Christians have both intentionally and unintentionally basked in the unravelling of Enlightenment objectivity. Those who call themselves post-conservative (like Roger Olsen) or post-liberal (like William Placher) or radically orthodox (like James K. A. Smith) have all enjoyed the idea that Christianity can no longer be tested against reality because, after all, there is no objective reality to which we have access against which to test it. Individuals like Nicholas Wolterstorff have taken their place in the halls of places like Yale because, in a world where there is no objective truth, why not have an evangelical in the zoo along with everyone else.
I recognize the value of the postmodern critique of objectivity.
BUT here are some concerns I have:
- The idea of Truth forced us to look beyond ourselves for the possible correction of our ideas. The postmodern Spirit of the age has pushed us back toward intellectual tribalism and individualism... and that among a vast majority who have never passed through the fires of modernism to get there.
- In religion, it has given us no path by which to distinguish God from the gods of our tribes and individual making. Religions, denominations, and the whims of individual "believers" have no basis by which to arbitrate between each other.
- In society, we are moving away from the individual social contract that made the United States a land of freedom (at least on paper) and to a society of tribes and interest groups.
- When it comes to issues like global warming and evolution, people do not sincerely ask the question, "In what direction does the evidence seem to lie." Rather, with no competence in the relevant disciplines, they make a vigorous judgment based on the tribe to which they belong.
Postmodernism has indeed made it rational to chose a conclusion that does not match the current lay of the evidence. But it need not lead us into a world where there is no real difference between fantasy and fact (one possible outcome). It can also free us up to be honest with where the chips lie--as best we can tell with each passing day.
Then we can openly affirm faith over and against the current look of the evidence--if it comes to that. But we can honor God with honesty as we do it.
16 comments:
Thanks, Ken. We do need to recognize first and foremost that all of our lives are based on faith...but what our faith "begins with" is everything... Augustine's "faith seeking understanding" was based on "faith in God". Today's postmodernity seems to base "faith on faith", which is a critical critique of realism. Kant understood that we could not know absolutely objectively. That does not mean that science does not "work". But, even in science, Wim would tell you that each scientific hypothesis is based on "faith" that what is observed or seen is believed to be "real". The evidence of scientific investigation may give creditibility to differenct views of "one reality" depending on what is useful (such as the "wave/pariticle" light theory). Thus, science is itself understood within "context" (reality). In human terms, reality is our experinece of it. This is where postmodernity has led us...not to objectivity, but to pragmatism. The pragmatic view of truth is determined by the form of government that rules a certain environment, which, in turn, forms the "rules", "laws", or "outcomes" that are most valuable. Under the social contract understanding of government, each person in a contract is an equal partner. This view is in opposition to vassalage, serfdom, or slavery. There should be no such thing, if we adhere to the individual's "right" to self-determination (God gives us that "right", otherwise, we cannot have moral choice).
Groupism, or group-think is dangerous if it is not challenged through reasonable discourse. We are made for relationships within communities, but those communities must understand the importance and equality of each of its members...All social reformers have brought about change because they dared to challenge the "status quo" of their time. We must continue to encourage debate, educating one another, so that we can come to conclusions, convictions for ourselves and/or refine, reform or fine tune what we have "always believed".
Very interesting post. One issue I see in any discussion of postmodernism is that any dissenters are sometimes labeled as arrogant or at least closeminded.
I know almost nothing about PoMo, having read one book: Primer on Postmodernism. Further, most of the people in dialogue are far better educated than I am. But I get the feeling that this is to some degree a generational thing, with many Emergents happily embracing the movement, and a bit perplexed that folks of my generation don't "get it." My fear is that the constant insistence on 'dialogue' will lead at some point to compromise of truth. I hope I am wrong.
John Mark, it really depends on what your definition of "truth" is. Is truth a text? Or is it the manifestation of character within the "context" of individuality? Is it a religion? OR is it the embracing of "traits" that represent character (based on the higest ideals and values of the individual)?
I think truth is what corresponds to reality. A modern definition, of course. If I understand this at all, and I don't really claim to, this is what the whole postmodern thing is about, going back to Nietzsche (?) and the "will to power" which provided a way to create your own reality.
Again, I am not really qualified to have much knowledgeable discussion here. I just have some concerns about PoMo and its implications.
Stanley Grenz said that even though he had much to critique with PoMo, he did feel that in someways that way of looking at the world had merit, and he ended his "Primer" with a note of optimism.
John Mark, you seem to know as much as I do about PoMo. PoMo subjective "self" observes within contexts...Then, reality created by social environments early on in our lives, i.e. family of origin, has everything to do with how we understand reality...(our worldview or how we interpret reality, the "frame", if you will)...for it is what has been impressed on our memories through our experiences that most make the difference in how we interpret that correspondance that creates "truth" for us...Two people may be in the same situation and understand and interpret it differently. That is why we have differences amongst the authors of the text of Scripture...
Is the trend of thinking that has developed post-Kant into postmodernism a mere corrective of "what you observe may be otherwise that what you observe it to be"? I think not. Otherwise, why would it be the case that we have come into post-structuralism, deconstruction, conventionalism and full-fledged global anti-realism? I agree very much with the corrective of epistemic humility which pretty much all post-Kant thinking has supplied us with, but at the same time, that corrective does not serve to give me a good reason to believe that my perception of reality actually IS different than what is actually there. It is THAT type of thinking that is more or less snuck into the back door under a guise of mere epistemic humility. Here are some of the problems with it:
To formulate truth as being "what works or what or context grants us," us self-referentially incoherent. The very premise of "truth is what works" is not a proposition that can be verified pragmatically in the first place; it is a metaphysical statement, not a practical one. In order for the proposition "truth is what is what works" to actually BE true, there has to be an independent notion that MAKES the proposition true. The independent notion is the metaphysical state of affairs--the truthmaker--and the proposition "truth is what works" is the mechanism by which that state of affairs expresses--the truthbearer. Therefore, in order for the proposition "truth is what works" to actually be true, there has to be an objective reality that is true independently of any pragmatic systemization. This then shows that there is a proposition that is true that is not true pragmatically, therefore the proposition "truth is what works" is false.
Furthermore, it simply seems to violate common sense that truth would be based on some pragmatic criterion or on some contextual convention. If this were the case, we could do away with cancer, heart disease, diabetes and shark attacks by simply constructing a contextual convention in which these things do not exist! So besides the metaphysical absurdity there is a practical gap in employing such a definition of truth. In my view that understanding of reality has absolutely nothing going for it, which is why I will maintain my rationalism and my realist conception of truth.
Facts do exist and we "observe" these facts, but mistakenly "understand" facts as "objective truth". No two people observing or experinecing the same phenomena will come to the same conclusion, if it is within the context of the social. That is what communication is all about. Two individuals who are married and know each other well may have the same info but will interpret that info within their contextual frameworks (understandings, values, etc.)...We have differences in understanding the meanings of beauty, although that does not mean that the "concept" of beauty does not exist...it is just do we agree to the meaning of beauty?
There is a real reality, but we cannot ascertain to it...we are bound within our contexts...culturally, historically, emotionally, intellectually, etc...it is individual specific...so "reality" is not an objective one but a personal one...that is what interpersonal truth is all about and that is what is important...relationship and discourse....that is why systems must be understood as dynamic entities...
How are "facts" any different from objective truth? If what is "factually true" and what is "objective" exists mind-independently of our perception of it, how is there any difference between the two? A "fact" is a proposition that bears the truth of a certain state of affairs that makes that proposition true, so facts and objective reality would go hand in hand with one another. It seems now we are just playing semantics.
Saying that two people within two different conceptual frameworks will have two "interpretations" of objective reality does not by any means change what that objective reality is. It may be the case that both interpretations are false, but it DOES NOT mean that they are both true or the are neither true or false. In order for there to be any "truth" whatsoever it necessarily must be the case that a proposition is true if and only if that proposition corresponds to the way things actually are. That was the whole point of my first post, because if the challenge of post-Kantian thought is that "things might be other than what we perceive them to be", then that type of corrective seems painfully obvious and not all that controversial. Ideas like postmodernism are saying much more than that, which is why I find ground to reject them.
Your point about "being bound by our contexts" only furthers my point. In order for it to be true that our conceptual frameworks are bound by our contexts then the statement "our conceptual frameworks are bound by our contexts" must be made independently of any contextual conceptual framework. Otherwise, if the statement "we are bound by our conceptual contexts" is also bound by a conceptual context, then it cannot be stated universally that all human conceptual frameworks are bound by context. But in order for that statement to be made outside of any context, it must be the case that our conceptual frameworks are not bound by our contexts, so the statement is false either way.
Thanks for good discussion all (and I'm not meaning to stop you). With finals week and graduation events in earnest, I haven't kept up... but you haven't needed me at all either.
Obama's in Kokomo tomorrow night and here in Marion Saturday morning. I won't get to go to either because of graduation events. I strongly suspect he'll be the next President. Never seen a President... and still won't have ever seen a President...
Jon, we have a basic disagreement on certain premises. I don't believe that we "live in" propositional truth....there are no "bare" facts...scientists gain data and then intperpret them within the scientific framework that is "working" at that time...or I should say within the particular paradigm that interprets that particular science.
Physicists understand that there are many paradigms that interpret particular scientific data. And even the paradigm in a given historical time-frame may change due to a "genius" such as Einstein...This all means that you are attempting to underwrite absolute truth based on logic (reason) whereas, I am trying to affirm an objective reality (a real world), but attempting to illustrate how far we fall short of "knowing" it ("We know in part").
An example as to the "objectivity" of facts is; I am a 53 year old white, Protestant, married woman with children. While these are all true statements, knowing the details (the devil is in the details) is most important in really knowing me, as a person...A different understanding exists of "me" even within the disciplines...a biologist would suggest all the information about me that would "fit" his discipline...white, woman...a sociologist/anthropologist would do the same, as would a "pastor". But, my husband and children (and hopefully, my friends) would see me as much more than that...Love is defined by that type of relational knowledge. And love cannot be put inside a test tube or be a "fact" as in "logic"...
And the "truth" that is to be "won" in Christianity is not about propositional truth, but personal truth and values. Prejuidice comes by "way" of thinking we know absolute truth. And prejuidice does nothing for the discourse of "love"...
Ken, politics is the domain and understood "battle" of "truth"...I'm sorry you won't get to see the "next" president (we will see about that)...but I got to see the Pope while here in D.C.!!!! (gotcha!)
We have more than a disagreement of premises, because you are stating that the proposition "there are no facts" is actually true; you are stating that "there are no facts" is actually a fact! How can that be? It is self-contradictory and anything that is self-contradictory is necessarily false in every possible world.
And as I have stated before, simply saying that we cannot fully comprehend external reality is A FAR CRY from saying that there are no facts and that we can't know anything about external reality. Positing the first does not entail the latter by any means. If anything, positing the former precludes the latter, for in order to say that "we cannot know everything about reality" there necessarily must be certain things about that reality that are in fact true; that the nature of reality is such that we cannot fully comprehend it, etc.
And again, your descriptive example of "what you are as a human being" only furthers my point. You have ground to dismiss a descriptivist example given by some discipline that would calculate your "humanness" in the fact that you are a white, married women with children. Is your rejection of that idea only made due to your own contextualized, conceptual framework? I don't see how. If that was the case, why should anyone--yourself included--take what is given by your conceptual framework over what is given over the descriptivist framework? If "truth" is only what works "at a given time" through a particular conceptual framework, then HOW ON EARTH do you decide whether or not a conceptual framework actually works? Going what you seem to indicate by "truth," such a move is not only unjustified but seems rather arbitrary.
Jon, I did NOT say there is no truth or that there is no objective reality. Nor did I say that there are no facts.
I DID say that there are no "BARE" facts, meaning that the data, i.e. information, physical evidence, etc. must be interpreted...put within a certain paradigm. Desciptive frameworks are conceptual as well. It is only in recognizing the "cultural language" (a description or meaning) that one understands the universals that are represented by those descriptions. This is where a democracy embraces the differences and discusses them in the assembly...Academic freedom is a freedom of difference in interpretaion...Political oppression and propaganda is always representative of "brain washing", limiting access to all information, regardless of "color and commitment"...whether religious or not...
Because we must believe that concepts refer to universals or that universals are represented by concepts, the desciptives are contextually specific....The problem becomes in PoMo that we are contextually bound to the social (language, norms, etc.)....how then, can we come to universals other than understanding the universal concepts within cultures and grappling with how they are interpreted (justice). Diplomacy is then useful in implementing dialogue so that consensus can result (ethics). This was even done within the Church in deciding the books to be canonized....! So, politics is the domain of the "real world" socially. Ethics is the "moral discourse" over what justice should be and do...and why...
I'm going to quote what you have said:
"Facts do exist and we "observe" these facts, but mistakenly "understand" facts as "objective truth". No two people observing or experinecing the same phenomena will come to the same conclusion, if it is within the context of the social. That is what communication is all about. Two individuals who are married and know each other well may have the same info but will interpret that info within their contextual frameworks (understandings, values, etc.)..."
"There is a real reality, but we cannot ascertain to it...we are bound within our contexts...culturally, historically, emotionally, intellectually, etc...it is individual specific...so "reality" is not an objective one but a personal one..."
"I don't believe that we "live in" propositional truth....there are no "bare" facts...scientists gain data and then intperpret them within the scientific framework that is "working" at that time...or I should say within the particular paradigm that interprets that particular science."
I have already pointed out problems with positing a difference between "facts" and "objective truth," and I have no idea what the difference is between a "fact" and a "bare fact." Even judging by your further nuanced criteria, 2+2=4 is a bare fact; that the red dog is red is a bare fact and that the oak tree outside my window is necessarily self-identical to the oak tree outside my window is a bare fact. I don't see any difference between a "bare fact" and a fact, and my ascertaining these so-called "bare facts" had absolutely nothing to do with a contextualized conceptual framework. You seem to what to indicate that in SOME cases "truth" is dependant on contextualized conceptual circumstances and in other cases they are not, but you haven't supplied any type of criteria for understanding HOW we are supposed to understand that concept and WHEN we are supposed to employ such thinking. I am of the mind that you cannot have your cake and eat it too.
2+2=4 is mathmatical language. Although I am no expert in anceint history, but, this understanding came about as a social phenomenon. Understanding the concepts (the actual 4 items) as indeed 4 is an agreed upon "rule in mathmatical language"...has it always been so? in all places and at all times? It does "work" within the social contexts of those societies that adhere to the "language"....Does this language reveal absolute truth? yes, pragmatically, to those who accept it....perhaps here I should assert that I am no theoretical mathmatician...but does the objective correspond to mathmatical formulas? Yes, in certain contexts that adhere to those mathmatical rules...such is your "red"....
The fact that 2+2=4 has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with contexts or whether people agree on a type of interpretation. 2+2=4 is a necessary truth because it amounts to a tautology; it's like saying 4=4, which can't be anything but true! So why should it be the case that "it is only true for those who accept it"? It makes no difference whether people accept it or not. In fact, if someone were to reject it I think that person needs to get their head examined! If you want to try and show that 4=4 could be false or that it arises as the result of same type of pragmatism in a contextualized conceptual framework be my guest, but you'll end up circling around the same problem over again. This is what I'm getting at, these types of things have nothing to do with a contextual conceptual framework in which they "arise." 2+2=4 would still be true whether or not there were any humans to conceive of it, so it therefore cannot be the product of a contextualized conceptual framework.
Jon, my ability to communicate what I mean is handicapped, I believe, and I so appreciate your engagement...
I am not saying there is no real actual 4 items...but that the language for the number of items is cuturally determined and embraced...Of course, everyone everywhere would see that there are actual items and exchange those items or one of them in "trade"...equality and justice is based upon seeing the items and agreement of exchange (differing weights and measures are abominable to the Lord)...but, our scientific knowledge is specificied within its own culture...the light wave of the color "red" does in fact exist, but what name we give that light wave is understood within a context of English speakers, who adhere to the word "red" representing the color of the light wave...bridging the gap in communication is understanding what red refers to in each difference of language...and then addressing those differences that point to the universally specific...
Scientific knowledge is limited knowledge, in that it dissolves "life" into material reality without any meaning or significance...or ethical application...understanding that the scientific realities today are challenges for us to formulate an ethical guideline, so that an agreement can be made about what is going to be applied, appropriated and how...and by whom and at what time...limitations to science is necessary in understanding that science itself is a culture that must be brokered by the culture of religious discourse...ethics...and values...
Post a Comment