Postmodernism

Have you thought about postmodernism lately? Do you know what it is? Let’s take a look.

One report says, “Postmodernism assumes that ‘truth’ is based on an individual’s own personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything.”

Another report says: “Postmodernism denies the existence of ultimate principles or absolutes, and rejects scientific, philosophical, or religious truth which will explain objective reality.”

But philosopher Richard Tarnas presents the built-in paradox: “Post-modernism cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical overviews against which the post-modern mind has defined itself.”

Therefore, postmodernism is inherently self-conflicting.

Here are three terms with brief explanations:

1)                Pre-modernism: Ruled by authority. The individual is governed by objective reality and tradition; such as a world-view based on Bible consciousness.

2)                Modernism: The humanistic rejection of tradition and authority in favor of reason and science; such as natural or Darwinian evolution. This is based on viewing the autonomous individual as the sole source of personal meaning and truth. There are no absolutes.

3)                Post-modernism: A rejection of the self-determining individual with an emphasis upon the collective experience; such as the dissolution of distinctions, the merging of subject and object, self and other.

Postmodernists reject objective truth – perhaps best exemplified by French philosopher René Descartes’s famous statement: “I think, therefore I am”. My Biblical response to Descartes is: I am, therefore I think.

The postmodernist distorts reality and attempts to destroy the foundation of truth in order to justify his own reality – that means, he is attempting to justify his own lifestyle. For example, we read: “The term ‘justice’ means many different things to the post-modernist, depending on the positions of the members of the discussion. Outside any discussion of ‘justice’, there is no meaning which we can find. The concept of ‘justice’ exists only as long as we negotiate its meaning between ourselves in our society.” And that makes as much sense as me trying to push around a 300-pound gorilla!

No wonder our judicial system is in a quagmire today. They cannot identify truth. Here are several examples of postmodern confusion. The courts and lawyers do not argue for objective truth. The battle is over who can win the courtroom debate. That is a great loss for the United States of America.

1. The concept of right and wrong has no foundation or meaning except what the individual decides – and that varies day-by-day. Many of our judges, congressmen and women, and scientists don’t know who or what the human race is. Upon launching a space probe searching for extra-terrestrial life, Carl Sagan said: “When we know who THEY are, we’ll know who WE are.” Evolution tells us that human life is an eventual product of a chance electrical discharge in the carbon-rich primordial soup millions of years ago. But the Bible tells us we are created by God; made in His image.
2. Although our medical profession endorses pre-natal care, they don’t know or acknowledge when life begins; and some people feel free to murder these humans for whom they prescribe pre-natal care.
3. Although A) the Bible clearly defines marriage as a union between man and woman, B) it’s obvious that the human race cannot continue without the interaction of man and woman, and C) we have proof that the family with a mother and father provide for the best chance of healthy children, postmodernists deny it all in a futile effort to deny God.

When I asked several postmodernists if it was okay to murder someone, they said, “No! That is wrong!” I asked, “On what basis?” They wouldn’t answer because the answer required a standard of right and wrong – a standard of truth that they rejected.

The world without the Bible is lost in a white-out of deception. They are in a spiritual and intellectual vacuum where truth has been sucked out. They are in a spiritual and mental vertigo without any instruments to tell them which way is up or down, left and right.

But the esteemed apologist, Dr. Ravi Zacharias presented reality when he asked: “How can something that has been current for so long be ‘post’?” He meant, How can the Bible and objective truth, which has been our proven standard for life for so long, now be wrong? Without a solid foundation in God and the Bible, life is hopeless, worthless, meaningless. That’s why there are so many suicides, murders, drug usage and overdoses: life is void without faith in a caring, loving God.

But Jesus Christ lived, died, and raised from the dead to offer us eternal life. That is truth you can base your life on. Choose life – and live!