OK, so let’s get to the nitty gritty of these various posts. After Kuhn showed how even science was somewhat dependent on one’s worldview and showed how major advances did not tend to happen until somebody looked at the data with a different worldview, other philosophers began to look again at the whole issue of language and meaning. As a background, Freud and Jung had already done their work showing how much of our behavior (and beliefs) are the result of our psychological background. Pavlov and Skinner claimed that behavior was a conditioned response not necessarily a reasoned response. The G.I.’s who had gone overseas intuitively realized that people in other cultures did not see reality in the same way they did. The funny World War I song that had the line, “how do you keep them down on the farm once they’ve see Paree,” was not simply about farm boys seeing the big city, but about Americans coming to grips with another worldview. And so, a perfect storm hit.
That storm was called postmodernism. What is postmodernism? One rather over-simplified definition is:
When listing the characteristics of postmodernism, it is important to remember that postmodernists do not place their philosophy in a defined box or category. Their beliefs and practices are personal rather than being identifiable with a particular establishment or special interest group. The following principles appear elemental to postmodernists:
- There is no absolute truth – Postmodernists believe that the notion of truth is a contrived illusion, misused by people and special interest groups to gain power over others.
- Truth and error are synonymous – Facts, postmodernists claim, are too limiting to determine anything. Changing erratically, what is fact today can be false tomorrow.
- Self-conceptualization and rationalization – Traditional logic and objectivity are spurned by postmodernists. Preferring to rely on opinions rather than embrace facts, postmodernist spurn the scientific method.
- Traditional authority is false and corrupt – Postmodernists speak out against the constraints of religious morals and secular authority. They wage intellectual revolution to voice their concerns about traditional establishment.
- Disillusionment with modernism – Postmodernists rue the unfulfilled promises of science, technology, government, and religion.
- Morality is personal – Believing ethics to be relative, postmodernists subject morality to personal opinion. They define morality as each person’s private code of ethics without the need to follow traditional values and rules.
- All religions are valid – Valuing inclusive faiths, postmodernists gravitate towards New Age religion. They denounce the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ as being the only way to God.
You can see from the above many of the things that most irk many people who would call themselves conservative or traditionalist. Many do not realize that there are many moderates and liberals who are also irked by the postmodernist attitude. In fact, by now postmodernism has been heavily criticized and is generally considered to be an overreaction to modernism (positivism). If positivism was as inappropriately certain as Sherlock Holmes that with enough dispassionate study, truth would be found, the postmodernist over-emphasized all the problems created by worldview, by different cultures, by psychological tendencies, and by presuppositions that each person learns with their mother’s milk.
But even though they have been philosophically criticized, postmodernists have had an incredible effect on USA culture, regardless of the political, religious, or cultural beliefs of our citizens. What has been that effect? Well, let me list just a few, and I guarantee you that I could list many more:
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Everytime that you say to somebody that you are just saying that because you are [a conservative, a liberal, not really Christian, a white, an African-American, etc.] you are using a postmodernist argument. A modernist or an early 20th century fundamentalist would have reasoned with you about why you were wrong. They would never have claimed that your beliefs were only the result of your worldview though they would have acknowledged those influences.
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Everytime that you find even one person who disagrees with your opponent and you say that this shows that there are differing views on the subject (or even stronger, you say that this disproves your opponent) and that therefore your opponent could not possibly be correct, you are making a postmodernist argument. A modernist would never simply cite an opposing view as proof. They would have evaluated the source of the counter-argument to see whether the person’s viewpoint was a minority or majority viewpoint, whether that viewpoint had reasonable proof or whether that viewpoint had sound and reasonable argumentation.
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Conspiracy thinking is much easier for people who have absorbed a postmodernist mindset. If you find yourself distrusting any “authority” because they must be trying to fool you, and if you think that a lack of proof is actually proof that there is a conspiracy suppressing the truth, then you have bought into postmodernist thinking. On one side, think of the influence of the Da Vinci Code and that regardless of its debunking by even non-Christian secularists, the book had a distinct influence here. The truther and birther people have not been deterred by proofs since a postmodernist mindset does not really believe that “proofs” are as adequate as the modernists thought. After all, “traditional authority is false and corrupt.” Many Christians have actually adopted that viewpoint here in the USA by their behavior, even while they are arguing in favor of traditional authority, and they do not even realize the internal contradiction.
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If a scientific study comes out and you buy into it only to later find out that later studies disprove it and your immediate reaction is to claim that the truth is being suppressed, you have bought into postmodernist thinking. In science, experiments must be replicated by several other studies in order to attain legitimacy. Scientific studies are originally published precisely to notify the scientific community about a new finding so that they may repeat the experiment and either prove or disprove the hypothesis.
Part of the reason that we have become a schizophrenic country that is unable to reach concensuses is because a postmodernist mindset does not give people a basis upon which to find concensus. Concensus is only possible when both sides have the belief that it is possible to have reasonable argumentation in the hopes that opinions can be changed. When the assumption is that you must be right and the other side must be wrong because their opinions are only the result of their background while your opinions are reasonable and rational, there is no hope of concensus. In fact, the rather sad part is that true postmodernism’s attitude would be that neither side is really reasonable and rational, so why not reach an agreement! The approach that is current is a half-postmodernist attitude. It takes a postmodernist attitude towards the other groups while taking a modernist attitude toward your group.
In fact, if you look at the arguments, whether political or economic or ethical or …, it becomes obvious that whatever people in this country may say about their belief in Truth, their behavioral practice is not that truth can be found through dialogue, reasoned argument, and concensus, but that truth cannot be found through such methods. As C.S. Lewis foresaw in the last book of the Chronicles of Narnia, “the Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.” For many people in the USA, no argument or person outside their group can hope to have any input into their viewpoints and opinions. “The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.” May God have mercy on us.
I’m enjoying this series, Father. But I do wonder about postmodernism because it gives a Christian a door in that other philosophy systems do not. I think…
When we enter into a discussion of religion, or dogma or even morality, the assumption that all claims are equally valid is, I think, an important place, at least in the public sphere. I do not want the state or the public consensus to find my religion to be the popular or favorite one this week (or this election cycle) nor do I want college professors empowered to explain why the Koran is more true than the Torah.
I remember saying, once: “that’s just your truth. Your truth is all grey, but mine comes in black and white.” That moment of sarcasm led me to realize that *if* they believe what they say, then my truth is equally valid for the purpose of conversation. I don’t have to prove it myself – and their denial of it because it is “Christian” refutes their own philosophical claims.
In a serious conversation those things create interesting points.
As to exclusive claims, those are a matter of faith, yes? I can not say that Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life in the way that I can say the sky is blue. I can only say that I *trust* or *believe* that Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life. I can not prove the miracle of the Eucharist – I can only accept that it is true. In a point of fact I do not *want* to be able to state doctrines of the Trinity (etc) in the same way that I can state the distance between San Francisco and Miami. Religious doctrines are not scientific data – and are actually far less changeable than such data. (The time-space distance between San Francisco and Miami is relative to the speed at which one travels and the direction one selects.)
Hey Fr. Huw! You have some very good points, let me respond to them.
1. Rather than saying that in the public sphere that all claims are equally valid, I would rather say that both the establishment clause and the freedom of expression and of religion clauses in the Bill of Rights govern the relationship between the State and the Church. I need not believe that another religion is the least bit valid. But, I am legally bound to allow that religion its worship sites and the right to practice it. Neither is the government required to treat that (or any other) religion as valid. It is only duty bound to allow it and not inhibit it (with some limited exceptions like human sacrifice, etc.). I am also free to speak from the pulpit that it is not in the least bit valid and that people should not listen to them. And the government need not be values neutral (remember that phrase?) because inevitably there have to be some values espoused that are reflected in a country’s laws. Thus the courts have ruled over and over that it is perfectly proper for the government to forbid polygamy, even if one’s religion allows polygamy. It is a complex relationship not easily summarized. That is why there are court cases and more court cases and more court cases over this complex relationship.
2. For purposes of conversation, in order to preserve a civil society, it is important that we accord other people respect and the willingness to discuss and listen in a manner that respects that all people are created in the image of God, even though they may not be reflecting his likeness very well. There are even stories of Church Fathers who treated people robbing them with respect, even to the point of helping the robber take the loot! As a result, more than one robber, came to the Lord. Saint Moses the Black was one example.
3. It is true that religious doctrines are not fully subject to scientific verification. But, if someone claims a healing from cancer and the cancer keeps on growing one can make a judgment on that particular event. And, Christianity, in particular, makes the claim that the events that happened were historical and are therefore somewhat subject to verification. This is why there are such arguments over archeological finds, etc. They matter in Christianity in a way that such finds do not matter in religions such as Santería or Wiccca. Whether we like it or not, Christianity has a tie to history that allows for at least parts of Christianity to be subject to canons of verification, etc.
I like your first point as a response to mine. So let’s say you win on that one 🙂
Point 2, I think we both agree on.
3rd Item… I think our history is very different from our teachings. You and I may agree on this point, but many of our fellow religionists do not. The historical events of the Gospel are hard to pin down (but we can, in some cases). The doctrines and teachings, however, do not show up the same way. They evolve over time and develop into what we now have. And, I think, rather than the historical events, it’s the doctrines that most people get stressed over. Yes, there are some fringe folks out there that insist Jesus never existed. But I’m not at all sure they are important. Meanwhile there are some extremists that imagine one can scientifically test the bread of the Eucharist after-the-rite and discover a “scientific” difference in it, and thereby prove their doctrines.
I don’t think our doctrines are any more provable than Wicca or Santeria – both also claiming healings and miracles.
some anthropologists and historians specializing in comparative religion have proposed that most contemporary “Wicca” has been paganized Catholic teaching abetted by pious 19th century neo-pagan imagination. I’m not as up on the history of that research but it is an important point to note that just about any other religious belief can posit healings and miracles and a Christian does not have to suppose that claims of miracles by other religions are necessarily fraudulent. The Egyptians were able to replicate some of the feats performed by Moses, after all.
Fair enough on all counts. Let me be more explicit:
The in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit, qua doctrine or event, is no more provable as a “fact” than the “Drawing down of the moon” as used in Wicca, or the possession of devotees in Santeria.
Far from being historical fact, the hymns of the church teach that the incarnation and even the resurrection are hidden from those who don’t believe.
True, many of our doctrines are not provable. The best we can offer is indirect evidence, but not direct. And, we cannot do even that with several of them.
Father, as a former Protestant Evangelical, I began to dig into just how one may find a firm foundation for interpreting the Bible amidst the many claimants to this knowledge I went to a local theological seminary library for this. Cornelius Van Till who founded Westminster near Philadelphia, asserted that all knowledge was presuppositional. But that the Calvinist presuppositions were right. Now Westminster has a rep of being pretty rigorous among Protestants. Of course this was but one man’s opinion. But such a claim by someone of his stature led me to consider the matter. It seemed to account for all the many ways the Bible is interpreted and how confident these folks are that they are right.
I began to be more generous with other kinds of Christians- Lutherans, Catholics, and eventually the Orthodox (after having read Dostoevsky 25 years earlier and being impressed with Elder Zosima and that book, so much so that it led me to reconsider my free thinking mode and once again make Christ central to my quest for meaning and purpose in life). Especially some works by Fr. John Meyendorff.
While it seemed to me that presuppositions and cultural assumptions do play a part in every effort to discover truth, The Orthodox Church alone has a handle on how, by the power of the Holy Spirit, Who is reliable to sustain the accuracy of the message, the fidelity of the Body of Christ over time, the Church comes to a consensus on issues which come up in regard to the deposit which has been delivered once for all to the saints. The Protestants trip over their own individual human fallibility, the Roman Catholics over the pretentions of the Pope which short-circuit the process of consensus in key matters of the Faith. (Plus the Indulgences, for me, seemed so absurd, I ruled them out.)
There was probably a lot more than this entering into my conversion to Orthodox Christianity, but the epistemolgical approach of the Orthodox was big for me. And it takes into account whatever reality post-modern questioning of human logic has, mainly because of its divine continuity and inspiration, and the fact that discernment is not placed in the hands of individuals, whether every man or the Pope.
Just my 2¢.
Actually, I agree. I read Cornelius Van Til’s writings on epistemology back 30 years ago. And, for the sake of reading an opposing view, I tried to plow through Dooyeweerd, but failed. I think the Orthodox Church has made a clear point that when one loses contact with the Fathers, one inevitably begins to side-slip into some sort of problemmatic theology. And that contact is maintained not merely be reading, but by union with Christ, through the Church, through the sacraments, through the Scriptures (especially the Gospels), and through prayer and fasting.
Having said that, particularly the Early Church Fathers were either absolutely rigorous in their philosophy and theology or they gave us wise sayings to ponder. We need to both exercise our minds and to sit at the feet of wisdom.
My childhood formation was culturally “postmodern” or close enough to it that no other “label” fits. I’m not sure I would entirely agree with your summary of what it means to be “postmodern” though there are probably some that do fit your description.
I like something I’ve heard N.T. Wright say. Postmodernity preaches the fall to arrogant modernity. I think there’s some truth to that.
I certainly can’t speak to all, but the message of Christianity that first broke through my shell was love. And those who loved me pointed to someone who said that the path to truth was to build a relationship with him — that he was Truth, both more than we could handle and all that we would need. And postmodernity can hear the Orthodox when they say that there are many ways the sacred texts of Christianity could be interpreted and we need the tradition of interpretation of that text through those who knew the Truth.
Just a few thoughts.