The Disenchanted World | Glory to God for All Things

The Disenchanted World | Glory to God for All Things: A very apt word for the world we live in is: disenchanted. It was first used by Max Weber and a number of others to describe a certain aspect of the modern world – the absence of the sacred. Where people of earlier eras and other cultures have experienced the world around them as charged with divine power (of various sorts), we simply experience the world as inert. There is nothing there.

The disenchanted world is doubtless a major source of modern atheism. When someone says they do not believe in God, they are quite likely simply relaying accurately how they perceive the world – that the world they see is simply disenchanted. This experience is captured by Tolkien in his hints of the end of Middle Earth. The “Elves are heading West,” leaving the world of Middle Earth. The Age of Elves is coming to an end and the Age of Men is beginning. There is something of a hint that with the Elves, the world of magic and wizardry is leaving as well. The new dangers will simply be the will and work of men rather than larger, darker forces.