You're probably thinking of existentialism, if you know your philosophy, and of catch-phrases like "moral relativism" and "no absolute truth" and "creating your own reality". But this is not the post-modernism that Kierkegaard so painfully birthed. This is not the existentialism that he fathered.
So, here's the transcript of a chat I had with my mother back in May. It started with her asking me to help with a sermon she was writing on the validity of Scripture in today's world. "Nashorn777" is my mom.
nashorn777: this is what I have so far: The Relevancy of Scripture in our day
Is the Bible still relevant in the 21st century?
All scripture is God-breathed
We need it to feed our souls, to grow, to learn about God
He commands us to study it
It speaks to the human soul, which hasn’t changed at all
It is living, active, a two-edged sword
It is historically relevant, archaelologically sound
Final authority for all matters of faith and practice
God doesn’t change, neither does His word
It is a moral compass in a post-modern amoral world
me: I think the premise needs work
also, what's wrong with being post-modern?
post-modernism is not the opposite of moral absolutism.
nashorn777: lol
I know. it's the anything goes if it feels right to you thing
me: that is not post-modernism
nashorn777: this was just off the cuff
?
me: that is misapplication of existential teachings
which were fathered by Kierkegaard, who was a Christian, if you remember.
nashorn777: okay, enlighten me , oh wise one
me: existentialism is a wonderful philosophy. It says that I am allowed to have an opinion. that "my" say matters
me: but it also allows "me" to be wrong
me: the problem is the leap in logic.
in the pre-existentialist era, only the statements of the elect (the educated, the church, etc.) mattered. And even then, they were rarely single persons expressing opinions, but rather formalized statements of beliefs to guide the people
existentialism states, however, that the layperson's opinion matters equally as much as the consensus.
That a single individual CAN change common thought
however, post-modernism does NOT preclude that all ideas/opinions are equally valid
the consensus can be correct, and the individual wrong,
or the individual right and the people wrong
or both can be equally right or wrong
This is the idea that most things can not be "either/or" but must needs be "both/and"
nashorn777: must needs be?
me: however the misapplication of this is the leap of logic that if two ideas can be equally close to being right, that there is no definite right at all
sorry
got a little ahead of myself
nashorn777: this excites you, eh?
me: see, but existentialism holds that there IS an absolute right and wrong, and that certain ideas get closer to one, etc.
how'd you know?
nashorn777: you're gushing
me: I am just tired of the parental generation knocking post-modernism when it is the ideology that gave people equal rights
and all that
nashorn777: okay, down girl, down.
me: It's like what Lewis says-- you cannot reason away God, because God gave you that reason to begin with
sorry
nashorn777: but people don't have equal rights
me: aye, there's the rub.
because poor post-modern thought got polluted on the way to the voting booth
nashorn777: okay. but how does it relate to the relevancy of Scripture
me: without post-modern thought, we would never be able to say "This is what this passage means to me"
nor would we be able to apply it to our daily lives unless we encountered the actual occurences of the commands given
there would be no application of concepts, only concrete statements
which is what gets people into trouble
can I go a little bit further in history?
nashorn777: so you're saying that post-modern thought allowed the scriptures to be applied to our daily lives? God couldn't do that?
me: Don't you think God uses philosophies?
the thing is that post-modern is really a misnomer.
nashorn777: yes, but don't you think God wanted to apply His word to believers' lives before post-modern thought came around?
me: ah!
that's why we need a history lesson
nashorn777: okay, hit me
me: It was 'modern' thought that actually killed application to Scripture
If you read the writings of some of the early church fathers, you find a great deal of personal application to their lives. Augustine, especially, does this a lot. The onset of the Renaissance, however, was the death of personal application
The Renaissance ("Enlightement"-- a horrible term for this period of spiritual darkness) got people thinking in the following manner:
"This stuff was written by men hundreds of years ago. I don't deal with these issues. This can't possibly have anything to do with me"
Remember that the Enlightenment was also the beginning of philosophers disproving the existence of God.
or rather, disproving his relevance to the world today. It was the age of Deism-- the divine watchmaker
nashorn777: ah. yes I remember. Enlightened to be ignorant
me: right
This also gave the church a great deal of power, and this is where we start seeing real church oppression
the middle ages was nothing
because now the CHURCH directs common thought, not the Bible
So when we reasoned God away, we lost application
nashorn777: so the church wanted to reason God away?
me: well out of the way, anyway
I don't think they did it on purpose
well, the People didn't
Someone else did
Then comes Kierkegaard along and says "Wait a minute, I can think on my own!"
and if I can have my own thoughts and I believe in God and God's word, then I can take those things which are stated in Scripture and they become relevant to me today
So really, it was Modern thought that even raised the question of Scripture's relevance
and it is Modern thought which causes us to "reason" away our spirituality
have I done an OK job here?
I think post-modernism, properly applied, can be a great tool for revival.
nashorn777: okay, so post-modernism allows us to throw modern thought out the window.
me: well, yes
sort of
nashorn777: it is not, as assumed by many, the extreme extension of modern thought, but its correction?
me: the beauty of post-modernism is that we get to pick and choose
precisely
So valuable things that we got from modernism (like the scientific method) can be kept, but other things can be discarded as irrelevant
however, we never want to discard anything entirely, because it can be relevant in some instances (we're back to "both/and"
)
nashorn777: I get the jist
okay, then rephrase my premise
me: it's not your premise
YOUR premise, that is
it's the fact that we have to ask the question at all
that is a modernist question
All scripture is from God
We need it to feed our souls, to grow, to learn about God
It speaks to the human soul, which is in a constant state of depravity
It is living and active
It is historically relevant and archaelologically sound
It should be our final authority for all matters of faith and practice
God doesn’t change, neither does His word
It is a moral compass in a fallen world
nashorn777: sanks
me: it's all about the doctrine of the two ages
we live in "this world" and the Bible teaches us how to live beyond this world in the "world to come"
nashorn777: now yousa talking my language
4 comments:
Might I just mention that based on this chat, you mom is a very cool person.
Well, that's where I get it...
I'm Not a Post-modernist: A Comment in Two Acts
(Or, I Hope This Isn't a Deal-breaker)
You equate Kierkegaardian existentialism with post-modernism, but I have to wonder if these are actually the same thing. Actually, they are probably related, with post-modernism being a descendant of existentialism, but I think you have been very selective about the existentialism you have touted in the chat you had with your mother. What Kierkegaard did, and what has had such negative effects, was to draw a dividing line between faith and reason. Until Kierkegaard, people had sought a unified system of knowledge, a theory that would explain, or would tie together what man can know, both the spiritual and physical. Secular philosophies had failed and failed (though Reformation philosophy provided the answers), and so Kierkegaard said, "No, we cannot unify all knowledge by a single system." He despaired of doing so, and so divided knowledge into two areas. The ideas of the spiritual, of human freedom, hope, and meaningfulness, he pushed out of the realm of reason. For Kierkegaard, those higher things are to be obtained by a "leap" of faith and abandonment of reason because reason does not apply to those things. It applies to the natural, the mathematical, the measurable. Men nowadays do not talk about religious truth in the same way they talk about physical realities. The extension of Kiekegaard's leap, is that it no longer matters what you put in the upper category because it is not true or false. It is unrelated to reason and therefore autonomous of rational scrutiny. Faith itself is all that matters. Faith in what, is immaterial. Kierkegaard thought it mattered what you had faith in, but his existentialism doesn't give any reason that you should. Kierkegaard held that there was an absolute right or wrong. His brain-child, existentialism, does not hold that there is an absolute right or wrong. By being "freed" from rationality, spiritual matters may take any shape and still do the trick just fine. As long as you "believe."
I'm Not a Post-modernist, Pt. 2
Another thing. You say people applied Scripture to their lives before Kierkegaard and after Kierkegaard. So what did he do to help that? The Reformation launched about 300 years prior to Kiekegaard. It was based upon a monk's questioning the Papacy. He certainly thought he could have his own opinion. But on the other hand, even Luther read the Bible as it had been read by the church through the ages, in light of the great ecumenical creeds, etc. You're so excited about what post-modernism has done for individual assertion, but really, we should not be asking, "What does this passage mean to me?" We should be asking, "What does this passage mean?" There is only one correct interpretation. One meaning. This one meaning applies to everyone, because it is intrinsic to the text, not affected by the reader. It does, of course, apply to everyone in different ways. Which, as you pointed out, was always known and acted upon, sans Kierkegaard. If post-modernism makes everyone's opinion equally valid, it frees the layman to challenge what is taught. That is good, but be careful. It is this proliferation of self-assertive opining of everyone and his mom that Andrew Keen laments in "The Cult of the Amateur: How Blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of today's user-generated media are Destroying our Economy, our Culture, and our Values." Let me be blunt. Not everyone's opinion is equally valid. Even when both parties are wrong, one man's opinion may be more weighty than another's. A historian is more qualified to comment on the influence of the French in the American Revolution than I am. And this also applies, believe it or not, to theology. This is why seminaries are a good idea. And why we defer to the consensus of the body of the church in history, as codified in confessional statements, to arbitrate on matters of doctrine that are in dispute. God did not mean for each person to interpret the Bible on his own. "No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation," according to 2 Peter 1:20. But he gave us the church, and appointed people within it who are "able to teach." The exchange of Philip and the Ethiopian in Acts 8:28-31 is a great example that we need "someone to guide us" to understand what we read in the Bible. The idea that we don't is one the great misunderstandings of sola scriptura today.
I cannot recommend Francis Schaeffer's very short book "Escape from Reason" highly enough. Schaeffer was among the greatest modern Christian thinkers, and he looked at philosophy and art (and their relationship to each other).
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