Posted by Matt in church, philosophy, postmodernism, religion, science.
Tags: Lyotard, metanarrative, modernism, pluralism, postmodernism, relativism, truth
Again, thank you for reading and commenting. Let’s begin the third part of our look at Scripture as Metanarrative with a passage from the book of Mark:
“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36)
While the Enlightenment brought about great advances in across the scientific spectrum – from curing diseases to gaining a greater understanding of the world we find ourselves in – it also enacted quite a cost. The Christian faith faced relentless attacks from Modern thinkers, who branded it as little more than a fable that failed the rigorous tests put forth by a new, “enlightened” worldview. Many began to scoff at the idea of God and instead put their faith in the golden calf of progress and the myth that continual progress would lead to some utopian ideal. The world would be reinvented through technological progress and soon become a place free of war and hunger and hatred and, for that matter, religion. In the 20th century, the dream collapsed under the weight of world wars, mass killings, and an increase in worldwide poverty, leaving, by the end of the century, a pile of rubble where our Modern tower of Babel once stood.
The Christian faith suffered beneath the scourge of Modernity, which pushed it from the public sphere and, as those professing to faith began to accept the tenets of Modernism, the faith quickly moved from one entrenched in community to one unique to the individual. Where science and logic held the key to ultimate, objective truth, religion was seen as just another subjective experience that, in the grand scheme of things, meant very little.
The collapse of the Modern paradigm again brought humanity back to square one in terms of their understanding of the world. What would arise phoenix-like from the ashes and lead us to a brighter tomorrow?
There are a multitude of choices in today’s buffet line of life philosophies – you can accept any number of religions, you can bow to the nihilistic god of money and materialism, you can continue the Modern dream of science and strive for that unreachable goal of perfection.
Little is certain about what lies in the future, but those of the Christian faith can rejoice in the floundering Modern worldview – by its failure to live up to the lofty promises it proclaimed, the playing field has now been leveled, placing Christianity alongside the other metanarratives. Lyotard’s critique of metanarratives and reason has effectively relativized Modern claims of objective, universal truth, leaving an opening for the emerging Christian faith.
So, now that the Christian faith has been granted a place in the postmodern marketplace of ideas, we face the arduous task of maintaining it. First of all, Christians must be careful not to squander these openings using modern techniques that attempt to show the truth of the Christian faith using rational demonstrations and then impose them on a pluralistic culture. Rather, the postmodern apologetic will be based upon presuppositions. It will be one in which everyone will place their presuppositions on the proverbial table and then narrate their way through the Christian story, allowing others to see it in a way that makes sense through their own worldview.
Next: Becoming a Storytelling Church
Posted by Matt in deconstruction, philosophy, postmodernism, religion.
Tags: Christianity, deconstruction, Derrida, language, metaphor, postmodernism, relativism
Thank you, everyone, for your great comments on the last entry.
Yesterday, we took a cursory glance at Derrida’s claim that, “there is nothing outside the text,” and its implications that language is the filter through which we see the world. Language, then, is not simply what is actually written or spoken, rather it is the interpretations of our life experiences. The interpretations themselves may be of actual events or objects, but, the only way that we, as humans, have to express them is through the avenue of metaphor.
A simple example would be in your view of some concrete object. I look at my shirt and I see the color red. Waves of light are emitted from the sun, they bounce off my shirt and into my eye. My brain then instantly takes that snapshot of what it sees and compares it to prior knowledge, coming up with various descriptive words – one of which is “red.” I then unconsciously make a comparison with other “red” things I’ve looked at before in my life and think, “my shirt is red like a fire truck.” The only way for us to truly experience something is through a sort of comparative analysis that is usually done deep in the recesses of our brain. But, not everyone shares the same metaphors. Another person may look at my shirt and say to themselves, “his shirt is red like a stoplight,” or “his shirt is red like the barn near the house I grew up in.” The interpretations are not and can not be incorrect in this example (well, if say my shirt is blue then you may want to see a doctor), rather they are just based on prior knowledge gained from some life experience.
Thus, our interpretations are always based on some prior knowledge and experience.
Nobody has the same prior knowledge and experience.
Then, everyone has a different interpretation.
Therefore the “text” metaphor of our lives is relative to the individual.
Next: The Undeconstructible
Posted by Matt in deconstruction, philosophy, postmodernism.
Tags: Christianity, deconstruction, Derrida, postmodernism, relativism
The word “postmodernism” has become somewhat of a boogeyman around the Christian faith over the last several years, with many branding it as the latest threat to civilization as we know it. But, it is something that really fascinates me. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the philosophical idea of Deconstruction and how it relates to our current way of thinking in Christian circles.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, Jacques Derrida coined it in the 1960’s as a form of literary/social criticism. Perhaps the best description of this branch of philosophy comes from his work, On Grammatology, in which he makes the earth-shaking statement, “There is nothing outside the text.”
So, we ask ourselves, what does this mean? What text is Derrida speaking of? Is this some mysterious, all-encompassing book with an impossibly universal scope?
Of course not, rather, the “text” in question is a metaphor for language itself. In this way of thinking, language is the filter through which we see the world. Texts and writing hold the central role of putting together our experiences of the world. Then, our reading of whatever text is in question, is colored by our experiences through our interpretations. But, this does not only apply to the written word, rather, it also applies to anything we may experience or hear or see. Everything is seen through the lens that we have crafted by our experiences.
I’m going home for the day now, but I’ll finish these thoughts in later entries. Are you familiar with this way of thinking and, if so, do you have any opinions?
Posted by Matt in Christian Beliefs.
Tags: Bible, gray area, relativism, right, wrong
* Originally posted 3/8/06
Is there really such a thing as the “gray area?” You know, the place between right and wrong, but not necessarily either one. Is this just something invented by radical post-modernists espousing relativistic claims of truth in an underhanded attempt to destroy the belief systems of millions of people? Let’s don the red cloak of neutrality for a quick look.
In Old Testament times, I think it’s safe to say that there was very little gray area. God basically spelled it all out for Israel with the “Thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots.” In the time of Jesus, though, this way of thinking was turned on its ear when he summed up the books of the Law in only two statements: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your mind,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Now this was certainly easier to remember than reams of Jewish Law, but it opened up many more questions. Some of these were addressed by Jesus, some by Paul, and some probably still remain to this day for many people
It’s easy enough to look at terrible acts like murder, rape, and abuse, and point to those as wrong, but what about other seemingly less important things – viewed by some people as bad and others as not. Paul spoke about this “gray area” as a sort of conscience, which may differ from person to person. In his terms, some people eat food sacrificed to idols and some don’t – personal choices, as long as they aren’t specifically spoken against, are not necessarily wrong. Some things, therefore, are wrong for only some people – a perfectly Biblical form of relativism. These are our gray areas.
Back in the Old Testament days, God basically treated the Israelites like children by giving them specific boundaries and specific consequences for crossing them. When you have little kids, you can tell that they can’t see the big picture. So, in order to bring them up right, you must set rules and punish when they break them. Jesus brought the big picture in order to lead the people of God into maturity and understanding. He told them that they were mature enough to not need The Law anymore – that they should be able to do the right things for the sake of doing them, not just because they feared retribution.
Thank God for the gray area.
