Archive for the 'Postmodernity' Category

A Formal Definition of Postmodernism

Travis Gilmore April 16th, 2008

Currently, I am reading more of Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief. In part 4 of his book, Plantinga considers possible defeaters to basic Christian beliefs, including historical criticism, postmodernism, pluarism, and atheological arguments concerning suffering and evil. (The formal definition of a defeater is rather abstruse, but a rough-and-ready definition for a defeater could be: D is a defeater for S’ belief that P just in case S is warranted in believing D and S’ belief in D forces S to give up believing P). Plantinga first he gives to be, what I think, a very good and cogent definition of postmodernism. Of course, this definition of postmodernism is not to be taken exhaustively, nor should the conjuction of each of these veiws provide a necessary condition for being a postmodern, although many of these views taken singularly could be called “dogma” in the postmodern community. On pages 422-423, Plantinga states that postmodernism propones:

  1. A rejection of classical foundationalism.
  2. The declaration that there are no foundations of any sort (classical or otherwise).
  3. The claim that there is no such thing as objectivity (and its a good thing too).
  4. Deconstruction.
  5. The claim tat there is no such thing as truth (or that if there is, it is something totally different from what we thought).
  6. The claim that truths are made, not discovered.
  7. The claim there are not any objective normative standards and that we somewhoe make whatever standards there are.
  8. The claim that all that really matters is power.
  9. An opposition to metanarratives.
  10. Insistence that God is dead.
  11. A sort of exultation or apotheosis of autonomy, so that one feels guilty for not having created the world (cf. Heidegger).
  12. A general self-deification and the rejection of all things bourgeois.
  13. An idea of historcism, the idea that our historical and cultural setting determines what we think, so that we cannot but think what we do think.

What do you guys think? Is this a fair assessment of postmodernism? If not, why? If so, can we as Christians truly hold to each of these while retaining our core Christian beliefs? If we are warranted in believing these views (i.e. if it is rational for us to believe these views), does that serve as a defeater for Christianity?

A Real God and a Real Hell

Hank February 21st, 2008

Discuss. What are you impressions about this patient and the chaplain sent to console him in his dying hour? I can’t help but think that there is something to what this patient was getting at. Postmodern “spirituality” and the weak Christianity we see (I am thinking of the Unitarian Universalist I saw with Honzo JR) doesn’t help when it comes down to it and a person needs to know that there is something on the other side and how to deal with their guilt that they have. I think this man points out that our souls cry out to know a transcendent God who is just and righteous as well as loving and forgiving. What do you guys think about this clip? I leave this open to where ever it takes us. It should be fun.

(H/T: Contemporary Calvinist)

Sorry Cheepham, I forgot that you can’t watch videos on youtube. Is there another site you can watch this clip that I can find for you?

Question of the Day: The Naked Truth.

Honzo January 14th, 2008

What is one “truth” that is not a) contextual, or b) discovered/conditioned through experience inside a particular culture?

For those of you that give an unconditioned, unexperienced, and uncontextual truth, how did you come to know/realize/prove the truth outside of your cultural understanding?

Conversely, does the mere fact of a truth being conditioned, contextual, or experienced negate the truth; if so, how?

What is Postmodernity?

Honzo January 5th, 2008

In order to continue this post series, I find that it is necessary to stop for a moment to talk about what I mean by Postmodernity. It is a slippery concept, one that is often misunderstood and vilified to the point that most people do not know what in the world it really is.1 I can say this for certain, because I have and do both. After years of trying to first vilify and then trying to understand what exactly this postmodernity stuff is all about, this is what I have come to and how I have come to use the term in my writing.

In the most basic sense of the term, postmodernity is the system of thought, the way of constructing the world, that succeeds modernism. Remember, modernism demanded from its adherents that there be one final and comprehensive way of viewing and constructing the world to which everyone must adhere. When this cracks, multiple ways of viewing and constructing the world emerge from its ashes, thus Postmodernism is the sum of the systems of viewing the world that emerge after the cracking of modernisms hegemony. Not only is postmodernism the sum of the systems, it is also the collection of the ways in which people deal with the emergence of a plethora of acknowledged (after all, there have been these competing systems forever, postmodernism merely gives them a voice, rather than dismissing them after the first discrepancy) of systems as they interact with one another.

A Series of Cities, each with a Hill to Shine From

metropolitan corridor Think about a set of cities that all are controlled by a central capital. The central city administers and controls all functions of daily life not only for the cities, but for the people within the cities. This is modernism. Now imagine that all of the cities throw off the rule of the central city and rule themselves. This is postmodernism.

No longer does one ask what the central authority says must be done, must be followed, must be thought and impose it on the lives of Others. Instead there is an acknowledgment of a basic fact of existence - that each city sees the world in a different way. To force23 them to be like Us is an act of tyranny of the central authority on the lives of Others. Remember, there are some things in this world that are not verifiable. I know math, I know how many apples are in my fridge. However, I can’t show that God exists objectively, I can’t demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that my version of Jesus existed in history without making leaps of faith.

Replacing the above are questions about competing narratives.4 You are now free to choose the city you live in. Will I move to the Mormon city or the Baptist city? I dunno, what is their narrative like? Does it make sense? These are the sorts of questions that are asked. The cities’ narratives compete with one another for the membership of the citizens of the state.

The Denial of Truth?

Is there a denial of truth here? Not at all! That is the central conservative critique of postmodernism, is it not? Isn’t there one way that things actually are? Is there not one and only one reality? I think that there is. I don’t think that there is a necessary denial of truth in postmodernism, at least the way I use the term.5 Instead, there is a shifting of the questions that are being asked.

This is where the idea that all postmoderns deny truth comes from. When you are talking about the collection of cities and are wanting to talk about their truth claims, you can only talk semi-objectively about what each city thinks the truth is, not about if each city actually has the truth. Once you start doing that, then you are really speaking about the set of truth claims that the city that you are in proposes. Note that all of this is independent of the actual “truth” that is out there.6 Any time that someone says anything, they are saying it from their position in time, space, culture, and community. Objectivity, as a concept, is dead.

The Payoff

I see postmodernity, not as a vile beast that threatens the Kingdom of God (or the Realm of the Child of True Humanity lol), but as a better way of viewing the world and its communities,7 something that allows me to disagree with these other communities without writing them off as useless. Postmodernity allows me to love them as fellow images of God, the whole while without abandoning the tenets of my religion as it has been revealed to me by God.

Now, a great many people have defined and used postmodernism in a great many ways. It is a malleable concept, one constructed by people for their uses. I am sure some of you consider yourself postmodernist and would describe it in different terms; others might point to other postmoderns and their absolute denial of truth to refute the above - just remember that not all elements of this set are the same.

Finally, the way I am using this term, there is no “Philosophy of Despair,” as Travis so polemically put it, to call it such is to demonstrate one’s misunderstanding of it.

I’ll try to address the what narratives are and why they are so important in my next post.

  1. to think of something similar, consider the idea of America. Now think of the nastiest thing that America’s opponents say about it, that we are violent, that we only care about material possessions, etc. Now, these things are true of America and not true of America at the same time, that is, they are true for segments of the population and not true for other segments of the population. Thus, postmodernity, like America is an accurate, but imprecise term [↩]
  2. i.e. write them off as useless, invaluable on the sole basis of their not sharing our worldview [↩]
  3. through active or passive cohesion [↩]
  4. By narrative, I mean their story of life - a collection of their worldview, their sacred texts, their stories that give their lives meaning, their practices and pastimes [↩]
  5. which is not to say that other people configure postmodernism and construct a narrative that denies absolute truth I am saying that I can use the category of postmodernism in a way that is consistent with what is revealed to us in the Bible [↩]
  6. By this, I mean how existence actually is [↩]
  7. from a descriptive, not a prescriptive standpoint [↩]

The Basis for Belief: Part 1

Honzo December 26th, 2007

A while ago, I was asked why exactly I believe. I have been pondering this the last few days and I think I can give a semi-intelligible answer. If you had asked me this a few years ago, I would have given my best modernist response. You all know how it goes, right? First, you begin with logical proofs of God’s existence. I would have gone all ontological, teleological, and even cosmological on them.

After establishing the claim that a God exists, I would have moved on to which God exists. I would have pulled out my McDowell’s. You, know, present all the evidence for biblical prophecies coming true, see the prophecy about the city of Tyre, prophecies about Jesus, historical/textual evidence for Jesus’ life, all the standard apologetic answers.

So, after establishing the existence of God and that her revelation to us is the Bible, I would then open the old girl up and start to point out what I believe. After this 30 minute process I would then gladly accept the person to whom I was speaking’s conversion and salvation. Another person checked off the rolls of hell.  Right?

No. The person would/should not have believed me. After all, for each claim that I made with evidence, they could/should have presented countering claims to the existence of God, to the authority of the Bible, and to the person/history/nature of Jesus. I could present my claims and they present theirs. Both of us would have left convinced the other was wrong. I can go into the specifics of the various arguments if needed, but my point stands without them.

In addition, if I would ever stop to listen to the other’s claims, I would more than likely leave the conversation with my faith shattered. Why? Because my faith (as was every idea) was predicated on modernist understandings of verifiable truth claims. That is, the only thing my modernist brain was wired to accept as fact was truth claims that could be scientifically verified. I naturally assumed, from a position of faith, that my claims were so. However, (switching to real life, instead of hypothetical’s) when I started to truly evaluate those claims, I found that they indeed were not as verifiable as I had thought them to be. Each of the logical proofs of God has their problems. The Gospels are not histories as we think of histories. The list goes on and on.

What then? My modernist categories through which I have been trained to view the world demand I abandon these unverifiable truth claims. However, if I were being honest with myself, I really could not bring myself to accept the opposite position either, because it too could not be scientifically verified. How do you test for God? What is your control? The essential questions of religion lay outside the realm of science, which can only access observable and testable data. The modernist categories are simply not adequate for evaluating the claims of religion.

For instance, while the Gospels cannot prove who Jesus was, there was also no way to disprove their claims as well. We simply do not have access to that type of information, given the sources available to us. I found that just about everywhere I looked into my religious beliefs, they were not able to be verified (or denied) through this modernist method of verification. I could speak in terms of probabilities, but never in certain terms. As an honest (as honest I could be) modernist, I found myself at an impasse. Given that the modernist categories are inadequate, one needs to find new categories, post-modern categories, through which one can evaluate the claims of Christianity. Doing so eliminates the need for badly researched pop-apologetics and theologies and opens the door for deeper inquiry.

So what then? Enter experience, community, and relationship, stage right. These will be the subjects of part 2.

Golden Compass

Casey November 21st, 2007

Is there any reason to not watch this movie?

What should be our standard with movies (culture)?

Jesus: How Great is He?

E. I. Sanchez November 13th, 2007

One of my recent purchases from iTunes was How great is our God by Chris Tomlin. The song has a great little melody and simple lyrics but the end product is an addictive anthem.

The song is one of my favorites because it projects the truth of our days. People are confused. They are lonely. They are tired. They want meaning. They want better lives. They want happiness. They really want assurance of the things not seen. Yet, they reject the good news of Jesus. They mock him. They cheapen his gospel. They ridicule him in their arts, their comedies, and their books.

Yet - how great is our God that - in the midst of all this hatred - that he still abides by his promise - that no one should perish.

Consider this YouTube video in which a Jesus character is paraded on Hollywood Boulevard. Should we laugh along? Should we boycott? Or should we sing together: How Great is Our God?

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=WLKk00OYKhU]

Worshipping at the Altar of the Bitch Goddess of Relativism

tom October 26th, 2007

I’ve come to appreciate Christianity Today over the last few years. While in college, when doctrine was merely an abstract idea waiting to be debated, I found CT quite lacking. But as I’ve grown in the Lord and matured as a person I’ve realized there are not only excellent theological articles in CT, but there are also other wonderful articles dealing with the practice of Christian virtues and social justice.

A recent CT did not disappoint. Inside were two excellent pieces on Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage, and an article written by John Piper dealing with Christians and the guilt of sexual failings.

As is often the case, CT closes with a single page write-up by Charles Colson. Now, don’t get me wrong, Colson has a lot to say to the Christian world at large. There is much value in his contributions, so the following is not borne from a desire to silence his voice. In fact, much of what he wrote, I’m in agreement with. He mourned the loss of a communal memory in the church – I mourn with him.

My disagreement with Colson, though, lies in where he places the blame. Colson, having a history of confusing Postmodernity and Relativism anyway, asks whether or not the church is still able to disciple our followers. He then goes on to site an extreme example of a church fallen to Relativism. Colson faults Relativism, and implicitly Postmodernity for the church’s inability to make disciples.

But I think he’s off base in this. Discipleship problems we face today are the excrement of Modernity, not Postmodernity. If we cannot teach our disciples truth now, it’s not because of Relativism, it’s because we lost a love for real truth under hegemonic forces of Modernity. Under Modernity we shackled Truth by only allowing it to speak through empirically demonstrable facts – as if facts and truth were the same thing.

Now we have a generation running the church who does not understand the nature of revelation because revelation is not empirically demonstrable. It’s not that people can’t be discipled because of Relativism. Sure, there are Relativists out there, but most people don’t live life that way. We simply can’t disciple because we’re a lazy group of people who don’t want to think outside of the box given to us by our modernistic culture. We’ve lost the ability to preach and teach the truth, not because Postmodernity drops meaning out of the Truth, but because Modernity redefined Truth. And a redefined Christian truth, especially one that down plays the nature of revelation, is a meaningless Christian truth.

So lets stop blaming Postmodernity (and yes, I know it has its own problems) for our problems. Colson says we’re “worshipping at the altar of the bitch goddess of relativism.” 1

But Relativism is only the symptom. Our idolatry goes much deeper.

  1. For some reason I find it interesting that he pitted this hated philosophy/religion as a female. [↩]

Post-Modernism….is….dead?

Casey September 10th, 2007

Some thinkers state that when we can classify and name it; that means we moved past it. So are we past Post-Modernism? If so, where are we and what do you call it?

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