give full significance to Dupré’s total writings.