Trout
April 29th 2007, 10:27 AM
Introduction
We live in a postmodern world. Aspiring theologians, philosophers, politicians, scientists and teachers must all accept the fact that civilization is observing the twilight of the modern age. This is not to say that modernism, or more specifically the ideals of the modern age, will not continue to survive at least nominally. The birthplace of modernity, Europe, is still largely secular in most countries though the resurgence of Islam is challenging this paradigm. America seems to be quite split at the time as is consistently reflected in each election, though in this humble observer’s eyes modernity is beginning to give way.
Of course, at the crossroads of any movement of significance there is confusion and equivocation- postmodernism is well within procedure at this point. Unfortunately, the nature and scope of the debate has caused misunderstanding nearly beyond recognition. One gets the feeling that the two sides either do not comprehend the terms of the discussion, or they are locked in some kind of intellectual inertia and choose to filibuster rather than engage. With this is mind, how can I expect to make any more progress than anyone else? This is a fair question, and one that has plagued me ever since I agreed to pursue this almost unreasonable task. I can come up with only three partial (and perhaps unsatisfactory) replies. One, my aim for this is rather modest considering some attempts at framing the dispute. You will find no answer to the probing questions here, only an attempt to give some background for each side. For example, I do not know the extent of change postmodernism demands for the “post-liberal” theologian. I’ll leave that up to the seminarians. If the anti-reductionism succeeds in becoming the ruling scientific paradigm, I will not be able to prophecy what it would mean in any branch of science. There are a few misunderstandings that are probably obvious enough to assert and clear, and I hope the readers will follow my rather trivial arguments. Second, to the sophisticated postmodernist my attempts here will provide material to work through like an archeologist. Always deconstructing, they realize that I am no neutral observer and must take into account multiple aspects of a very situated commentator in order to unravel any meaning. This will merely be another story to take merge into their story (or not, if they find the feigned objectivity too arrogant). And lastly, if this proves faithful to the facts and is found to be a reasonable outline of the way things are, the modernist may be able to come away feeling more confident about dealing with their neighborhood postmodernist proselytizer. With this in mind, we will begin with a very short (and dangerously inadequate) discussion of the two broad categories of postmodernist.
*Many thanks to James K. A. Smith for his patient handling of my questions. His books and journal articles are a must read for anyone interested in postmodernism. I also thank my teacher Mark Stevenson for his lively rejoinders to Jamie as well as his insights into the postmodern issue. Their sincerity and tenacity make me laugh at the thought of them being classmates at Emmaus.
Narratives and Naives
“Everything is relative”, says the overeducated junior of Poupon U, adding “of course there are no absolutes. Values and truth vary from culture to culture.” I call this naïve postmodernism, in that it does not properly represent the views of postmodernist thinkers. This does not mean that various “conventionalists” do not peddle these zingers in the comfort of their tenured university positions. It does mean that any postmodernist worth his or her salt would groan at the intellectual laziness of these sophists. It is because of this unreasonableness that makes them unworthy of much discussion, save distinguishing this “position” from that of contemporary postmodernism.
Sophisticated postmodernism (henceforth postmodernism) is not easy to pin down, for the simple reason that it is by its very nature reactionary. As I stated above, there are many branches to postmodernity that warrant further discussion but leave me quite at wits end. This is why we will look at the claims of postmodernity as it has presented itself professionally.
What, then, is postmodernism? The usual answer propagated by Evangelical apologists is the infamous “incredulity toward metanarratives.”1 Metanarrative, or Grand Story, is often taken as a universal story. This is a very big mistake, and one that can halt debate very quickly. Postmodernists are not worried about the scope of belief systems, though they probably do harbor doubts concerning systematic explanations. What they take offense to is the grounding of the story. According to postmodernists, the demise of foundationalism2 entails postmodernism necessarily. No “narrative” or story (science, theology, philosophy, etc.) can possibly “legitimize” their own truth. Jamie Smith sums up the postmodern position as such:
“At root, I would argue that what is at stake in postmodernism is the relationship between faith and reason.” 3
This is one of the major roadblocks in the postmodern debate today. It is not about universal doubt applied to everything, it is about neutrality. We are all firmly situated in our own circumstances, and we do not possess a bird’s-eye view of uninterpreted facts just waiting to be placed in their set order. They must be digested, mulled over, deconstructed and compared.
A few weeks ago, while struggling through a particularly poor translation of Derrida, I went to a philosophy professor of a neighboring university for help. I told him that something just wasn’t clicking- what exactly is he deconstructing? How did it become constructed in the first place? He told me one of the most helpful lines I heard for a long time- postmodernist thinkers are anti-realist. They believe that we are surrounded by constructions of reality (hence deconstruction). For example, an experience reading through Plato’s dialogues may seem like it speaks directly to us in a sort of basic way, but consciously or not we are always deconstructing the text according to the non-neutral participant we are. It is very likely that a philosophy student will get a very different meaning from the parable of the cave than that of an Indian theologian. We simply deconstruct Plato in divergent ways. Reality is very much the same- our whole lives we are fed a “story”, experience another and mix it all up into our own personal interpretive device. Now hopefully you understand the postmodernist problem with a self-legitimizing claim based on universal reason, and see the differences between this position and that of the naïve postmodernist (the relativist group).
Bulverism
Some may notice that this term has its origins in the work of one C.S. Lewis, specifically his God in the Dock. The term itself comes from an imaginary conversation Lewis envisions with a young Ezekiel Bulver listening in. The subject matter itself is of very little importance, until Ezekiel hears his mother make the statement, “You are only saying that because you are a man!” Suddenly it occurs to him- you can rebut an argument simply by drawing attention to the origins of the one presenting it!
This seems to me to be a real concern. Imagine the day when arguments are dissected by looking up the opposition’s history! Unfortunately, that seems to be entailed by the majority of academic postmodernity, and is a matter that must be dealt with clearly and quickly.
Coherentism
In many respects, postmodernism is a mood. As far as that goes, I have very little to say. However, the chief arguments for postmodernism come from epistemological considerations. That is, postmodernism is concerned with how someone justifies his or her beliefs as true. To better understand how a postmodernist would view knowledge, perhaps it is best to understand what they are universally rebelling against- foundationalism.
Foundationalism is perhaps the most popular and widely held theory of knowledge in history. Roughly, it states that all beliefs are either true because they are supported by evidence or true because they are true by definition (they are necessarily true). A foundationalist would say that all knowledge is built into a structure, much like a building. Your foundation (necessary truths) is built upon by other evidential bits of knowledge, all justified by the chunk of knowledge below it. Though this view went more or less unchallenged for millennia, it is now largely rejected for a simple reason- it is self-defeating. When one makes the statement “All knowledge is either true by definition or on the basis of evidence”, it does not seem that the foundationalist is on secure ground. In fact, that very definition of foundationalism is incoherent because it itself does not appear to be justified on either of those grounds.
With foundationalism defeated, most, of not all, postmodernists have developed a more holistic approach to the problem of foundationalism.
Largely, they have answered with what has been called “Coherentism”, or the theory that one’s beliefs are justified by their relations to other beliefs. W.V.O. Quine asks us to think of a web. This web is full of interrelated parts that are judged “true” insofar as they are consistent with one another (that is, the parts fit together). Perhaps the best illustration of the difference between coherence and foundations is a speculative series of questions asked to each of them. If you were to ask a foundationalist why he believes his particular beliefs are justified, he will tell you that he believes he is correct because he holds his belief on the basis of evidence. If you ask him about that evidence, he will answer that this evidence is also to be believed on the basis of something else, more basic and less dubitable. As you can seem this leads to a regress of sorts, and one must ask, “Does this chain of questions go on forever?” The foundationalist says no, because the regress ends in on a firm foundation of justification which would be irrational to deny. The coherentist, on the other hand, rejects this idea of an ending point, and claims that this series of justifications loops around in a circle- there is no stopping point.
As one can deduce from a bit of abstract reflection, it would be possible for two completely coherent systems of belief that do not contradict what is thought to be true. This is perhaps best seen in the theories of Thomas Kuhn, whose paradigm theories are an obvious representation of Coherentism in science. For Kuhn, it is not that some scientific theories are truer than others; they are simply different from each other. While Kuhn’s theories are well outside of this project, you would do well to acquaint yourself with his substantial undertaking.
Before we drop the curtain on this particular subject, I will note that postmodernism, while overwhelmingly adopting some sort of coherentist epistemology, is not a system of philosophy proper. There are counterexamples to nearly every illustration I’ve given, so the readers would do themselves harm to generalize the views of a few onto many.
Here’s the Rub
My duty has been to help clean up the bounds of the debate, as well as help alleviate some of the low blows inflicted upon this movement. There are still sincere questions for our postmodernist friends that seem to get danced around. You may think that some of them have been answered appropriately, and some are my own sincere reservations:
So what? Whatever you think science is, it has worked and progressed largely due to modernistic assumptions.
We must remember that the postmodernist is not so much interested in individual cases of what has or hasn’t worked. It wants to show that, say, science, does not have the ability to explain its success by itself. It is not built upon the objective march of men appealing to universal reason. They are not nihilists- they are attempting to show that even science has groundless presuppositions that more or less resemble the faith of the ancient church fathers.
Is the Bible another book that is to be deconstructed the same as any other text?
I do not myself feel qualified to answer such a query with much success, but in a sense the Bible is to be deconstructed like any other text. Though this question/veiled objection seems to carry some weight, is there much of a difference between the deconstruction of the postmodernist and the exegesis of the scholar?
On what grounds does the postmodernist critique modernism?
Postmodernism is not about destroying reason, but rather is aimed at the Enlightenment project of Cartesian certainty and autonomy. This seems to create more problems than it solves- the answer that fits the mood of the debate the best is “by faith”, even if they do not label it as such.
Personal Notes and Conclusion
I have attempted to give some useful information to those actively involved in the church and community. Postmodernism, as has been noted, is a frighteningly large and confused subject, and for anyone to interact with this lusus naturae is to be commended. In this next section I will give a few subjective thoughts (if that is not a repetition thought, I don’t know what is) that are bound to contain mistakes and emotion. It is with hope that it is useful that I share them.
My first thought when I became an undergrad is that all the teachers were going to be relativistic Socialists and orgy-loving rascals. Though I may have been partially correct for a few of them, my paranoia proved hasty and I quickly learned that they knew quite a bit more than I knew. Something I wasn’t ready for was the fact that they knew they were educated and would not stall making a fool of backwater, idealist students. And this is something that I have encountered with the majority of hard-line postmodernist I have interacted with- they do not seem to be postmodernists because they feel compelled that it is the correct position (if indeed correct positions exist for the sophisticated postmodern). Rather, they have a sort of attitude about them that just bleeds ability and accomplishment. In short, they seem pompous. Now, this goes for professional postmodernists more than anything, who derides anyone who claims to have any sort of privileged position when it comes to reality and our knowledge of it. Ironically, this seems to be the one thing a postmodernist cannot do.
Postmodernism may also be a bit of an overreaction. Martin Luther once remarked that the drunken man, after falling off one side of the horse, follows by falling off the other side. Perhaps modernity needs to be replaced or supplemented (or qualified), but postmodernity seems to bring along costly extremes with its helpful criticisms. One is reminded of the poor woman who swears off men on account of a few substandard relationships.
Lastly, I would like to add that I have a great deal of respect for the concerns of the postmodernist. I think many of their observations of the failures of modernity are direct hits and need to be digested and analyzed by any responsible thinker. This is not something that is going to go away, and one does an incredible amount of harm to society by speculating on the sidelines. Postmodernists are known for acting according to their convictions; we all have a responsibility to meet this challenge on all fronts, taking the best from it and rejecting the worst.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
END NOTES:
1) Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 24.
2) By foundationalism I mean the belief that all facts are grounded upon an indubitable base. For example, my thinking I exist could be built on the indubitable foundation that doubting I exist entails I am a thinking thing, and a thinking thing must exist. It is largely conceded that foundationalism, which traces its heritage mostly to Descartes (some trace it to Plato), has been defeated.
3) Myron Penner, Christianity and the Postmodern Turn (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005), 132.
We live in a postmodern world. Aspiring theologians, philosophers, politicians, scientists and teachers must all accept the fact that civilization is observing the twilight of the modern age. This is not to say that modernism, or more specifically the ideals of the modern age, will not continue to survive at least nominally. The birthplace of modernity, Europe, is still largely secular in most countries though the resurgence of Islam is challenging this paradigm. America seems to be quite split at the time as is consistently reflected in each election, though in this humble observer’s eyes modernity is beginning to give way.
Of course, at the crossroads of any movement of significance there is confusion and equivocation- postmodernism is well within procedure at this point. Unfortunately, the nature and scope of the debate has caused misunderstanding nearly beyond recognition. One gets the feeling that the two sides either do not comprehend the terms of the discussion, or they are locked in some kind of intellectual inertia and choose to filibuster rather than engage. With this is mind, how can I expect to make any more progress than anyone else? This is a fair question, and one that has plagued me ever since I agreed to pursue this almost unreasonable task. I can come up with only three partial (and perhaps unsatisfactory) replies. One, my aim for this is rather modest considering some attempts at framing the dispute. You will find no answer to the probing questions here, only an attempt to give some background for each side. For example, I do not know the extent of change postmodernism demands for the “post-liberal” theologian. I’ll leave that up to the seminarians. If the anti-reductionism succeeds in becoming the ruling scientific paradigm, I will not be able to prophecy what it would mean in any branch of science. There are a few misunderstandings that are probably obvious enough to assert and clear, and I hope the readers will follow my rather trivial arguments. Second, to the sophisticated postmodernist my attempts here will provide material to work through like an archeologist. Always deconstructing, they realize that I am no neutral observer and must take into account multiple aspects of a very situated commentator in order to unravel any meaning. This will merely be another story to take merge into their story (or not, if they find the feigned objectivity too arrogant). And lastly, if this proves faithful to the facts and is found to be a reasonable outline of the way things are, the modernist may be able to come away feeling more confident about dealing with their neighborhood postmodernist proselytizer. With this in mind, we will begin with a very short (and dangerously inadequate) discussion of the two broad categories of postmodernist.
*Many thanks to James K. A. Smith for his patient handling of my questions. His books and journal articles are a must read for anyone interested in postmodernism. I also thank my teacher Mark Stevenson for his lively rejoinders to Jamie as well as his insights into the postmodern issue. Their sincerity and tenacity make me laugh at the thought of them being classmates at Emmaus.
Narratives and Naives
“Everything is relative”, says the overeducated junior of Poupon U, adding “of course there are no absolutes. Values and truth vary from culture to culture.” I call this naïve postmodernism, in that it does not properly represent the views of postmodernist thinkers. This does not mean that various “conventionalists” do not peddle these zingers in the comfort of their tenured university positions. It does mean that any postmodernist worth his or her salt would groan at the intellectual laziness of these sophists. It is because of this unreasonableness that makes them unworthy of much discussion, save distinguishing this “position” from that of contemporary postmodernism.
Sophisticated postmodernism (henceforth postmodernism) is not easy to pin down, for the simple reason that it is by its very nature reactionary. As I stated above, there are many branches to postmodernity that warrant further discussion but leave me quite at wits end. This is why we will look at the claims of postmodernity as it has presented itself professionally.
What, then, is postmodernism? The usual answer propagated by Evangelical apologists is the infamous “incredulity toward metanarratives.”1 Metanarrative, or Grand Story, is often taken as a universal story. This is a very big mistake, and one that can halt debate very quickly. Postmodernists are not worried about the scope of belief systems, though they probably do harbor doubts concerning systematic explanations. What they take offense to is the grounding of the story. According to postmodernists, the demise of foundationalism2 entails postmodernism necessarily. No “narrative” or story (science, theology, philosophy, etc.) can possibly “legitimize” their own truth. Jamie Smith sums up the postmodern position as such:
“At root, I would argue that what is at stake in postmodernism is the relationship between faith and reason.” 3
This is one of the major roadblocks in the postmodern debate today. It is not about universal doubt applied to everything, it is about neutrality. We are all firmly situated in our own circumstances, and we do not possess a bird’s-eye view of uninterpreted facts just waiting to be placed in their set order. They must be digested, mulled over, deconstructed and compared.
A few weeks ago, while struggling through a particularly poor translation of Derrida, I went to a philosophy professor of a neighboring university for help. I told him that something just wasn’t clicking- what exactly is he deconstructing? How did it become constructed in the first place? He told me one of the most helpful lines I heard for a long time- postmodernist thinkers are anti-realist. They believe that we are surrounded by constructions of reality (hence deconstruction). For example, an experience reading through Plato’s dialogues may seem like it speaks directly to us in a sort of basic way, but consciously or not we are always deconstructing the text according to the non-neutral participant we are. It is very likely that a philosophy student will get a very different meaning from the parable of the cave than that of an Indian theologian. We simply deconstruct Plato in divergent ways. Reality is very much the same- our whole lives we are fed a “story”, experience another and mix it all up into our own personal interpretive device. Now hopefully you understand the postmodernist problem with a self-legitimizing claim based on universal reason, and see the differences between this position and that of the naïve postmodernist (the relativist group).
Bulverism
Some may notice that this term has its origins in the work of one C.S. Lewis, specifically his God in the Dock. The term itself comes from an imaginary conversation Lewis envisions with a young Ezekiel Bulver listening in. The subject matter itself is of very little importance, until Ezekiel hears his mother make the statement, “You are only saying that because you are a man!” Suddenly it occurs to him- you can rebut an argument simply by drawing attention to the origins of the one presenting it!
This seems to me to be a real concern. Imagine the day when arguments are dissected by looking up the opposition’s history! Unfortunately, that seems to be entailed by the majority of academic postmodernity, and is a matter that must be dealt with clearly and quickly.
Coherentism
In many respects, postmodernism is a mood. As far as that goes, I have very little to say. However, the chief arguments for postmodernism come from epistemological considerations. That is, postmodernism is concerned with how someone justifies his or her beliefs as true. To better understand how a postmodernist would view knowledge, perhaps it is best to understand what they are universally rebelling against- foundationalism.
Foundationalism is perhaps the most popular and widely held theory of knowledge in history. Roughly, it states that all beliefs are either true because they are supported by evidence or true because they are true by definition (they are necessarily true). A foundationalist would say that all knowledge is built into a structure, much like a building. Your foundation (necessary truths) is built upon by other evidential bits of knowledge, all justified by the chunk of knowledge below it. Though this view went more or less unchallenged for millennia, it is now largely rejected for a simple reason- it is self-defeating. When one makes the statement “All knowledge is either true by definition or on the basis of evidence”, it does not seem that the foundationalist is on secure ground. In fact, that very definition of foundationalism is incoherent because it itself does not appear to be justified on either of those grounds.
With foundationalism defeated, most, of not all, postmodernists have developed a more holistic approach to the problem of foundationalism.
Largely, they have answered with what has been called “Coherentism”, or the theory that one’s beliefs are justified by their relations to other beliefs. W.V.O. Quine asks us to think of a web. This web is full of interrelated parts that are judged “true” insofar as they are consistent with one another (that is, the parts fit together). Perhaps the best illustration of the difference between coherence and foundations is a speculative series of questions asked to each of them. If you were to ask a foundationalist why he believes his particular beliefs are justified, he will tell you that he believes he is correct because he holds his belief on the basis of evidence. If you ask him about that evidence, he will answer that this evidence is also to be believed on the basis of something else, more basic and less dubitable. As you can seem this leads to a regress of sorts, and one must ask, “Does this chain of questions go on forever?” The foundationalist says no, because the regress ends in on a firm foundation of justification which would be irrational to deny. The coherentist, on the other hand, rejects this idea of an ending point, and claims that this series of justifications loops around in a circle- there is no stopping point.
As one can deduce from a bit of abstract reflection, it would be possible for two completely coherent systems of belief that do not contradict what is thought to be true. This is perhaps best seen in the theories of Thomas Kuhn, whose paradigm theories are an obvious representation of Coherentism in science. For Kuhn, it is not that some scientific theories are truer than others; they are simply different from each other. While Kuhn’s theories are well outside of this project, you would do well to acquaint yourself with his substantial undertaking.
Before we drop the curtain on this particular subject, I will note that postmodernism, while overwhelmingly adopting some sort of coherentist epistemology, is not a system of philosophy proper. There are counterexamples to nearly every illustration I’ve given, so the readers would do themselves harm to generalize the views of a few onto many.
Here’s the Rub
My duty has been to help clean up the bounds of the debate, as well as help alleviate some of the low blows inflicted upon this movement. There are still sincere questions for our postmodernist friends that seem to get danced around. You may think that some of them have been answered appropriately, and some are my own sincere reservations:
So what? Whatever you think science is, it has worked and progressed largely due to modernistic assumptions.
We must remember that the postmodernist is not so much interested in individual cases of what has or hasn’t worked. It wants to show that, say, science, does not have the ability to explain its success by itself. It is not built upon the objective march of men appealing to universal reason. They are not nihilists- they are attempting to show that even science has groundless presuppositions that more or less resemble the faith of the ancient church fathers.
Is the Bible another book that is to be deconstructed the same as any other text?
I do not myself feel qualified to answer such a query with much success, but in a sense the Bible is to be deconstructed like any other text. Though this question/veiled objection seems to carry some weight, is there much of a difference between the deconstruction of the postmodernist and the exegesis of the scholar?
On what grounds does the postmodernist critique modernism?
Postmodernism is not about destroying reason, but rather is aimed at the Enlightenment project of Cartesian certainty and autonomy. This seems to create more problems than it solves- the answer that fits the mood of the debate the best is “by faith”, even if they do not label it as such.
Personal Notes and Conclusion
I have attempted to give some useful information to those actively involved in the church and community. Postmodernism, as has been noted, is a frighteningly large and confused subject, and for anyone to interact with this lusus naturae is to be commended. In this next section I will give a few subjective thoughts (if that is not a repetition thought, I don’t know what is) that are bound to contain mistakes and emotion. It is with hope that it is useful that I share them.
My first thought when I became an undergrad is that all the teachers were going to be relativistic Socialists and orgy-loving rascals. Though I may have been partially correct for a few of them, my paranoia proved hasty and I quickly learned that they knew quite a bit more than I knew. Something I wasn’t ready for was the fact that they knew they were educated and would not stall making a fool of backwater, idealist students. And this is something that I have encountered with the majority of hard-line postmodernist I have interacted with- they do not seem to be postmodernists because they feel compelled that it is the correct position (if indeed correct positions exist for the sophisticated postmodern). Rather, they have a sort of attitude about them that just bleeds ability and accomplishment. In short, they seem pompous. Now, this goes for professional postmodernists more than anything, who derides anyone who claims to have any sort of privileged position when it comes to reality and our knowledge of it. Ironically, this seems to be the one thing a postmodernist cannot do.
Postmodernism may also be a bit of an overreaction. Martin Luther once remarked that the drunken man, after falling off one side of the horse, follows by falling off the other side. Perhaps modernity needs to be replaced or supplemented (or qualified), but postmodernity seems to bring along costly extremes with its helpful criticisms. One is reminded of the poor woman who swears off men on account of a few substandard relationships.
Lastly, I would like to add that I have a great deal of respect for the concerns of the postmodernist. I think many of their observations of the failures of modernity are direct hits and need to be digested and analyzed by any responsible thinker. This is not something that is going to go away, and one does an incredible amount of harm to society by speculating on the sidelines. Postmodernists are known for acting according to their convictions; we all have a responsibility to meet this challenge on all fronts, taking the best from it and rejecting the worst.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
END NOTES:
1) Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 24.
2) By foundationalism I mean the belief that all facts are grounded upon an indubitable base. For example, my thinking I exist could be built on the indubitable foundation that doubting I exist entails I am a thinking thing, and a thinking thing must exist. It is largely conceded that foundationalism, which traces its heritage mostly to Descartes (some trace it to Plato), has been defeated.
3) Myron Penner, Christianity and the Postmodern Turn (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005), 132.