Postmodernism is not a belief as it is a word we use to describe a series of methods and positions related to conditions in thought and action we have accurately described as “modern”. In fact, it may even be more helpful to describe postmodernity in philosophical terms as the telos of modern thinking. If you begin with the null hypothesis that “all human thinking and experience is a text” I think that you will find great success in disproving it on many grounds. Scientifically, overzealous postmodernists often overuse and misuse concepts such as “uncertainty” to legitimate their deconstructive thinking. Certainly scientific thought is less “foundational” as it was previously (e.g. the postulation of a necessary rigid structure such as the luminifarious aether to explain the movement of objects in space) but a foundation of relativity, complementarity and relationality is no less a foundation of said aether albeit radically different in structure and more accurate in its power to explain the structure of the universe.

Remember that a core characteristic of modernity is relentless self-criticism of assumptions. Post-modernity takes that self-criticism to an extreme with the suggestion that everything is an assumption that cannot be legitimated but by other terms that are themselves unfounded and so forth. But if we postulate that not everything is a text, then such endless deconstruction is quite unnecessary. So pragmatism and critical theory which are very related to the development of postmodern thinking are needed to correct the tendency to deconstruct any meaning whatsoever into endlessly reducible meaninglessness. For an example of this read Baudrillard or Guy DeBord. Both translate all reality ultimately into utter meaninglessness (Baudrillard calls it simulacrum or the hyper-real). This should be balanced with the Frankfort School and critical theory as a means not only to deconstruct what we assume and inherit, but to reconstruct meaning on better grounds at the same time.

What postmodernism does is force us to reconsider pragmatism and critical theory in order to understand our own thinking in virtually any matters. In other words, it forces us to ask the questions of what something means, how we live it, and what our underlying assumptions are in all of our beliefs, ideas, and actions. While modernity does this, the problem rests on the necessity to postulate a necessary foundation for thinking (think Kant’s task of specifying a-priori necessary conditions for time and space to argue against Hume’s understanding of knowledge as convention). So there is a certain relativism in thinking we may consider postmodern, but I view that in relational terms. Thinking and action develop in relation to one’s environment which is never a static foundation. Thus, thinking in terms of a relational logic helps us to consider our own cognitive evolution in context. That is to say, we think and reason in relation to an environment. An environment forms the matrix of all of our experience whether in is in terms of relationships with others, institutions, objects, ideas, etc. It is this matrix that is under consistent change and fluctuation and our thinking continually moves along with this in a dynamic relationship.

But don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that because our thinking is enmeshed in this matrix of relationality that we therefore have no foundations for thinking at all. The truth is that we have to operate with certain assumptions and generalizations about reality in order to function. We could not drive cars, go for walks in the park, eat dinner, or get the mail without such assumptions about things. We need to assume that the road will actually hold the car and that the key to the car will start the engine and that we can navigate a course with it. We need to assume that we won’t be caught in a tornado or hailstorm when we go for a walk or that we will not get mugged every time (if you happen to live in NYC). We have to assume that when we eat our dinner that we will not be poisoned and die from what we eat or at the very least ingest harmful bacteria. We finally have to assume that when we go get the mail we will not be hit by a car, that we know how to get back home, and that a mail bomb is not waiting for us. To assume anything but the banal in these situations is what a psychologist would consider paranoia. If there is a voice telling you not to believe these common assumptions about reality, then you are a schizophrenic. But none of these assumptions are made in a vacuum. They are made because previous experience tells us that we can make these assumptions with a high degree of accuracy that we can project a high degree of probability into the future what is likely to happen and what is likely not to happen. To take it further from the merely banal doctors, engineers, counselors and many other professions need to make assumptions about things or lives are at stake. So to say that all assumptions are simply not reliable because they are interpreted with sources that have no appropriate foundation since all foundations are suspect is not an accurate understanding of how humans actually live.

But in the world of ideas where acting in the world is considered in terms of its values, conditions, and reasons offers far more ambiguity and theoretical leeway. A theory is based on observed data and previous theories to explain a set of phenomena in terms of conditions and causes that make it so. Theories exists to be disproven and so, replaced with other theories. This can often lead to rather abstract thinking and meta-theoretical discourse that is totally removed from lived experience. This is also where postmodernism tends to be most comfortable. But it offers an opportunity in method to be more rigorous in how we think about things with the use of our assumptions and to weed out assumptions that are unfounded lest we assume anything that does not in some way match well with experience. It also forces us to consider our experience in light of human experience in more general terms. That is, it forces us to consider the sources of our rationality itself. It does this by deconstructing our assumptions asking us to validate them on rational grounds. Radical postmodernists like Baudrillard will say that the idea of a rational ground is itself an assumption. While this may be true, some assumption in terms of how we think must be made in order for any thinking to take place at all. But even this is then open to a critical review which is not a bad thing.

In terms of religious thinking and experience, this means that our understandings must be open to criticism and must be open to change. To block criticism of belief is to make one self in the image of the One who supposedly transforms human living from the inside out. Jesus spent his time hammering away at the foundations of accepted foundational, revealed truth in the law. That so many Christians today think that they are immune to this very criticism by the very same One they worship is where the logic of postmodern deconstruction can offer a corrective. In other words, if you truly worship the revealed Word of God in Jesus, true humility requires that you lay your ideas about God and Scripture on the altar. To withhold ideas about God misses the point of coming to God in the first place. (Even the statement of laying anything “on the altar” should be questioned!)

Unfortunately this kind of humility will be seen as an impurity to block rather than embrace since it will necessarily call into question accepted frameworks of interpretation and sources of the self in the social and psychological ethos of those who remain absolutely wed to their foundational understandings of things. Adding to this framework is the notion of a revealed truth that is itself static and immutable. But I submit that when we claim our immunity from criticism of how and what we actually believe, we block the very process that gives us insight and artificially block our own evolution to understand what we currently cannot apprehend in part or in full.

Even if we agree that a revelation from God is itself immutable (which should also be discussed in earnest), what the relational logic of our own cognition tells us is that our understanding of that immutability is in constant movement. Kierkegaard claimed that all of our knowledge is absurd before God. This is especially in the case of our knowledge of God. Saying that something was revealed to you is one thing, understanding that revelation is an entirely different ballgame. What we witness in so many places today is that many Christians would rather be content with the apprehension of the event rather than the understanding of their own transformation and relative absurdity before God as a result of the event. While it is acceptable to start with a received understanding of that event from whichever source be it a tradition, pastor, Bible passage, etc. Assuming that understanding must be correct places human understanding on par with God’s. And that should be clear enough to even the biblical literalist as the prime instance of the cardinal sin of idolatry that began in the Garden of Eden as humanity’s rejection of paradise.

What one perceives to be evidence of God has to do with knowledge satisfactory to one’s motivated belief. Such satisfactory knowledge is irreducibly conditioned by one’s lifeworld matrix.

When speaking of desire, behind abuse is power, behind power is distortion, behind distortion is repression. Abuse of self externalizes itself to abuse of the other. Desire must therefore be directed towards noble ends outside of the self or it will distort the self into a caustic relation at the expense of the other. Repression of desire therefore creates a relation in which the love of God is impossible.

I have heard many discussions of atheism and agnosticism among Christians. One argument leveled against atheism’s assertion that there is no God is that atheism is one belief system among many and therefore is is one opinion over another - nothing more. This tends to follow a basic misunderstanding of Pascal’s famous wager in which it is a better bet to believe in God whether it is true or not since not believing could have a dire consequence while believing can only lead to a good end. So if it is just a matter of one religious belief over another, it is better to pick the one that leads to a good end. Apologists make two critical errors here that atheists can chew up and spit out very quickly and they have to do with misinterpretation.

First, calling atheism, or agnosticism for that matter, a belief system or religion is hard to do without a consistent creedal or mission statement. While we can point to atheistic systems of belief (Theravada Buddhism, ethical humanism, communism, etc.), there are no systems of belief for atheism in itself. That would be like saying that monotheism is a system of belief. While we can point to myriad systems of monotheistic belief, there is no “system” that we can point to representative of all monotheists. Like atheism, this term is only a descriptor of an orientation to deity.

Second, Pascal’s wager is often used to argue for the existence of God. Rather it is simply a statement of probability. But for the atheist this statement is false right off. From this view it is irrational to believe in something for which there is no reason to to believe other than the assertion that if we do not we “could ” suffer the consequence of damnation. This does nothing for the modern atheist who simply does not have reason to believe in any understanding of either damnation or any deity who controls that destiny. To the atheist this simply heaps one superstition on top of another and neither justifies the other therefore, the gamble is useless since it is based on premises that cannot be validated by any externally verifiable, predictable, or reproducible means.

But Pascal was pointing not to simply believing as if one could flip a divine switch in the mind. Pascal was pointing to forming the habit of belief. This begins with an openness to the possibility that God might be true. To wit, even though a Christian cannot provide the evidence to satisfy a material proof of God’s existence (appeals to Scripture and undocumented or invalidated miracles simply do not meet these criteria - but that is another issue) it is likewise not beyond a reasonable doubt to say that the atheist assertion that there is no evidence and thus no reason to believe in God is true.

Third, at stake is the criteria for proof. The atheist generally will require material evidence followed by proof that the evidence presented is verifiable through more or less objective means. The Christian or any theist will simply not be able to produce this. To assert that this evidence is available often leads the Christian down very treacherous paths where assertions are heaped on top of assertions that cannot be proven beyond this criteria of reasonable doubt. The evidence from the Christian relies on one’s experience of salvation and the presence of God. The claim validation of these claims are placed in the category of doubt often in terms of the state of mind of the subject of the experience. This is often asserted to be merely a delusion. However, there is no evidence to say that belief in God is a delusion in itself. While religious belief can cause delusions (believing one is Jesus, snake handling, forms of charismatic worship, healings, etc.) there is no evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that religious belief in itself can be written off as simply delusional and thus irrational.

Both sides will always require evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they are fundamentally and unconditionally correct. This has been waged for decades and perhaps will be waged for decades more. The more we learn about reality and how humans are inscribed into the structure of the universe, the more questions we raise. This is just as true as each generation of Christian has to make sense of their revelation of God to the same structure of reality, lived experience, and praxis.

Fourth and finally here, an openness of belief based on the assertion that God might just be real is the choice that one has to make. This is not “blind faith” as if it is some uncritical appropriation of something, but quite the contrary. It is the choice that one makes when one has reached the boundary of reason itself. For Kierkegaard this is precisely what the “qualitative leap of faith” is. In his view the relationship of the existence of God and the cosmos is a paradox that cannot be resolved by logical means and material proof alone. The Incarnation then turns this relation around once more resulting in a double-paradox even more impossible to resolve on the basis of reason alone. A leap of faith is when one takes a chance and decides to be open to the possibility that the paradox is true. And more than just a one time openness, one has to habituate one’s self to this possibility. This is thus the only way that the reality of God can take root in one’s soul. Hence, openness to God as a result of a qualitative leap is, as he says in The Sickness Unto Death, when one can begin the process of becoming a true self which is grounded in the transparent reality that posited it. But one has to choose this possibility and it cannot be chosen for one’s self. In this regard, Christ is the true self that is an example of a self who is completely and utterly related to God in a dynamic relationship. Christ becomes the one who represents the constitution of a complete self grounded in the transparent reality that grounded it in the perfect relationality of the Incarnation.

However, the rest of humanity must choose this first as a possibility and this requires a qualitative leap beyond the bounds of reason alone. This is the part that atheists will always have a hard time accepting since it appears to be a self-reinforcing delusion. “You mean one has to believe…in order to believe? That’s absurd!” And this is precisely the assertion Kierkegaard makes - to choose the absurdity itself! So if you are a Christian in a debate with an atheist, you have to understand that your claims are essentially absurd based on rules of logic and in the bounds of reason alone - and that is the beginning of wisdom.