Postmodernism Part 1: Three Worldviews

Postmodernism is the predominant worldview of our day.  It is the worldview that most people in America, Believers and Nonbelievers alike, share, and yet very few could define it for you. 

However, to understand Postmodernism, it is important to understand the worldviews that came before it.  There have been a total of three predominant worldviews in recorded history.  Each worldview had specific ideas about the nature of truth, knowledge, and language.  With each of these worldviews, there is a particular attack against the Christian worldview.  Let’s explore these one at a time.

Superstition/Supernaturalism

The first recorded worldview was what could best be called Superstition or Supernaturalism.  This is, by far, the longest lasting worldview, which isn’t surprising because many of the assumptions of this worldview stem from ignorance and a lack of information.

Superstition could best be defined as the belief that the universe is a vast and dangerous place ruled by powers beyond understanding.  This was the predominant worldview up until the period of the Enlightenment.

Superstition’s view on Truth

Since the Superstitious worldview was based in a world where information was difficult to come by and ignorance was the norm, there was little or nothing written that formalized their ideas on truth, knowledge, or language.  However there were two Greek philosophers that lived in the 500’s BC that tried.

Socrates

The first documented western philosopher was a guy named Socrates.  He founded the Grecian school of philosophy which is still the foundation of western thought. 
Socrates founded his school of thought on a seemingly simple question: where does wisdom come from?  In his quest to answer this question, he interviewed poets and politicians, scholars and playwrights; in short, all the respected men of knowledge of his day.  One at a time he probed them with queries as to the foundation of their knowledge and brilliance.  What he discovered was startling and disturbing: none of these men had any real explanation for their success.  In every case, when Socrates questioned back along their line of reasoning, their reasons dissolved into irrational speculation, assumption, or ignorance.
This led to the foundational statement of the Socratic school of thought: "Wisdom starts with the realization of how ignorant you truly are."

From Socrates investigation, ignorance was the norm and brilliance was an inexplicable aberration.

Plato

Socrates, to his credit, never attempted to speculate about the unknown, he simply tried to define the parameters of human understanding.  His student, Plato, took this a bit further.  Plato conceded that human perception was limited, and speculated that there was an ideal universe of elevated truth that humans had very little access to.  The things we see and are able to comprehend, Plato theorized, were mere shadows of the reality that lay behind them. 

In a famous parable, Plato illustrated it thusly:

A busy merchant road runs through a tunnel.  All day long merchants and gypsies and pilgrims travel along the road in great caravans, laughing and singing and telling stories.  On one side of the path that runs through the tunnel, large fires are built to illuminate the way.  On the other side of the path, a group of prisoners are chained up, facing away from the path.  The prisoners cannot see any of the people, animals, or objects that travel along the path, but they can hear the distorted echoes of their voices, and see the shadows of these things cast on the wall in front of them.  Since the prisoners are poor men who have never seen camels, or circuses, or any of the various exotic sights that travel the path behind them, they can only speculate as to what these things are based on the shadows and echoes they can see or hear.  A foolish man would come to believe that the shadows and echoes they can perceive are the reality of these objects, but a wise one knows that they are simply a poor representation of the actuality.  Either way, they cannot really come to know the true nature of these objects in their degraded condition.

To Plato, humans lived in a shadowland, incapable in our own power to comprehend the true nature of the universe.

As we can see from an examination of these two philosophies, the pre-modern view of truth was not an optimistic one.

Superstitions View on Knowledge

From the vantage of Superstition, Knowledge always came from the past.  There was a very real sense, shared in most ancient cultures, that people were progressing AWAY from knowledge and comprehension, and TOWARD ignorance.  This can be seen in the elevated status that was accorded the elderly for their wisdom, and in the constant search for, and preservation of, texts and stories that told them about their pasts and origins.

Knowledge was almost always tied to mystical authority figures.  Religious Priests, Rulers (who, in the ancient world, were almost always closely tied to the gods) or Oracles were sought out to confer knowledge, and were awarded with final authority in such areas. 

Superstitions View on Language

From a Superstitious worldview, language is very powerful to a mystic degree.  We see from most ancient cultures that various occultic practices such as spell casting were all about knowing the right words to say.  Certain words were ritualistically avoided, and written texts were accorded priceless value.

How Superstition Disagrees with Christianity

In the instance of the Superstitious worldview, people are enslaved by fear of the unknown.  They come to believe that the universe is a large and shadowy place, full of sinister things that will attack them if they stray out of their narrow lives.  Not only does it obscure information, but the Superstitious worldview encourages ignorance as “safe.”

The Superstitious worldview takes as given that the universe is controlled by supernatural forces.  You do not need to convince someone of the Superstitious persuasion that God or Spirits exist.  They believe in these things fervently and they live in fear of them. 

The challenge lies in freeing them from their fear and slavery and convincing them of God’s love.  Done improperly, ministry to the Superstitious will lead to syncretism- the integration of Christian beliefs and practices with their existing  beliefs and practices.

Modernism

Modernism is characterized by humanism: the belief that man is the measure and measurer of all things, by the belief in single, unified truth, and by the belief that the universe is a largely mechanical structure that can be studied and understood by the human mind.  It is a categorical rejection of the Superstitious worldview in that, while the Superstitious worldview believed that the universe was controlled by Supernatural forces and could never be comprehended by mere mortal minds, Modernism tends to deny the supernatural and elevate human intuition and knowledge to the highest degree.  While we see Modernist tendencies as early as the Greek philosopher Aristotle, it was the rise to prominence of the Christian Church in the Medieval era that ironically laid the foundation for Modernism.  The high value that the Church put on human thought and creativity combined with what was most likely an over emphasis on Greek philosophy, particularly Aristotle, the Church age lead to the Enlightenment when the culture at large took the human values of the Church and divorced them from their Spiritual basis.  Modernism can roughly be traced from the rise of the Enlightenment to about the 1960’s and 70’s when it began to be supplanted by Postmodernism.

Modernism’s view on Truth

Unlike Postmodernism, Modernism holds to the idea that there is one, unified truth.  Thus, if two ideas contradict one another, they cannot both be correct.  This is called the Law of Non-contradiction.   Modernism’s definition of truth would be “That which conforms to reality.” 

Modernism’s view on Knowledge

With Modernism came the rise of Science and the belief that we can construct a realistic base of knowledge simply by observing the world around us, deducing from the observations, and testing our deductions.  One of the fundamental beliefs of Modernism is that Man is equipped to comprehend the universe. 

In fact, the holy grail of Modernism is what they call a “Universal Equation.”  This is a hypothetical formula that would fundamentally explain everything in reality.  If such an equation existed, we could extrapolate from it everything that exists and understand all of reality.

If the Superstitious worldview believed that Knowledge lay in the past, and we were progressing toward ignorance, Modernism believes that Knowledge lies in the future and that we are progressing away from ignorance.  Instead of some ancient wisdom that we once all shared, Modernism believes we came from a place of complete ignorance, and that our efforts to test and construct the world around us are leading us toward a place of complete understanding.

However, very much like the Superstitious worldview, Modernism ties knowledge to Authority figures.  The lab-coat-wearing scientist is accorded final authority in all areas of knowledge, and disagreeing with The Experts, whoever they may be, is laughable.

Modernisms view on Language

If Language held a high, almost mystical value in the Supernatural worldview, it holds a medium value in the Modernist worldview.  Language is the tool we use to encode knowledge.  A more precise language leads to a more accurate way of transmitting and recording knowledge.  For this reason, Science adopted Latin.  As a dead language, it is not subject to lingual drift, so all the words and terms will remain precise. 

How Modernism Disagrees with Christianity

Christianity freed people from the chains of Superstition.  Modernism claims to free people from the chains of religion.  Because of its high view of Humanity in general and the Human intellect in particular, Modernism claims that we do not need Religion or God to explain the world around us, and we do not need such crutches to define our own destiny.  Using the Law of Non-Contradiction, Modernism claims that, since Science proves that the Universe came into existence by natural forces, we can explain everything that exists without having to refer to a Creator.  Modernism attempts to create a false conflict between Science and Christianity by claiming that Science observes and accepts what is, while Christianity relies on a blind belief in things that we do not observe, cannot record, and are not supported by History or Nature.

We have examined the worldviews that preceeded Postmodernism.  In the next article, we will take a close look at the rise of Postmodernism, and it’s fundamental beliefs.