Rex Banks.

Introduction

Being an avid gardener my wife was surprised and delighted on one occasion to stumble upon a flower with a unique colouration - until she remembered that she was looking at the world through a new pair sunglasses which imparted a strange hue to everything within her range of vision! She had momentarily forgotten that the lens through which we view our surroundings can greatly affect our perception of those surroundings, and this is easy enough to do. It's also easy to overlook the fact that this filtering effect is not confined to optics and to the physical realm. For example when an individual focuses his attention upon important questions relating to ethics, morality, values, the purpose of existence and the like, his deliberations are inevitably filtered through a set of beliefs about the real world which influence his conclusions. Whether conscious of it or not, each man possesses a perception of reality, a model of the world, a world view, and his answers to life's questions will usually be in harmony with this world view.

Now clearly the Christian needs to know something about his society's dominant world view in order to have any kind of meaningful dialogue with friends and neighbours. By way of example, when Peter preached the first gospel message to Jews (Acts 2) he was able to assume a knowledge of the one true God, but later when Paul spoke to the Athenians (Acts 17:22ff) he could not assume such knowledge. Too, Peter's Jewish audience had no difficulty accepting the notion of Christ's bodily resurrection, whereas the Epicureans and Stoics who listened to Paul dismissed the idea out of hand because of their philosophical traditions. (Act 17:18, 32) Clearly, much like the lens in a pair of spectacles, an individual's world view can colour his perception and influence his judgment. In the following paragraphs we will say a few words about a cluster of ideas which have taken root in our society over the past few years and which reflect a view of the world which is often termed postmodernism.

Modernism

Given that the prefix post means "after" or "behind," it comes as no surprise that the term modernism is often used to speak of that period before the rise of postmodernism. Nor is it a surprise that the period before the rise of modernism is often called the pre-modern era. The latter refers to that period beginning shortly after the completion of the New Testament and going through to the end of the seventeenth century when theism was the dominant world view in the West. (Some suggest that the period ends a little earlier sometime between the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century and the height of the Renaissance in the sixteenth century). Men typically believed in the existence of the supernatural realm and in a Deity or deities who was/were involved in the affairs of men. Then with the eighteenth century came the so called "Enlightenment" which saw a movement away from dependence upon revelation; and in fact according to The Oxford Companion To Philosophy:

"Much of the philosophy of the last 300 years is the story of the attacks on the Judaeo-Christian view and its replacement by a naturalistic outlook which completely dispenses with the theological explanations."

Thus religious skepticism and an increasing confidence in man's ability to explain his world without invoking divine revelation lay at the heart of what has been called modernism. Ian Taylor writes in his book In The Minds of Men:

"As has been shown, the Renaissance period produced a number of educated men who had become disenchanted with orthodox teachings based on biblical revelation....The search for truth turned these men from revelation to reason as found in the classical writers of Greece and Rome....

The discovery of the great laws of the universe by the developing discipline of science gave credence to the view that all of reality conformed rigidly to these laws, and that to discover other laws through science was the sure promise of power. Moreover with a universe under law there was no place for divine intervention. Through knowledge man was at last perceived to have gained the freedom to be master of his own destiny. Thus the Renaissance marked the beginning of modern science, the beginning of modern socialism, and the beginning of secular humanism."

In 1793 not long after the French Revolution, a statue of the Goddess of Reason was placed in the cathedral of Notre Dame and shortly afterwards this was followed by the public burning of the Bible. Human reason independent of divine truth had become the beacon which would guide man to ultimate truth and which would solve all his social problems by means of technological advancement. Men do not need a Saviour to redeem them from sin but instead education to free them from ignorance. Later the Industrial Revolution saw the invention of many labour-saving devices which seemed to confirm the belief that man was marching bravely towards an ideal society.

Ultimately of course any world view which banishes God from the affairs of men logically results in nihilism, the denial of all purpose, meaning or value to life, and it is no surprise that many have rejected the bitter fruit of modernism. Unfortunately in recent years many who have turned their backs on this poisonous world view have embraced another which is equally noxious, namely postmodernism.

Postmodernism

It is clear from history that at various times societies discard a dominant world view and embrace an alternative model for interpreting reality. Of course this change takes place over time and today this transitional period is sometimes described as a paradigm shift, a paradigm being similar to a world view.

It is difficult to say just when the challenge to modernism began, and it would be quite wrong to suggest that modernism has been vanquished, but as we will see there is no part of contemporary society that has not been greatly influenced by postmodernist thought. Basically the postmodern charges that modernism's deification of human rationalism and technological progress has resulted in the colonization, exploitation and marginalization of peoples throughout the world as Western man has pursued his vision of "human progress." He charges that the pursuit of progress through science and technology has resulted in unequal development, pollution, destruction of natural resources, the threat of global destruction etc., all of which have demonstrated that human rationality is unable to deliver the promised utopia. He charges that modernism has dehumanized man by valuing him solely in terms of his power to earn. What we are seeing today then is a reaction to the sterile, unsatisfying view of the world which dominated the West for generations.

Postmodernism is notoriously difficult to define, but it is possible to identify a cluster of ideas at the heart of this world view and we will consider a few of these in the following paragraphs. Of course many in society have simply absorbed these ideas without ever having heard of postmodernism, just as many absorbed the tenets of modernism unaware of the assumptions about the world upon which this movement was grounded.

Realism and Anti-realism

Under the heading Realism and Anti-realism we find the following in The Oxford Companion To Philosophy:

"Primarily directions, not positions. To assert that something is somehow mind- independent is to move in the realist direction; to deny it is to move in the opposite direction...

After Kant, 'realism' meant above all the view that we perceive objects whose existence and nature are independent of our perceptions. For any linguistic or psychological act (e.g. a judgment, a perception), one can ask whether it involves a relation to something independent of it. That something (e.g. a property, a material object) would constitute an independent standard of correctness for the act. The standard makes the act correct only if they are related."

At the very heart of postmodernism lies the rejection of this position known as realism with its assumption that there exists an independent standard of correctness which is mind-independent. The realist affirms that such things as universal essences, values and propositions exist, while anti-realists like postmodernists deny this; the realist speaks of transcendent entities; while anti-realists like postmodernists deny their existence; the realist believes in objective realities which are discoverable, the anti-realist maintains that these alleged "realities" derive their validity from human perception. While realists may argue about what really are universals, the postmodern simply rejects the notion of universals altogether, and speaks instead of culturally-determined values and world views. As the Oxford puts it in a discussion of neo-pragmatism, "truth and meaning are taken to be nothing but moments of specific social practices." This all becomes clearer when we look at some of the specific ideas which are associated with postmodernism.

Human Nature and Culture

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is regarded as the main architect of the philosophical foundations which gave rise to the modern scientific age, and the Cartesian movement which he inaugurated had a profound effect upon the early modern period. Central to Cartesianism was the notion that the mind is immaterial and exists apart from nature, and although this idea (along with its theistic associations) was later widely rejected, the notion of an independent self possessing the ability to make accurate judgments about the world around him played an important role in the development of modernism. In the view of the modernist, man is by nature an independent, rational being capable of investigating, understanding and explaining his world.

The postmodern's view of man is radically different. According to him, rather than possessing an independent self, man is essentially a social construct, or a socially determined being, an expression of the culture in which he developed. There is no such thing as the independent or autonomous self, there is no essential human nature but instead man constructs his own self. Man may imagine that he is an independent being with free will but in fact such factors as culture, race and gender determine his world view. As a product of his cultural environment, the individual's worth, sense of identity, rights and world view etc. are culturally determined. Unable to investigate his world apart from the cultural conditioning which he has received, man has no access to reality, no means of reasoning from an objective context and he can possess only subjective knowledge. The individual is what he is because of his participation in the life of a particular group. There is no single correct explanatory model of reality anyway, and so the postmodern speaks instead or "stories" or "narratives" about reality which are useful and meaningful only for the particular community which produced them. Culture and language are responsible for what we call knowledge and there is no such thing as a true world view (or metanarrative).

Since there is no essential self the individual can simply decide to create and recreate his own identity, changing (for example) his sexual orientation as he pleases. (Sometimes the expression "decentred self" is used in connection with the idea that man has no essential self). Image and appearance are more significant than substance because after all there is no real substance behind the image anyway. Life is about role playing as the process of constructing and reconstructing one's self goes on. Examples of this are everywhere. Our cultural icons are movie stars who are forever reinventing themselves, pop stars who construct one outrageous persona after another and artists whose main concern is with novelty.

Social commentators point out that views are increasingly shaped by the media and these are among the most secularized institutions in society. Movies, television programmes and video games blur the line between reality and fiction as appearance triumphs over substance. Increasingly advertisers sell products on the basis of designer labels and lifestyle associations. Image is everything.

Truth and The New "Tolerance"

Clearly if there is no such thing as objective reality and if language is all about interpretation rather than about providing an account of reality, the use of literary terms like story and narrative is more useful than the use of ethical terms like true and false because the former foster uncritical acceptance of all world views. The postmodern is not interested in fostering the global acceptance of some truth claim, but instead his aim to to encourage mutual understanding and acceptance of all those narratives and stories which individual communities have found useful.

Now the unqualified acceptance of all narratives is very important for the postmodern because of his view that the individual is inseparable from what he believes. As we have seen, reality for the individual is what he believes is to be reality because of cultural influences, and acceptance of the individual involves acceptance of his beliefs. What is "true" for the middle-aged white European male and the young Oriental female may be quite different. To refuse to tolerate the beliefs of another is tantamount to a refusal to tolerate the person himself. However tolerance no longer means what it once meant. Not too long ago the intolerant person was generally considered to be one who rejected, berated or even persecuted others on account of their beliefs. In many quarters this is no longer the case, and the intolerant person is one who questions the validity of another's world view or who draws attention to its inconsistencies and contradictions. For many this is offensive and unacceptable. To cast doubts upon another's beliefs is to exclude that person and it is also seen to devalue him because it is to cast doubts upon the reality which he himself has constructed. To suggest that he may be wrong is to impose upon him one's own rationalistic view concerning objective truth and to fail to see that what we call reality is simply a social construct.

Given all this it is not surprising that the postmodern has no difficulty accommodating mutually contradictory ideas in his own world view. It is more important that stories or narratives are useful than that they are consistent.

Critics of postmodernism point out that all this stifles real debate on important topics and makes any meaningful exchange of views impossible. They also ask the question: "If man cannot know objective truth then how can we know that the statement 'man cannot know objective truth' is objectively true?"

Intolerance and Cultural Tyranny

Clearly given the postmodern view of human nature and culture, any claim to possess objective truth is incorrect, but more than that, such a claim is dangerous. It is dangerous because when individuals mistake their own culturally-conditioned views of the world for The Truth, they then attempt to subjugate others and impose these views upon them. Our own society is held to provide a good example of such oppression. According to postmodernist theory, the dominant "stories" or "narratives" of contemporary Western society are the products of a white, male, heterosexual, Euro-centric culture, and other groups like women, homosexuals and ethnic minorities have been disempowered. What has been presented as objective truth is nothing more than propaganda which has served the interests of special groups. The Western scientific viewpoint which has come to dominate the globe does not correspond with reality, but is simply a set of ideas which has been used to manipulate those considered less scientific and therefore more primitive.

Intolerance in the past has resulted in widespread victimization, and in a society which reflects the values of white males it has manifested itself in racism, nationalism, sexism, speciesism and religious intolerance. Absolutists or totalists (postmodernist terms) have goosestepped their way over all who did not share their views of reality. Postmoderns on the other hand offer in place of truth claims the narratives and stories of various cultures and subgroups, all of which are equally valid. Interestingly postmoderns call attention to victimization, intolerance and cultural tyranny, but it is difficult to see how they can condemn such things as "wrong" if no absolute ethical standard exists.

Now uncritical acceptance of all points of view can easily result in the very intolerance it sought to destroy and critics frequently point out that in reality postmoderns practice a selective form of tolerance. For example they roundly condemn any religious system like Christianity or any philosophical system like Marxism which claims to represent objective truth. Adherents to such systems are opposed as dangerous "totalisers" or "absolutists," and seem to be the exception to the rule that all views are equally valid. Speech and behaviour codes defining appropriate and inappropriate behaviour for students on some university campuses provide another example of tolerance breeding intolerance among postmoderns. In his Reason in the Balance Philip E. Johnson points out:

"The mixture of extreme partisanship with relativism is what has created that absurd fanaticism of the victims which goes by the name of 'political correctness.' The campus speech codes and sensitivity-training sessions seem fanatical only to outsiders of course and 'they' are by definition oppressors. If the elite university campuses of today are providing a preview of the postmodernist society of tomorrow, we may be in for an era of self righteous bullying."

Education

Unlike the modernist who understands knowledge to consist in the correct understanding of an objective reality, the postmodern argues that what we call knowledge is in fact an invention of the human mind. In this context the postmodern speaks of knowledge as a "construction" of the mind, and all such "constructions" are of equal worth regardless of whether they come from teacher or student. Traditionally teachers in the classroom may have thought that they were involved in the communication of truth buttressed by sound argumentation and good evidence, but in fact they were using their position of power to impose their own constructs upon students whose equally useful mental inventions were suppressed or marginalized. Of course the teachers' constructs were the product of his or her own cultural conditioning so here we have another example of cultural tyranny. Philip Johnson has the following to say about postmodernists in what he calls the campus culture war:

"They say that the 'canon' of writers deemed worthy of study systematically favours dead white males, that supposed "objective" standards mask race, gender and class bias and that the most important thing about an individual is his or her membership in a subgroup (gays, women, African-Americans) rather than his or her identity either as an individual or as a member of the general scholarly culture. Some of them say that the purpose of education, at least in the humanities, is political transformation and empowerment, not learning a tradition that is allegedly responsible for their own oppression."

The postmodern advocates the creation of a more student-centred teaching situation in which pupils are able to "construct" their own versions of the way things really are. Such an environment takes into account different approaches to learning, is not highly structured and is designed is to provide opportunities for pupil interaction, independent exploration and creativity. The teacher is to avoid damaging the pupil's self-esteem or acting in an authoritarian manner by telling the pupil that his solution to a particular problem is wrong. After all the pupil's solution may be appropriate for him. Above all the teacher must be careful not to impose his own values (such as those emerging from a white, male, heterosexual, Euro-centric culture) upon students when teaching subjects such as language and history. Instead the teacher is to empower the pupil to develop (construct) values which are useful is to him in his own particular culture. Care must be taken not to challenge children's emotions since this amounts to the imposition of values, while the importance of intuition is to be emphasised. (Understandable if rational thought is suspect).

Science

In view of the assumptions underlying postmodernism it is hardly surprising that adherents to this world view are highly critical of the scientific enterprise as it has developed in the West. For a start it is clear that if all perceptions of the world are subjective this includes scientific observations as well. What's more the very laws of thought governing the scientific process are nothing more than socially inculcated ways of thinking, while the assumptions undergirding this discipline are the productions of a culture dominated by white, male, Euro-centrists. Moreover science has polluted the globe, empowered colonial powers to suppress indigenous peoples and equipped business magnates to exploit the rest of mankind. When scientists and others speak of "progress" this is simply a codeword for the domination of other cultures.

Postmodern criticisms of science usually involve an appeal to the work of Thomas Kuhn whose book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has had a profound influence upon the philosophy of science. Kuhn speaks of what he calls "the priority of the paradigm" and provides many examples of the great lengths to which members of the scientific community have gone to defend particular theories. Kuhn's work confirms the belief of many in the postmodernist movement that science provides no real account of objective truth.

The Legal System

Predictably the postmodern questions the view that the rule of law in a democracy is a safeguard against the whims of capricious rulers, and argues that in reality the interpreters and enforcers of law are in effect society's rulers. Interpretation of law is subjective and in fact the laws themselves are nothing more than the majority's conception of justice. The powerful in society are always the interpreters of law, using it to further their own interests while the powerless (the poor, the minorities) never participate in this process. Since laws are framed by society's powerful majority, they invariably work to protect the security of this group by criminalizing any activities of disempowered minorities which could threaten their own interests. According to postmoderns then, legal principles do not reflect absolutes but instead the pattern of power within a given culture.

The 1970's saw the emergence of The Critical Legal Studies Movement in the United States, a movement grounded in the proposition that the law is an instrument of domination. Arguing that objectivity is impossible and that language means different things to different groups, the movement criticised the existing legal system as an instrument of patriarchy and racism.

Deconstruction

Postmodernists are wont to speak of the "significance" which particular cultures attach to different ways of acting, and given their rejection of absolutes it makes more sense to use this term than to use terms like "good" and "bad." Cultures of course determine what is significant for them, and groups will differ in this assessment. In this context it is important to understand that the fundamental concern of every group is its own survival. Now because of this, the things which each group declares to be significant are ultimately manifestations of that group's attempt to retain power (e.g. a legal system which preserves the power of the dominant culture).

Closely associated with the idea that whatever a particular group declares to be significant represents an attempt on the part of that group to preserve power is the notion that all claims and assertions of facts can be analysed in terms of the agenda lying behind them. In other words it is possible to go beneath the surface meaning of texts or institutions and to expose them for what they really are, namely attempts to protect power, to retain control, and to manipulate others. Now this analysis is called deconstruction and it is an important ingredient in postmodernist thought. Deconstructionism began as a method of interpreting literary texts, and its basic tenet was that the importance of a text lies, not in the author's intended meaning but rather in the reader's subjective understanding. The author has no authority over the text, and anyway his intention can never be know. There is no one meaning to the text, reader bias cannot be eliminated and the reader's own subjective understanding is central.

The above is important because postmoderns view all areas of life, religion, history, law, government, social values and the rest as texts to be deconstructed. These "texts" are to be taken apart and the presuppositions underlying them are to be exposed. Behind text lies cultural reality. Thus for example, a particular account of past events may purport to deal with a nation's history and may appear to do so on the surface, but deconstruction reveals it for what it is, an attempt to legitimize the claims of a particular group. A document like the Bible may claim to be a revelation from God, but deconstruction helps us understand that it represents the attempt of one group (e.g. priests, males) to oppress and manipulate another (non-priests, females). The legal system of a nation may claim to enforce the rule of law for the benefit of its people as a whole, but in fact it has developed as a tool of the powerful. Thus the postmodern deconstructs a "text" exposing such biases as sexism, racism and homophobia and anything else which may have been used for the purpose of control. What the "text" leaves out (e.g. women's perspectives) also exposes conscious or unconscious motives. Interestingly a plethora of books has emerged from the movement itself and of course this prompts us to consider the interesting point made by D.A. Carson in his book The Gagging of God:

" 'You are a deconstructionist,' I told her, 'but you expect me to interpret your words aright. More precisely, you are upset because I seem to be divorcing the meaning I claim to see in your words from your intent. Thus, implicitly you affirm the link between text and authorial intent. I have never read a deconstructionist who would be pleased if a reviewer misinterpreted his or her work: thus in practice deconstructionists implicitly link their own texts with their own intentions. I simply want the same courtesy extended to Paul.' "

Man and the Realm of Nature

As we have seen the emphasis upon the priority of the group means that the postmodern does not share the secular humanist's elevated view of the individual, but more than this, the postmodern also denies the specialness of man among the other creatures on the planet. While I am keen to save the whales and to preserve other endangered species, I was surprised to learn that in some quarters today it is bad form to speak of owning a pet because ownership of one species by another is "speciesism." Instead we are "guardians" of our cats and dogs.

Christianity in the Postmodern Era

First century Christianity did not arise in a vacuum and it is clear from the New Testament documents that from the very outset the apostles had to deal with problems arising from syncretism or the attempt to reconcile Christianity to differing schools of thought (e.g. Gnosticism). Throughout history Christians have had to confront the ever present threat of compromise with man-made philosophies and traditions, since the dilution of the gospel destroys its power to save. Our age is no exception and Christians need to be alert to the danger of reading scripture through the lens of postmodern thought.

Finding Common Ground

Of course the Christian sympathises with and understands the current disenchantment with the values which have come to dominate Western culture since about the time of the Renaissance. Christians agree that sole reliance upon human reason is doomed to failure but they are quick to add that the answer is not to dismiss the notion of truth, but to ensure that reason is guided by divine revelation. Christians too lament the fact that our definition of progress has led to the exploitation of many different groups and the arrogant dismissal of competing views, but they point out that this can only be called unjust if a universal moral standard exists.

Christians accept that membership of a social group is very important to the well-being of the individual and point to the church as an example, but they also insist that the human being finds ultimate fulfilment only in a relationship with his Creator. In short it is possible for the Christian to find common ground and shared concerns with the postmodern and this may permit him to then present the gospel as the answer.

The Danger of Compromise and Influence

On the other hand there is always the danger that in striving for relevance the church will attempt to accommodate the major tenets of a prevailing world view and that the distinctiveness of the Christian message will be sacrificed for the sake of respectability and peace with the world. There is abundant evidence that many of the assumptions undergirding postmodernism have influenced the thinking of many who would classify themselves as Bible believers. Many for example are reluctant to affirm that there is but one body of divinely-revealed truth, the Bible, and but one channel to God, Jesus Christ. Clearly this impacts upon evangelism. Why share the gospel with the mystic who is simply taking a different path to the same God?

The influence of deconstructionism is not hard to detect either. Increasingly we hear the assertion that scripture has different meanings for different people and that dogmatism about doctrinal matters is evidence of arrogance and exclusion. It is clear that many today favour the "what it means to me" approach to scripture above the grammatical-historical approach, making the reader the focus rather than the Author. The reader becomes the constructor of his own truth. In some quarters we hear more and more about encountering God and experiencing God and less and less about apostolic doctrines and propositional truth. Different groups believing themselves to have been marginalized have deconstructed scripture in an attempt is to meet their own needs, and so in place of Theology we now have Feminist Theology, or this or that kind of theology. A movement known as nonfoundationalism has emerged in theological studies and it represents an attempt to set theology adrift from its foundation (which should of course be scripture) and to link it to the needs of a changing community. These are but a few examples of how postmodernist thought has had an impact upon the way many are reading scripture today.

Paul tells us that he became all things to all men in order to win them for Christ, but Paul did not mean by this that he compromised the truth so as to accommodate Greek philosophy, mystery religion or Judaism. Christians in every age and culture need to know something about the influences which have shaped the thinking of their society and they need to combine this with a determination to share an undiluted gospel with those who will heed it.

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