Theological Authority, Critical Reason, and The Epistemological Disintegration of Belief Systems

Abstract

This study examines the transformation of theological authority in an era shaped by epistemological skepticism, capitalist structures, and digital technologies. While traditional metaphysical frameworks once positioned God as the foundation of knowledge and morality, modernity has fractured this certainty, leading to competing structures of belief. The decline of divine authority has not eradicated the need for transcendence, but has instead redirected it into economic ideologies, algorithmic governance, and digital utopias. Capitalism now dictates human behavior with quasi-theological force, while artificial intelligence and transhumanism offer new visions of omniscience and immortality. This study argues that secularization has not resulted in the disappearance of belief but in its reconfiguration. As theological structures dissolve, they are continuously reinvented, raising the fundamental question: Has metaphysics truly ended, or has it simply been displaced into new ideological and technological domains?