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.

The Best Apologetic

In logic and debate, they teach various techniques that are considered to be logical fallacies.  One of these is to attack your opponent rather than attacking your opponent's arguments.  So, for instance, if I am presenting a case against global warming, and my opponent responds to my argument by saying "Yeah, but you never graduated high school, so what do you know?" his response may be convincing at an emotional level, but it does nothing to disprove my premise.
When it comes to presenting a case for the Christian faith, however, this idea of attacking the opponent actually DOES hold some water.  Not on the side of the Christian, but on the side of the non-believer.  The reason I say this is that one of the fundamental tenets of Christianity is that it is supposed to change the believer.  If I profess to believe in Christ and his teachings, but I act no different than I did when I was an unbeliever, my claim looks suspicious at best.
The best apologetic is a life well-lived.  One of the main reason that Jesus is such an intriguing figure to all people-groups the world over is that his life was lived so purely.  Even the most ardent atheist must admit that he was "a great moral teacher." 
On the flip-side, one poor choice can utterly ruin the testimony of the most well-intentioned apologist. 
In the twenty-third psalm, the psalmist says, "He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake."  What the Psalmist is saying here is that God keeps His followers pure because they are representatives of Him.  They reflect his name and reputation, and so He keeps them from straying.  I think this should be the first prayer of any minister, and of believers in general, that God would purify their actions so that they may properly represent Him to the world.
A poorly educated person who is unable to make a verbal defense for his faith, through living out the Christian life in a faultless way, may do more to redeem those around him than the most silver tongued theologian.

God and Time

One of the classic arguments for the existence of God has to do with the origins of the universe.  Briefly stated, this argument says that it is logical nonsense to believe that the universe has existed forever, because if something exists forever into the past, you never reach the present moment.  Therefore, the universe had to have a beginning in time, and if it had an origin, it must have an originator.
The classic skeptical response to this is to turn this line of logic around on God himself.  That is to say, if the universe cannot logically exist forever into the past, neither can God, and therefore God must have an origin and originator, in which case you have an infinite regression of Gods: also logical nonsense. 
This is, in fact, a sound argument as far as it goes.  God cannot exist forever into the past, but neither can he have a beginning.  So where does that leave us?
The answer is that time itself had an origin, and that God exists in eternity, or put another way, He is not subject to the dimension of time. 
This may be a concept that is difficult to wrap your mind around, but is the only conclusion we can make about God's existence.  If God were subject as we are to the progression of events from past to present to future, then He would be limited in some way.  That limitation would be a force greater than God, and therefore Time itself would be God.
We can see God's eternality reflected in the nature of biblical prophesy.  The prophetic books of the Bible, beginning with Isaiah and ending with Malachi, can be some of the most difficult books of the Bible to read and to understand.  They seem somewhat jumbled in their progression, for a moment reflecting past events, then jumping to some highly symbolic imagery and then speaking about the end of time.  Many people define "prophesy" to mean predictions about the future.  However, from a Biblical perspective, a prophet was simply a man or woman who brought a message from God.  And so, in a way, the books of the prophets reflect the thought processes of God Himself.  If God exists outside of time, then it is little wonder that his thoughts flow through past, present, and future events in a way that is difficult for our lesser minds to follow.
I also firmly believe that God's existence outside of time does a great deal to reconcile the apparent differences between the free will of man and the sovereignty of God.  Theologians state that one must necessarily limit the other.  However, given the fact that we reflect on the past to make decisions in the present that effect the future, whereas God's actions are based on an absolute knowledge of past, present, and future, and those actions can affect any and all points along the timeline, I am not certain that man's free will and God's sovereignty DO limit one another.

The Beginning of Wisdom

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."
Five hundred years before Socrates came to this conclusion, the King Solomon came to a different conclusion about the start of wisdom.  He said, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."  Like most of his proverbs, Solomon does not greatly expand on this statement, leaving the reader to wonder in what way is the fear of God the beginning of wisdom, and what does he mean by fear of God?
Fear is typically a force that drives one away from something.  If I fear the woods, I am not going anywhere near the woods.  Yet coming from a Jewish vantage, and in light of his other writings, it is fair to assume that Solomon would advise wisdom seekers to pursue God, not to flee from him.  What kind of fear drives you toward the object of your fear?
In Jesus' famed Sermon on the Mount, he begins by blessing a number of pitiful groups: the poor in spirit, the meek, those who mourn, etc.  We are told these people will, among other things, inherit the earth and see God.  However, as the sermon proceeds, the people are told that unless their righteousness exceeds that of the holiest group in Israel, the Pharisees, that they will not enter the kingdom of God.  The people are shockingly advised to remove any body parts that are causing them to sin, and finally they are told that they must be perfect in order to enter the kingdom.
Was Jesus harsh advice to, among other things, pluck out your eye or cut off your hand if they are causing you to stumble, rhetorical?
In the most famous section of Dante's Divine Comedy, the writer tells of his journey through Hell as he makes his way to Heaven.  The writer had a very specific purpose for taking his readers through Hell first: for Dante, Hell represented the recognition and rejection of sin.  God is not kidding around.  Sin really IS that serious to God.  And Jesus advice to cut off your hand was no mere rhetoric.  If that's what it takes to free you from sin, it is worth every drop of blood.
However, Jesus also knew that self-mutilation would not remove the problem.  Because the eye-less, hand-less man would still be thoroughly corrupt through every cell of his body.
These words of Jesus were intended to drive the hearer to despair.  It is a technique he employed more than once. 
People are quick to find solace in the first part of Jesus' sermon where the poor and meek are given glorious blessings, but rarely do we find anyone enthusiastic about the second part of the sermon. 
Those who find a shocking dichotomy between the God of wrath and judgement and the God of love are not wrong.  Frequently God is both in a single breath.
There is another story that Jesus told.  The story concerns two men praying in the temple.  One is a holy man, a Pharisee, who thanks God for his virtue and for the fact that he is not like the lowly men.  The other is a corrupt tax collector.  This man, in contrast to the Pharisee, tears his clothes, falls face first on the ground  and cries in misery "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"  Jesus says, "I tell you, this man went home justified before God."
The same God who shows his wrath and judgement will heal and justify the man who acknowledges his corruption and helplessness.  THIS is the God of Love.  But the man unwilling to come to grips with the fact that he is truly hopelessly lost will never get to meet this God.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Hell: Punishment?

Hell is often refered to by well-meaning believers as eternal punishment and God as a father who punishes.  I am not convinced that this is an aproach that works when we consider the scriptures on Hell.  There are two main reasons this argument seems inconsistant to me.  The first is my definition of punishment.  So far as I am aware, punishment is best defined as unpleasent treatment of an individual with the ultimate goal of correcting that individual's behavior.  Hell cannot be viewed as correctional because of it's finality.  There is no redeeming yourself in hell, because there is no return from hell.

Secondly, I would say that the relationship of God with a person who is already in hell cannot be defined as one of a father to a child, so that the father analogy falls flat.  While that same person is still alive, we could apply the father/child analogy to them, because while they are alive God is presumably presenting them with every opportunity to reconcile with Himself.  You could recall the image of the father of the prodigal son who goes out every day hoping to see his son return to him.

But again, because of its finality, hell seems to represent the enstrangement or disowning of any claims to sonship on the part of the condemned person. 

 

So if hell is not punishment, then what is it?  One of the keys to apologetics, I feel, is to keep in mind that EVERYTHING that exists outside of God exists for the purpose of glorifying God.  So in some way, Hell must glorify God.  This hardly seems likely given that God is the greatest imaginable good and hell is the worst thing imaginable. 

In one of his parables, Jesus tells the story of a wedding feast.  All the people on the invite list to the feast turn down their opportunity to attend, begging off for trivial matters.  At the end of the story, we are told that these people are "cast into the outer darkness where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth."  In its way, I think this story is very revealing about both the nature and purpose of hell.  So far as I can tell from the scriptures, Hell is a place where God has completely removed his presence from those who exist there.  It stands as an eternal testament to what God isn't.  Those who exist there made the conscious decision to reject God and God obligingly removed Himself eternally from them.  They are getting exactly what they asked for.  In so doing, it glorifies God in the same way that darkness glorifies light: by contrast. 

Consider: if God had never created anything outside himself, there are aspects of His nature that would never have been made manifest: His creative power and his servanthood, for instance (he sustains and maintains all that he has created).  When man rebelled, it revealed even more about God's nature: his justice, his wrath, his patience, his grace, his longsuffering, and the love that was revealed through Jesus' sacrifice.

I am not arguing that God created with the intention of having man rebel, just that even through the worst of circumstances, God's nature shines all the brighter.

And just as the consiquence of choosing to accept God's forgiveness through Christ is eternal, so the consiquence of choosing to deny this forgiveness MUST be eternal.  Anything less trivializes Christ's sacrifice and consiquently cheapens God's nature.  

Does God Need Man?

                The “Merlin” television miniseries tells the story of the fabled wizard from his youth on to his reclining years.  The primary antagonist of the story, Morgan LeFay, is the embodiment of magic.  At the climactic ending of the series, LeFay is trying desperately to cling to her power and control over the people who fear her.  She appears in her fury and rants about the power she holds.  At this point, Merlin, and all the people present, simply turn their backs to her and ignore her ranting.  The instant they cease to believe in her, she fades away.

                In the classic story of Peter Pan, Tinkerbell has just swallowed the poison meant for Peter.  As she lies there dying, the story breaks the fourth wall and asks all the children watching these events to clap their hands and repeat “I do believe in fairies!”  The collective belief of the children revives the heroic Tinkerbell.

                In “The Neverending Story,” a boy named Bastion finds a book about a fantasy world that is being destroyed by a massive force called “The Nothing.”  As he continues to read, he is drawn into the story until he comes to realize that The Nothing is, in fact, the collective unbelief of an increasingly practical and unimaginative world.  Only by becoming part of the story can Bastion save Fantasia with his belief in the power of imagination.

                In the core rules of the popular “Dungeons and Dragons” role playing game, we find that magical powers are granted to people by various gods.  The gods themselves gain their power from the belief and worship of their numerous followers.  The more followers a god has, the more powerful that god is.  If everyone stops believing in a god, that god ceases to exist, and you can create a new god simply by convincing people to follow your made-up god.

                It is, indeed, a post modern idea that something exists simply because you believe it does.  The postmodernists claim that Muslims and Christians can all live in harmony, simply by respecting one another’s beliefs, despite the inherent contradiction.  What is true for me is not necessarily true for you.  Where, then, does truth come from?  Well as my salesmen friends like to say: truth comes from perception.  This would mean, of course, that nothing existed or had definition before an intelligent mind existed to define it.  If God was invented by man, this idea has some philosophical problems, because we presume that man came from somewhere which means there must have been truth and substance prior to consciousness.

                The immediate problem, however, is the TYPE of God we see in the Bible.  If man were to go about inventing gods, it seems logical they would invent gods that would justify their actions and beliefs.  Indeed, in most ancient cultures, the god of that culture was only as strong as the people he protected.  If the Asherites triumphed over the Jebusites, then the god of the Asherites was hailed as being stronger than the god of the Jebusites.  Long live the god of the Asherites.  Yet throughout the scriptures, the God of the Hebrews consistently gives his people into the hands of their enemies because of their rebellion. 

                Perhaps the Hebrews were just really poor warriors, but remiss to abandon their beliefs, they made up stories about God being disappointed in their behavior and punishing them?  This does not explain the continued existence of the Hebrew people, or the perseverance of the belief in this God.  Every god-centered faith from that era has died out EXCEPT for the Hebrew notion.  Why is that? 

                It is clear from the Biblical account that God created us for a purpose against which we rebelled; that He holds us to a standard we are incapable of living up to; and that in order to be reconciled to Him we must approach Him with humility, admitting our errors and our utter dependence on Him.  In every way, this God appears to hold the high ground and belief in Him seems to demand a drastic change in our lives and attitudes.  If God was a creation of my mind in order to accommodate my pre-existing notions and beliefs, why does belief in him demand such an alteration of my pre-existing notions and beliefs?

Love Wins

There once was a man who was in love with a woman.  He had admired her from afar for a long time, and finally summoned the courage to ask her out.  The girl turned him down. 

Not to be dissuaded, the man continued speaking to the girl.  He sent her cute messages and gave her spontaneous gifts.  He sent flowers to her place of work with carefully worded notes.

However, no matter what the man did, he was unable to sway the woman or change her mind.  She still rejected him every time he asked her.

It seemed that it was all over for his hopes of uniting with her.  But this man would not take no for an answer.

So against her wishes, the man took the girl and brought her to his house.  Since she did not want to stay, he had to tie her to keep her from leaving.  And so, despite the fact that she had rejected him over and over, the man got the girl.  Love wins.