A Troubled Modernity: W.E.B Du Bois, “The Black Church,” and the Problem of Causality

Abstract

Causality is an ever-present intellectual problem. Determining the precise factors that contribute to a particular set of events, changes, or ideas, has consistently proven itself to be nothing short of a vexing scholarly endeavor. For those working in the highly nuanced and horribly unpredictable social sciences—in this case with a fragmented evidentiary base from a previous century—the levels of uncertainty can become all the more baffling. Yet, causality stubbornly remains at the heart of rational scientific inquiry even as the stable foundations of cause and effect have become increasingly elusive. In the face of Einstein’s theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, and postmodern epistemology easy answers have often been transformed into even more complex questions.

[T]he intelligent, loyal Baha’i should stress not the source, but the importance of the idea, and rejoice not in the originality and uniqueness of the principle but rather in its prevalence and practicality.

—Alain Locke