The Lost Taste for God: Attenuated Reason and Postmodern Ageusia

Emma Miller argues in the Church Life Journal that modern culture is experiencing a loss of the taste for God, characterized by indifference, skepticism, and agnosticism rather than intense longing. Miller suggests that this postmodern condition stems from the attenuation of reason caused by rationalism.

According to Miller, modern rationalism mistakenly treated the relationship between faith and reason as a zero-sum game. By sidelining faith to privilege reason, rationalism limited the scope of human thought to the finite instead of allowing it to reach toward the infinite. This restriction causes reason to conclude its search in resigned uncertainty. Miller notes that while the modern person may appear to lack an innate desire for God, the human appetite remains unsatisfied by the finite objects to which reason currently turns.