It seems impossible to answer these questions without first trying to define what religion is. If it is used to mean feelings of spirituality, and the creation of one's own values, that may indeed increase, but "revival" can hardly be applied to something already so flourishing.

The same is true if the word "religion" is used to describe the modern faith in technological and scientific progress. This has claimed our reverence in the twentieth century, and will continue to do so in the twenty-first.

Since the three questions given use the word "revival", and not "increase", one must assume that they refer to the long-standing public kinds of religion-to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. These are monotheisms. They are based on a recognition of something beyond us, which we did not make but by which we were made, and to which we owe obedience. This, I think, is what is properly called religion.

Clearly, however, the real life of such religions, for all the beauty of their liturgy, is not expressed only in society's communal affirmations of them. Churches, synagogues, and mosques may be less well attended, some even closing. But prayer and worship take place also in the hearts and minds of individuals. Of this we cannot speak.

The traditional religions will not disappear in the next century, but it seems unlikely that they will experience a revival. The forces that work against them are not going to weaken. Already, technology for its own sake is exalted as progress, and the adjective "global" is applied to capitalism and scientific innovation with a kind of complacent reverence. In such a context, the question of the human good is irrelevant.

What are the basic ideas, current in our society, which make religious revival so unlikely? To my mind there are two. Since the Enlightenment, freedom to make ourselves and our world is seen as our very essence-not virtue, as we believed earlier. Secondly, facts and values are separated from each other. The only firm truth is scientific; values are what we choose for ourselves, there being no meaning in the nature of things other than what we ascribe to it.

These two assumptions may not prevent us from suffering the yearning for meaning which seems part of the human condition, but they weaken the coherence of the public religions, and make a consistent world-view very difficult. Is our freedom unlimited? Is there anything we should never do? How could there be, since our values are invented by ourselves, not discovered? Is God an outdated superstition, helpful for some, ridiculous to others?

As a believer, I see this situation as tragic. However inadequate Christianity, Judaism, and Islam may appear compared to the nobility of their beginnings, they point to something incomparably more important for us than what is trying to replace them. The cultivation of pious feelings combined with faith in technology is a weak substitute for religious belief, which had understood human beings to have a unique place in the universe, servants rather than masters, but responsible for good and bad action. The public religions are as prone to failure as our private ones, but the hope they offer makes our secular ambitions seem fairly shallow. Will the "information age" ever teach us the things we most need to know? That was one of the roles of religion.

One cannot possibly know what is likely on a world-wide scale. All kinds of religions may revive and flourish in various parts of the earth. The three given questions seem only meaningful if referring to the society to which one belongs, in this case Canada. Here a general, visible religious revival would seem unlikely, and this will be a profound if unrecognized deprivation for us all. There will continue to be beautiful acts of love and courage, some done in the name of religion, some for their own sake. But most of these will be private, unobserved by others. Perhaps we are left with the kind of faith spoken of by St. Paul-the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Sheila Grant, who lives in Halifax, is the co-author of "The Language of Euthanasia" and "Abortion & Rights" in Technology & Justice and the author of "George Grant & the Theology of the Cross" in George Grant & the Subversion of Modernity.