As the Dutch led the way in shipping, map-making, navigation, trade, art and science, new ideas about God, man and the cosmos were conceived by Amsterdam-based thinkers like Descartes, Locke and Spinoza.

This debate is really about something much bigger: what —or who— is the basis of reality, and how does this “filter down” to the issue of gender?

Vatican I further solidified the nature of the papal office as a quasi-omnipotent and infallible figure.

For Taylor, the loss of transcendence in a secular age is disastrous for human beings.