Many are wondering what has happened to our world, not just the secular world- but even the Christian worldview has not gone unblemished.
I listen to various speakers who affectionately speak of their Christian mentors from a forgotten age and- with something of a start- I realize that though they speak fondly of them, and read of their sacrificial lives, they don't seem to realize that the Gospel of these saints from another age, is quite different from the Gospel of today. And different in some very important respects.
The name given to this state of affairs is "Post-modernity" a prodigy of Modernity.
The answer to at least some of the reasons for the different way the Gospel is now interpreted is that the Gospel is now- for many- interpreted through a worldview influenced by a post-modern understanding of reality. The philosophers early on were cognizant of the need for objective truth in our quest for knowledge coupled with the fact that- as Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman put it-:
No doubt Rene Descartes in his struggles to arrive at certainty bore this deceptiveness of appearances in mind- as is also reflected in his reference to the idea Archimedes expressed:
As a recreational sailor I like to use the analogy of navigation. We are all on a journey and it helps not only to know where you've come from, but where you are now- and also where you are heading.
In the days of old, sailing on the high seas was a hazardous exercise. Navigation was all about local conditions, the weather- wind, cloud formations, wave direction and height, recognizing various flora and fauna- these all gave indication of the proximity of land, but it was all very hit and miss. Quite a lot of both hit and miss- in fact, but often not at the most prodigious moment. Then people began to see the advantage of looking beyond their locality to the seemingly fixed stars, and celestial navigation brought immense advantages to the certainty of one's position, because of their objective predictability. Now a days we have G.P.S and your position (geographically) any place any time, is as easy as owning a smartphone. A Global Positioning System works because your position is referenced from Geo-stationary sattelites fixed above the earth. It is their absolutely fixed position in relation to the Earth, from which yours can be accurately ascertained at any given moment anywhere on the surface of the earth.
The culmination of this search for certainty, truth and knowledge of objective reality reached its zenith in the time now known as "Modernity". It was the age of reason and rationality. If we were to characterize the postmodern mind by a slogan it would have to have at least some mention of a retreat from the possibility of objective truth or absolutes. A throwing up of the hands and the exclamation of "Whatever" is perhaps the most succinct defining mood of our age. "Post-modernity" is a strong reaction against the failures of "Modernity" and as I hope the reader will come to recognize, we have all been caught up, to some degree or other, in its octopus like grip.
G.K. Chesterton, coyly remarked on the stance taken by post modernists (as a determined rejection of any possibility of objective reality and truth) when he said:
Today's Western culture has a built in defense mechanism towards truth claims. This is an inherited position involving philosophies of intense skepticism. This incredulity is not just towards Biblical inerrancy or religious claims but a skepticism which even doubts whether any statement in general and metaphysical statements in particular could possibly be universally true; that is, true for all people in any time frame. It is no longer a case of arguing about what is true (or not) but whether there is such a thing as universal truth itself, and whether it is at all communicable, and knowable. In this state of affairs agnosticism flourishes, as a consequence dogmatic truth claims are avoided, creedal teaching is shunned and exclusive claims to truth are scorned and derided as arrogant propaganda, a ploy to make merchandise of people. A post modern attitude has had ramifications for language as well. It questions whether language is even capable of conveying truth. For instance take any book (and this includes the Bible) and the authority of what the writer(s) intended or wished to convey no longer rests with the author(s), the authority now resides in the person reading it, the reader decides what is meant and her authority is final. This strangely echoes, and should sound a warning siren, to a situation in the Garden of Eden. Strangely, the advocates of this view wax eloquently on this subject apparently without giving a lot of thought to the medium they use, this irony is not lost on Ravi Zacharias.
In the Blog- Contra Celsum, John Turtullian, commenting on Statism writes:
I listen to various speakers who affectionately speak of their Christian mentors from a forgotten age and- with something of a start- I realize that though they speak fondly of them, and read of their sacrificial lives, they don't seem to realize that the Gospel of these saints from another age, is quite different from the Gospel of today. And different in some very important respects.
The name given to this state of affairs is "Post-modernity" a prodigy of Modernity.
The answer to at least some of the reasons for the different way the Gospel is now interpreted is that the Gospel is now- for many- interpreted through a worldview influenced by a post-modern understanding of reality. The philosophers early on were cognizant of the need for objective truth in our quest for knowledge coupled with the fact that- as Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman put it-:
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."William A. Dembski writes:
"If Socrates taught us anything, it's that we always know a lot less than we think we know."Interestingly what shows up early in the quest is this need for humility...
No doubt Rene Descartes in his struggles to arrive at certainty bore this deceptiveness of appearances in mind- as is also reflected in his reference to the idea Archimedes expressed:
“Archimedes used to demand just one firm and immovable point in order to shift the entire earth; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshakable.”They all recognized, in their struggle for knowledge, for truth, and for certainty (in whatever their sphere of endeavour) the absolute necessity for an ultimate, immovable, fixed and transcendent reference point from which to begin.
As a recreational sailor I like to use the analogy of navigation. We are all on a journey and it helps not only to know where you've come from, but where you are now- and also where you are heading.
In the days of old, sailing on the high seas was a hazardous exercise. Navigation was all about local conditions, the weather- wind, cloud formations, wave direction and height, recognizing various flora and fauna- these all gave indication of the proximity of land, but it was all very hit and miss. Quite a lot of both hit and miss- in fact, but often not at the most prodigious moment. Then people began to see the advantage of looking beyond their locality to the seemingly fixed stars, and celestial navigation brought immense advantages to the certainty of one's position, because of their objective predictability. Now a days we have G.P.S and your position (geographically) any place any time, is as easy as owning a smartphone. A Global Positioning System works because your position is referenced from Geo-stationary sattelites fixed above the earth. It is their absolutely fixed position in relation to the Earth, from which yours can be accurately ascertained at any given moment anywhere on the surface of the earth.
The culmination of this search for certainty, truth and knowledge of objective reality reached its zenith in the time now known as "Modernity". It was the age of reason and rationality. If we were to characterize the postmodern mind by a slogan it would have to have at least some mention of a retreat from the possibility of objective truth or absolutes. A throwing up of the hands and the exclamation of "Whatever" is perhaps the most succinct defining mood of our age. "Post-modernity" is a strong reaction against the failures of "Modernity" and as I hope the reader will come to recognize, we have all been caught up, to some degree or other, in its octopus like grip.
G.K. Chesterton, coyly remarked on the stance taken by post modernists (as a determined rejection of any possibility of objective reality and truth) when he said:
"The post modernist has his feet firmly planted in mid air"
Dr. Jerram Barrs:
"If there is no acknowledgement of God- someone transcendent who knows all things there is no possibility of our knowing what is objectively real- how can we know truly and surely- that what we think we know is accurate? Post-modernism plays on that problem, and because it doesn't acknowledge God-who-knows- it's led to a place of deepest ignorance and darkness...
Postmodernism says: When I try to know anything- I am never free I always come with prejudices, beliefs with a background and these glasses- these spectacles- determine what I see. Without them I can't see anything, because its impossible to have a human being without perspectives, without prejudices, without convictions, we all have them. But with them everything I see is distorted they determine what I see as an individual as a member of a community, and so it says I cannot know anything objectively or absolutely...
Even among Christians this rejection to the possibility of knowing truth surely is very widespread, the figures are something like this- almost two thirds of people who claim to be evangelical believers- who claim to be born again- say that they do not know absolute truth- that whatever one believes if one is sincere God will accept that- I will get to heaven...Christians are deeply shaped by this...."
...postmodernism says all beliefs are equally valid ...one might just as well say invalid . Because once you say that all religiouis beliefs are equally true your saying that none of them are true..."
(emphasis mine)The eminent Christian scholar D.A. Carson gives a poetic lament to the post modern here.
Today's Western culture has a built in defense mechanism towards truth claims. This is an inherited position involving philosophies of intense skepticism. This incredulity is not just towards Biblical inerrancy or religious claims but a skepticism which even doubts whether any statement in general and metaphysical statements in particular could possibly be universally true; that is, true for all people in any time frame. It is no longer a case of arguing about what is true (or not) but whether there is such a thing as universal truth itself, and whether it is at all communicable, and knowable. In this state of affairs agnosticism flourishes, as a consequence dogmatic truth claims are avoided, creedal teaching is shunned and exclusive claims to truth are scorned and derided as arrogant propaganda, a ploy to make merchandise of people. A post modern attitude has had ramifications for language as well. It questions whether language is even capable of conveying truth. For instance take any book (and this includes the Bible) and the authority of what the writer(s) intended or wished to convey no longer rests with the author(s), the authority now resides in the person reading it, the reader decides what is meant and her authority is final. This strangely echoes, and should sound a warning siren, to a situation in the Garden of Eden. Strangely, the advocates of this view wax eloquently on this subject apparently without giving a lot of thought to the medium they use, this irony is not lost on Ravi Zacharias.
In the Blog- Contra Celsum, John Turtullian, commenting on Statism writes:
"When the West turned away from the Living God, philosophical scepticism was the inevitable long term outcome. Knowledge lost its point of integration and so fractured into thousands of pieces. Three hundred years of post-Enlightenment maturation has allowed scepticism to reap a prodigious harvest. Unbelief now understands that it can no longer talk about culture, but only multi-cultural reality. It can no longer speak of truth, but only of perspectives. Rather than knowledge, it is reduced to telling stories about the world. It can no longer speak intelligibly about mankind; rather, more “accurately” only an emerging life-form. Correspondence between what we think we know and the actual world is declared impossible.
Truth is prejudice. Knowledge is opinion.
Any claims for either beyond these is nothing more than adding ignorance and stubbornness and arrogance to the mix.
The end result of scepticism is pluralism. You can have as many truths as there are people or opinions. This drive to pluriformity is relentless. We have now been gravely informed by Stephen Hawking that we must no longer speak of a universe, but multiverses.
Scepticism means that education is impossible in the sense of a teacher imparting actual truth and knowledge to students. This is why state school systems are failing–and will continue to do so. In a philosophically sceptical world to attempt to teach someone can never rise beyond being an act of arrogant, presumptuous intellectual imperialism.
The only course–and this is now the current paradigm in education–is constructivism. This refers to education being made subservient to pedagogy, and a particular kind of pedagogy at that. It is a way of “teaching” where the “teacher” becomes merely a facilitator, enabling the pupil to construct their own meaning, truth, and perspectives. In this sceptical world-view–which now dominates the West–to impart knowledge is to impose and enslave; it is to do serious damage to the pupil. It impedes true enlightenment which is self-discovery and individual perspectival sovereignty. The only recourse of state education systems is to affirm everything, which is to deny nothing.
Above all, the child must be affirmed, rather than taught.
Making children feel good about themselves has been one of the main objectives of US schools during the past three decades. By the time they are seven or eight years of age, American children have internalised the prevailing psychobabble and can proclaim the importance of avoiding negative emotions and of high self-esteem. Yet this has had no perceptible impact on their school performance. Robert Whelan, ed, The Corruption of the Curriculum, (London: Civitas, 2007) p. 9
Maybe not, but the child will be well on the way to constructing their own private curriculum–and that is the whole point in a culture which is both democratic and Unbelieving. Scepticism can only mean self-discovery–whatever that might mean–not conformity to an authoritative Truth." (emphasis mine)While he is speaking of the demise of education and its function as a State program in particular, it is not hard to see that the tenets of Post-modernity are what has brought this about.
The following video clips characterize post-modernity and give clear expression as to the destructive nature and all pervasive influence not only in society but through clear intrusions into the worldview of believers. Where this phenomenon of debased human understanding is correctly addressed -and the underlying assumptions challenged- there is a renewed interest in, and appreciation for the Gospel. The indubitable successes of Ravi Zacharias and other Christian apologists are tangible evidence that if the intellectual challenges that hinder an acceptance of the truth of the Gospel are dispelled- the way is made clear for the Holy Spirit to sovereignly work repentance and faith in the hearts of people who would otherwise find the Gospel just too far from reality.
For more thoughts on The Cumulative Effects Of Postmodernity Today On Christianity follow the link.
Two of the most vociferous children of post-modernity are the twins Relativism and Tolerance. Follow the links. For more specific thoughts on Moral Relativism (a close cousin) follow the link.
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96 minutes, an excellent presentation for understanding the Post-modern Mind
In light of the above:
- If “post-modernism” is a reaction against “modernism”, then what in modernism is it reacting against?
- What world events have been mentioned which may have helped trigger this reaction?
- Thinking in terms of the laws of non-contradiction what characterizes the mood of post-modernism?
- If the enlightenment age was the age of reason- and confidence in mankind one of its hallmarks, what can be said concerning postmodernism?
- What has been the effect of post-modern thinking on such words as: Truth and Language?
- It has been said that post-modernity not only causes divisions between people groups but causes internal conflict, why might this be so?
- If the influence of post-modern thinking is all pervasive what evidence could we point to in the evangelical church to demonstrate it s effect?
- Why should a Christian be interested in the effects of a post-modern worldview?
- In recent times we have seen the gradual and increasing “privatization of belief” where less and less meaningful dialogue takes place with others of a different persuasion. In the context of this discussion what might we attribute as a reason for this post-modern tendency?
- What
do you consider to be a defining, pivotal objection from within a
post-modern worldview that would need to be overcome in order for an
individual to accept the veracity of a Judeo/Christian worldview?
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