I recently spent a goodish bit of time being exasperated by Richard Rorty, who doesn’t believe that we should view nature in the mirror of some glassy essence in our brains, which is fine with me, but he then spends many, many pages holding up his mirror for us to see philosophy in. But if I can’t see my coffee table in the mirror of my mind, then how am I supposed to see Wittgenstein? But no matter.
I am off to another book, which is not as exasperating. But unless we get a few things straight, it is the kind of book that plants some dangerous ideas within the Church that really need to be fought root and branch. At the same time, the book makes some important points that we really need to learn. My contention is that we need to get these important points from Van Til, and not from any kind of postmodern cheerleading.
James Smith, author of Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, is a clear writer, and he makes some important points. He does not have as bad a case of the wobblies that other Christian pomo-enablers have, but he does have it. And if we are to profit from his book (which I think we can do), we have to pound a couple of stakes in the ground right at the outset. So here they are — a couple of stakes.
First, the context. In his discussion of Derrida, Smith shows that Derrida’s famous claim that there is “nothing outside the text” is not a claim that the outside world does not exist. Rather, “when Derrida claims that there is nothing outside the text, he means there is no reality that is not always already interpreted through the mediating lens of language” (p. 39). He is merely referring to the “ubiquity of interpretation” (p. 39).
And here are some quotes from Smith, as he makes applications for the Church from Derrida.
“Christians who become skittish about the claim that everything is interpretation are usually hanging on to a very modern notion of knowledge” (p. 48).
“If we say that the gospel is an interpretation, then it is not objectively true in the traditional or modern sense of being self-evident or universally demonstrable” (p. 48).
“However, we need to consider these as deep differences in interpretation rather than glibly supposing that the Christian account is objectively true and then castigating the Buddhist account for being merely an interpretation. In fact, both are interpretations; neither is objectively true” (p. 50).
“To assert that our interpretation is not an interpretation but objectively true often translates into the worst kinds of imperial and colonial agendas, even within a pluralist culture” (p. 51).
“If the interpretive status of the gospel rattles our confidence in its truth, this indicates that we remain haunted by the modern desire for objective certainty” (p. 51).
Now when Smith rejects objective knowledge, note how he is defining that — he defines it in the Cartesian sense of knowledge that is “self-evident or universally demonstrable.” Now if that is how we are defining objective truth, then every Van Tillian can say okay. But more is going on here than a simple rejection of Cartesian neutral objectivity. Note how troubles over imperialism got in here, and then we have the fact that the Buddhist faith and the Christian faith are both interpretations. This is quite true, but when we come back and say that the Christian faith is the true interpretation, we get quickly be accused of wanting to ground that truth in Cartesian soil.
So let us grant this point, but do it in a good Van Tillian way. Here is the first stake. Van Til and Derrida are right — there is no such thing as an uninterpreted fact. It is interpretation “all the way down.” I believe this with every muscle in my brain. There are no raw facts. Everything is interpreted — by Christians, by Buddhists, by agnostics, by Rotarians. But if we are to be faithful to Scripture, and if we are to avoid being swept away by the syncretistic zeitgeist, we need to somehow make a non-negotiable distinction between the true and false interpretations. But if you use the words true and false, what an unphilosophical sap you are.
So then, all is interpretation. But the Christian faith is the righteous interpretation, and the alternative interpretations are the sinful ones. What we need here is the bracing tonic of the doctrine of the last judgment. I don’t mind (at all) people saying that everything is interpretation. That would be a good interpretation of the way things are. I do mind them saying that what we have are “just” interpretations. If a postmodern Christian author wrote that everybody has their interpretation, interpretations are inescapable, you can’t get away from them, and God will throw both body and soul into Hell if you have the wrong one, then that is the kind of postmodernism that doesn’t threaten Christian orthodoxy. It is also the kind of postmodernism that isn’t going to get any books published by IVP in the near future.
The second stake in the ground is this. We Christians worship God the Speaker, God the Spoken, and God the Interpretation. He is eternal, unchanging, and yet constantly begetting, begotten and loved. So when I use the word objectivity, I am not talking about a bleak lunar landscape of raw facts where we go discover self-evident truths to the polite golf-applause of the philosophers. I am talking about Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. God is the absolute God, and He is that way regardless of changing and shifting conditions within human societies. Colonialism and imperialism may come and go, but the eternal joy remains unruffled. When I say that something is true, objectively true, I mean it in the “grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever” sense. So I don’t mind that the pomos want to throw out all these pale Cartesian certainties. Be my guest. But the pomos are affirming the consequent when they want to argue that if Trinitarians submit to the absolute word of God, this must be the result of Cartesian influences. True objectivity is not on our microscope slide, subject to our investigations. It is above our heads, in the heavenly places. It is transcendant objectivity. Our objectivity is teh Ancient of Days, eternally alive, everlastingly worshipped by the saints of God. And therefore true wisdom consists of growing up into God’s interpretation. And this leads to healthy, humble and robust dogmatism. How could it not?