Why Christians Need Postmodernism

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.