Post-modernism

This past week I have heard no less than five presentations on something relating to post-modernism (relativism, pluralism, etc.). Four of them were, of course, senior thesis presentations. The odd thing was that the fifth one (presented by Gale Heidi) was actually part of a Creation conference this last weekend. It's just kind of weird how things like that happen. It helps my thoughts fit together a bit more. (Disclaimer: This is not at all my field of expertise, so please forgive my stumbling as I attempt to explain my thoughts.)

Gale's presentation was basically on post-modernism, how it followed logically from modernism, and how both philosophies affect the way Christians defend the faith (especially as it relates to creation). He talked about the beginning of modernism with Descartes. The two pillars of modernism as presented by Gale (if I remember correctly) are the autonomy of the individual and reason. He then went through and briefly demonstrated how, even though post-modernism seems like the antithesis of modernism, in another way, it's really the logical conclusion of it. If we are all autonomous, we can all individually use our reason to decide what is right for us individually, and it's okay if our reason leads us to a different conclusion that someone else...it's all relative.

The really ironic thing is that as Christians, we often tend to fight post-modernism relativism with modernistic reason. If modernism leads logically to post-modernism, then that's like trying to fight a fire by tossing gasoline on it. This is not to say that reason itself is wrong or useless. By itself, though, it's not enough.

As Gale was talking about this, I began to realize how much of a modernist I am in much of my thinking and that it's not really the Biblical way to go. Reason is not bad, but as Christians, our basis of knowledge cannot be reason. Human reason is too shaky of a foundation to build upon. The only thing strong enough to build upon is the revealed Word of God. We can even undermine that foundation by trying to prove how "reasonable" it is. We cannot trust the word of God simply because our reason tells us to. If we do that, we will find ourselves on the path back to post-modernism.

As I was trying to digest these ideas, my mind went back to the senior thesis presentations. While the seniors all argued well and logically, at the time I remember being vaguely disappointed that none of them spent much time talking about the Bible and how it applied to their arguments. (I don't know the specific assignment, so perhaps they were required to defend their point of view without the Bible. However, for the sake of this discussing, I'll assume that use of the Bible was allowed.) They all applied the reasoning of modernism to the fallacious arguments of the post-modernist points of view they were debating. Again, I don't think this is necessarily wrong. However, I still don't think it's enough.

I was really rather disturbed by the fact that when questioned, none of the seniors really took us back to the Bible or to the character of God as revealed in the Bible. For example, the question of 'which morality is the correct one' came up a couple times. One culture does this, another culture does that. How do we know which to accept as a standard of morality? I don't think anyone gave the obvious answer: "We look at the Bible!" Perhaps that answer is seen as too simplistic, and it certainly does not automatically eliminate every disagreement between cultures. However, I think that if we correctly apply it in all areas, it will help us settle those disagreements. We are to be people of the Book. Too often we are content to take the precious treasure that God has given us in the Bible and trade it for the costume jewelry of reason.

One last note. I know that some of my students read this blog at times, and I hope that you will not be offended by this. My intention is not at all to tear you down, though I wouldn't mind urging you to make God's word more central in your life. :)