postmodernism in apologetics

7/28/2019 Postmodernism in apologetics

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POST-MODERNISM

TRUTH AS PREFERENCE


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Pre-modernism (upto 1600)

God/gods furnished the basis of:

absolutes

Morality

human dignity and

truth (upto 1600s)

Best illustrated by Anslem:

I believe in order to understand


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Premodernism Major themes

There is an overall explanation of things, in

terms of inclusiveness with respect to all of

reality and of the whole of history.

Reality has a rational character. History is

going somewhere, fulfilling some discernible

pattern. It is therefore possible to make sense

of reality.


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Observable nature does not exhaust all of

reality. There are real and important entities

lying beyond nature.

The meaning, happiness and fulfillment of

humans require understanding these realities

and responding to them correctly. An element

of faith is required.


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The time, as we know it, is not the whole of

reality. An additional dimension of life, and in

many ways its most important aspect, lies

beyond time.

The unchanging and the permanent are most

important. Without these, the flux of

experiences would have no real meaning.


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Enlightenment - Modernism (1600-1960s)

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Scientific Discovery and inter-relationsbetween the sciences

Temporal life as very significant in itself


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Isaac Newton

Admit no more causes of natural things than

such are both true and sufficient to explain

their appearance.

Law of universality of cause and effect.

Deterministic universe

Absolute space and time God as creator


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Rene Descartes

Foundationalism

Definitional undeniability and deductive logic.

Cogito ergo sum Pure and attentive mind as opposed to

fleeting testimony of the senses or the

deceptive judgment of imagination with itsfalse constructions.


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Immanuel Kant

Mind at the center of knowing process.Knowledge involves both the logical structure

supplied by the understanding as form and

sensation to provide content. Objectivity of knowledge. One individual

knower can have the knowledge that is same

as another individual as the structure ofreason is same for everyone

Objectivity of morality.


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Modernism main points

Knowledge is considered to be a good that is to be

sought without restriction. Knowledge will provide

solution to humanitys problems. This confidence inknowledge therefore contributes to a belief in

progress.

Objectivity is both desirable and possible. It is

believed that any personal or subjective factor canbe eliminated from the knowing process, thus

rendering the conclusions certain


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Modernism main points

The structure of reality is rational. It follows an

orderly pattern. The same logical structure of

the external world is also found in human

mind, thus enabling the human to know and

organize the world. This order is usually

believed to be immanent within the world,

rather than deriving from some transcendentsource.


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Modernism - Principles

Reason

Principles of Nature

Autonomy no appeal to authority

Harmony

Progress


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Modernism

Principles of Modernity basis for:

Absolutes

Morality human dignity

Truth

Best illustrated by Descartes:

I think therefore I am


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Some key features of postmodern thinking:

A commitment to plurality of perspectives, meanings,methods, values-everything!

2. A search for and appreciation of double meanings andalternative interpretations, many of them ironic andunintended.

3. A critique or distrust of Big Stories meant to explaineverything. This includes grand theories of science, and mythsin our religions, nations, cultures, and professions that serveto explain why things are the way they are.

4. An acknowledgment that-because there is a plurality of

perspectives and ways of knowing-there are also multipletruths.


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Four easy steps to becoming a

postmodernist:

1. Consider concepts, ideas and objects as texts.Textual meanings are open to interpretation.

2. Look for binary oppositions in those texts. Someusual oppositions are good/bad, progress/tradition,

science/myth, love/hate, man/woman, andtruth/fiction.

3. "Deconstruct" the text by showing how theoppositions are not necessarily true.

4. Identify texts which are absent, groups who arenot represented and omissions, which may or maynot be deliberate, but are important.


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Developments in the

Western World

Pre-modernism:

God/gods furnish

basis of absolutes,morality, human

dignity and truth

Modernism: Absolutes,

morality, human dignity

and truth rest onfoundations other than

God

Postmodernism: No universal foundationfor truth, morality, human dignity and

truth exists. All meta narratives are suspect

whether religious or not


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Pre-modernism:

upto 1600s

Anslem: I believein order to

understand

Modernism: 1600

to 1960

Descartes : I thinktherefore I am

Postmodernism: 1960 to..

I belong therefore, I am

Developments in the Western

World


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Gods of the Eras

Pre-modernism:

Priest

Modernism:

Scientist

Postmodernism:

Artist


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How did it happen?

1.Change in epistemologyAccording to Foucault, Western society believed:

1. That an objective body of knowledge existsand is waiting to be discovered

2. That they actually possess such knowledgeand that it is neutral or value-free

3. That the pursuit of knowledge benefits allhumankind and not just a specific class


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Changes in structures of

life

Deterritoralization

Cyberspace and Virtual Reality

Consumerism


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Post-Modernism

Fathers of Radical Doubt:

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)Psycho-analysis

Karl Marx (1818-1883) Socio-Economics

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) - Morality

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) - Science


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The Traditional Humanist Model

That there is a real world out there that we canunderstand with our rational minds.

That language is capable of (more or less) accuratelydepicting that real world

That language is a product of the individual writer'smind or free will, meaning that we determine whatwe say, and what we mean when we say it; thatlanguage thus expresses the essence of ourindividual beings (and that there is such a thing as anessential unique individual "self").


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The Concept beneath Humanist Model

a totalizing concept puts all phenomena under oneexplanatory concept (e.g. it's the will of God)

an essentialist concept suggests that there is areality which exists independent of, beneath orbeyond, language and ideology -- that there is such athing as 'the feminine', for instance, or 'truth' or'beauty'

a foundationalist concept suggests that signifyingsystems are stable and unproblematicrepresentations of a world of fact which isisomorphic with human thought.


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The Humanist Concept of Man

Individuals are sacred, separate and intact.

Their minds are the only true realm of

meaning and value.

Their rights are individual and inalienable.

Their value and nature is rooted in a universal

and transhistorical essence -- a metaphysical

being.


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Structuralism A blow to humanist

concept

Linguistics as a model for the structure of thought De Saussuresign= signified + signifier

Binary oppositions Male/female

Adult/child Good/ evil

Dark/light

Nature/culture

Life/ death

Rich/poor

Reason/emotion

Truth/illusion


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Derrida

Difference


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Derrida

Logocentricism.

Speech/writing binary. Speech gets associated withpresence and both get favoured over writing andabsence. e.g. Let there be light.

This favoring of presence over absence that everysystem ( It could be a philosophical system, but theidea works for signifying systems as well) posits aCENTER, a place from which the whole systemcomes, and which guarantees its meaning--thiscenter guarantees being as presence.


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Center

Self as a system. . At the core or center of ones

mental and physical life is a notion of SELF, of an "I",

of an identity that is stable and unified and coherent,

the part of one that knows who one means whenone says "I". This core self or "I" is thus the CENTER

of the "system", the "langue" of ones being, and

every other part of one (each individual act) is part of

the "parole". The "I" is the origin of all one says anddo, and it guarantees the idea of ones presence,

ones being.


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Text as Reality

Author as a site Barthes

Text as a play

All meaning is textual and intertextual: there is no "outside ofthe text," as Derrida remarked. Everything we can know isconstructed through signs, governed by the rules of discoursefor that area of knowledge, and related to other texts throughfiliation, allusion and repetition. Every text exists only inrelation to other texts; meaning circulates in economies ofdiscourse. This understanding does not mean that all reality istextual, only that what we can know of it, and how we can

know, is textual, constructed through discourse, with all itsrules; through symbols, linguistic and otherwise; throughgrammar(s).


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Deconstruction

Texts are marked by a surplus of meaning; the result

of this is that differing readings are inevitable, indeed

a condition of meaning at all. This surplus is located

in the polysemous nature of both language and ofrhetoric. It must be kept in mind that language is

what is, that our sense of reality is linguistically

constructed. Consequently the 'meaning of it all' is

continually differing, overflowing, in flux. Deconstruction


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Gurus of Post Modernism Jacques Derrida

Abandon Onto-Theology & Meta-physics of presence

Michel Foucault

Every interpretation is to exercise power Jean Francois Lyotard

Meta-narratives loosing power

Richard Rorty

Give up search for truth and be content with interpretation

Jean Baudrilard

Illusion and reality


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Characteristics of Post Modernism1

There is no meta-narrative (grand story) that

can account for all reality

There are only narratives (small stories) It is the view that there are no world-views

There is no universal foundation on which

knowledge or reality is based


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Objectivity is an illusion

Truth mind-dependent, mind-created

Truth is made not found

Everything depends on perspective

History is always the version of the powerful andmasks a power agenda which must be exposed and

hidden voices heard, particularly the voices of themarginalized which includes women, the weak, theinsane, the homosexual


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Deconstruction - there is no meaning in the

text

Language does not reflect reality


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VaclavHavel,

CzechRepublic

.We live in a

postmodern world,

where everything ispossible and almost

nothing is certain

M d i P t d i


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Modernism

Belief inUniversals

Faith in humancapacities

Conquest ofNature

Mechanistic

Universe

Postmodernism

Believes all isdifference

Cynicism andsuspicion

Cooperation withnature

Relational

Universe

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M d i P t d i


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Modernism

Personal view of

truth Appearance IS

reality

Just the FACTS,please

The universal

Postmodernism

Community based

view of truth Appearance is not

necessarily reality

Onlyinterpretations

The local

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M d i P t d i


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Modernism

Uniformity andSingularity

Beliefs as timelessand transcendent

The factory as

symbol (industry) Purity in

style(forms..)

Postmodernism

Radical Relativismand Pluralism

Beliefs as sociallylocated & constructed

The computer as

symbol(information) Impurity(playfulness.)

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M d i P t d i


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Modernism

Timeless ideals

Singular reality

Rationalmanagement

Postmodernism

Transience;

nothing lastsCo-existing or

multiple realities

Creativedisorder; chaos

theory

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Stanley Grenz:

Critical Engagement with postmodernism cannotend with a simplistic rejection of the entire

ethos We must engage postmodernism in order

to discern how best to articulate the Christian

Faith to the next generation


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The Post-Modern Gospel

A Post-Individualistic Gospel

A Post-Rationalistic Gospel

A Post-Dualistic Gospel

A Post-Noeticentric Gospel


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Stanley Grenz

Our task as Christs disciples is to embody andarticulate the never-changing good newsin a

manner that the emerging generation can

understand. Only then can we be vehicles of theHoly Spirit in bringing them to experience the life-

changing encounter with the Triune God from

whom our entire lives derive their meaning

postmodernism in apologetics

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