In the whole kerfluffle between modernism and postmodernism, we should take our lead from Paul at Athens. He did not go there in order to determine whether he was closer to the Epicureans or to the Stoics. They had many differences, but at bottom they were both pagan systems of thought with a deep foundational set of shared assumptions. Both philosophical sects denied the transcendence of the living God, they both denied that God was involved in the lives of men, and they both denied that there was going to be a final judgment (Wagner, p. 250). In the course of his talk, Paul quoted a Stoic poet, that is true enough, but he did so in order to present the gospel to both idolatrous systems. From this we should not conclude that the Christian faith is closer to pantheism than to materialism.
In his second chapter of A Primer On Postmodernism, Stanley Grenz gives a good overview of the tenets of postmodernism. My comments here are directed at postmodernism as here represented by Grenz, and not at anything Grenz is arguing for (yet). The chapter is weak in places, but this is mostly where Grenz is making historical claims in his reporting. As a statement of what postmodernists believe, this is reliable enough, but Grenz appears to accept some of the backdrop historical claims. More on that in a moment.
According to Charles Jencks, pomodernism was born on July 15, 1972, when the Pruitt-Igoe housing project (a “modernist” housin project) in St. Louis was dynamited. This “event symbolizes the death of modernity and birth of postmodernity” (p. 11). Grenz says that as “modernity dies naround us, we appear to be entering a new epoch — postmodernity” (p. 11).
He reports that scholars agree that postmodernism “marks the end of a single, universal worldview. The postmodern ethos resists unified, all-encompassing, and universally valid explanations” (p. 12).
There are two things here, both of them quite capable of making sensible people impatient. The first is the self-contradictory nature of the claim. This comes up again and again, and because postmodernism is basically a power move, the ridiculous nature of what they are maintaining does not appear to faze them. All they need is enough people to go along, and they get what they want, like a toddler pitching a fit in the toy section of WalMart. All all-encompassing and universally-valid explanations are to be resisted? Including this one?David Bentley Hart points out that “Lyotard, despite his concern to loose discourse in all its irreconcilable differences, still presumes a knowledge of that point in any story where it becomes metaphysical, totalizing, and illicit” (The Beauty of the Infinite, p. 12). Postmodernists can’t even talk to modernists without being modernists, and they ought to quit pretending.
The second problem lies in the breath-taking historical claims being made here, and Grenz simply appears to buy into those. Postmodernism was born in 1972? Granted, this is just a date on which to hang your hat, but the symbolic date is still important. On this date in 1972, I had just turned 19 years old. The subsequent 33 years of my life were apparently lived in the postmodern epoch. Now think for a moment of other epochs — the transition from classical to medieval, or from medieval to modern — and give us the vantage point of centuries later and lots of books. We still have trouble saying that this era began here, and that era ended there. Now try to imagine somebody (Descartes mom, say) getting out the pom-poms and cheering the birth of the modern era just twenty years into it. And then suppose she was doing all this in the name of epistemic humility! “We are now entering an era when we no longer can make sweeping truth claims!” If we had a nuclear war, and there were ten of us left, it would be possible to say (without arrogance) that we had entered a new era. But in the normal hurly-burly of human existence, people who are rah-rahing the new era should be looked at with squinty eyes.
Grenz, like many writers, distinguishes postmodernism and postmodernity, but his distinctions are not quite the same as those made by others. Grenz says that “postmodernism refers to an intellectual mood and an array of cultural expressions that call into question the ideals, principles, and values that lay at the heart of the modern mid-set. Postmodernity, in turn, refers to am emerging epoch, the era in which we are livingm the time when the postmodern outlook increasingly shapes oue society” (p. 12). An emerging epoch? And one that is marked, not by nuclear war, or invasion of earth by aliens, but rather the blowing up of a housing project in St. Louis? An epoch? And we are just thirty years into this new epoch? How do we know that the next five hundred years won’t be the epoch of red state Republicans? Or Nigerian Anglicans? Or Hispanic Trinitarians? We should be especially wary of epochs dominated by thought-forms as full of internal contradictions as postmodernism is.
Grenz said, “The postmodern consciousness has abandoned the Enlightenment belief in inevitable progress” (p. 13). Which is fine, as long as we are ditching belief in the Enlightenment idea of inevitable progress. But as postmillennial Christians, we do affirm that of the increase of Christ’s government there will be no end. Progress is inevitable, which means the inevitable demise of modernity. There will be inevitable progress, which means that future Christians will be able to read about both modernity and (maybe) postmodernity in the history books.
“They reject the Enlightenment quest for universal, supracultural, timeless truth in favor of searching out truth as the expression of a specific community” (p. 14). “In this sense, then, postmodern truth is relative to the community in which a person participates” (p. 14). “The postmodern consciousness, therefore, entails a radical kind of relativism and pluralism” (p. 14). “Okay, then,” says the faithful Christian. “We will have nothing to do with it.” Jesus is Lord of all things in heaven and earth (universal), He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow (He is the ultimate timeless truth), and He is not the god of our particular village or zip code area. Recall that God once took a dim view of those enemies of Israel who wanted to say that Yahweh was the god of the “specific communities” in the hills as opposed to the “specific communities” on the plains.
Grenz acknowledges that relativism is “not new” (p. 15). But the thing that makes all the difference here is that postmodernism locates the confusion in the group instead of in the individual — it “focuses on the group” (p. 15). “As a result, postmodern relativistic pluralism seeks to give place to the ‘local’ nature of truth” (p. 15). What this amounts to is that we can now say that we are confused instead of saying that I am. This is epistemological progress? A new epoch?
There are a bunch of demographic tensions here as well, which will take significantly more than thirty years to sort out. While people are trumpeting the retribalization of everybody (local communities everywhere!), at the same time globalization means that we are seeing the development of McWorld. Grenz sees this, to his credit. “But at the same time that the planet is coming together on one level, it is falling apart on another” (p. 18). But shouldn’t our new epoch work the bugs out before it takes the show on the road? Which is it? Multiple communities, or one great big one?
“This new mind-set embraces more than just tolerance for other practices and viewpoints; it affirms and celebrates diversity” (p. 19). Since we have moved from individual-to-individual relativism to village-to-village relativism, we are completely confused by this point and so we have to return to the fundamental point. The point is to decode that key phrase in in the quotation above, which is the need to “affirm and celebrate diversity.” The point of all this is to make anal intercourse and the molestation of little boys acceptable. And if it isn’t in your village, then just move on to the next!
Grenz acknowledges that “the postmodern ethos is centerlessness” (p. 19). But Jesus Christ is the center. Jesus Christ in the arche, in whom all things hold together, in whom all things consist.
Because Jesus is Lord, we live in a universe, which was understood to be such (in Christ) for sixteen hundred years before the Enlightenment showed up and tried to create their own little putt-putt universe, based on the autonomous thought of man. But for postmodernists, “the ‘multiverse’ that has replaced the universe of the modern quest” (p. 20). Modern quest, aye. The Enlightenment universe fell apart like that wonderful one-hoss shay extolled by Judge Holmes, but what faithful Christian ever thought that it wouldn’t?
“The central hallmark of postmodern cultural expression is pluralism” (p. 20). Grenz is laboring away like a man, but you just can’t stay out of contradictions with this stuff. We just learned that postmodernism is all about centerlessness. Now we learn that the center of postmodernism is pluralism. But according to postmodernism, truths are found in the center of a bunch of different villages, next to the fountain. And postmodernism, whatever else it is, is not a local community or village, or people group. It therefore can’t have a center, not even a little one. But if it can’t have a center, neither can all those villages, however much postmodernism promised them one. Local villages can only have a center if Jesus Christ is at the right hand of the Father.
And it is a good thing too, because postmodernists just can’t stay out of the modernity. They quit smoking the Cartesian cigs, but they have plenty of them hidden in the sock drawer. And here they pull out another one, and are puffing away with satisfaction. “Postmoderns claim that all architecture is inherently symbolic. All buildings, including modern structures, speak a kind of language” (p. 23). All architecture? Not just in this local community? Are we talking about architecture everywhere? And all while “implicitly denying the modern ideal of an atemporal, universal truth” (p. 29)? Including atemporal, universal truths about the inherently symbolic nature of architecture all over the world? For pity’s sake, somebody needs to stop these people.
We then learn that “the disappearing ego” is “the victory sign of postmodernism” (p. 36). Huh. Now I can’t say that I have noticed any egos disappearing, but by this, something must be meant. Maybe it means that we see the hubristic “master of my fate, captain of my soul” kind of ego. This is replaced by the new humble “don’t let any Enlightenment types tell you to do anything you don’t feel like doing” kind of ego. Telling the difference between these two kinds of ego takes at least a couple years of grad school, and the nuances are enough to give you an ice cream headache.
Rock music is the quintessential kind of postmodern music, and one of its features is its
“world-unifying capabilities” (p. 36). Now wait a minute. What will that do to all our local communities if everybody all over the world is listening to Coldplay? Then what? Does that mean we are living back in Enlightenmentville again? What happened to all our multiple centers and indigenous music?
Grenz goes on to say that “postmodernism is above all an intellectual outlook” (p. 38). You bet it is. This is stuff that is going on inside some people’s heads, and it shows. This is rationalism, even if it is anti-rationalism rationalism. This is modernity, even though it is anti-modernity modernity.
“Postmoderns denounce the pretence of those who claim to view the world from a transcendent vantage point from which we are able to speak imperiously to and on behalf of all humankind. Postmoderns have replaced this Enlightenment ideal with the belief that all claims to truth — and ultimately even truth itself — are socially conditioned” (p. 38). Shall I go over this again? Physician, heal thyself. Postmodernist, deconstruct thyself. Oops. Too late.
As C.S. Lewis once pointed, no account of reality should be given the time of day unless that account of reality is capable of giving an account of itself. This is why Andrew Sandlin’s recent attempt on-line to deal with this argumentative point is unsuccessful. This is the point that I have made over and over again — postmodernists are guilty of a performative contradiction. Andrew tries to deal with the problem this way. “But we are not guilty of this form of performative contradiction. Why? Because in subverting certain certainties, we are not opposing all certainties. And in questioning certain certainties, we are not exempting our own certainties from questioning.” Now it may be that by “certain certainties” Andrew is meaning epistemically certain certainties, or he may be meaning this certainty as opposed to that one (as in, a certain man). But in either case, we still don’t know what to do or believe. Andrew goes on. “Our critics, however, cannot logically open themselves to this criticism, because (it seems to us, at least) they seem certain about all their certainties, not just some.”
Because he admits that he could be wrong about anything, including his view that he could be wrong about anything, he positions this as epistemic humility. And he says that critics of this position (which would include me) are not open to this kind of criticism. This is because we are certain about all our certainties. But who isn’t? How could I be uncertain about some of my certainties? The problem is that we must not define epistemic humility as captured in the phrase, “I could be wrong about this.” Because if it is, and the claim that I could be wrong about this is wrong, now what?
To point out performative contradictions is not just a cute word game. It is fundamental to this whole issue. This is why I said that no one need take postmodernism seriously as an intellectual challenge because no one really believes it and no one really practices it. But if I do not take it seriously as an intellectual challenge, then why am I spending so many of my ones and zeros on this blog talking about it? This is because something doesn’t have to be a serious intellectual challenge to be a serious pastoral challenge.