Lecture Series: Lecture 2: Challenges to Education, Part I, Postmodernism

Is there such a thing as truth? Is truth possible?

This may seem an unimpressive or laughable question to you, but, unfortunately, it is a necessary question due to present cultural conditions.

A brief history lesson: During the Reformation, people began to question the previously unassailable authority of the Catholic Church. For over a thousand years, the Church commanded the confidence of the faithful, and generally uneducated, population of Western Europe.

An man named Lorenzo Valla, an Italian Christian Humanist, noticed that the Catholic Church had lied about certain documents granting them land rights. He then noticed that the Latin Vulgate Bible was also riddled with errors. He dared not publish this second discovery, and so he hid his manuscripts. Erasmus later found them, understood them, and published them posthumously (after all, who is going to kill a dead man for heresy?). The dam was beginning to break.

Then Martin Luther discovered that the teaching of the Church was at odds with Scripture and vociferously denounced the corruptions within the Church, especially on the doctrine of salvation.

The Church was losing its grip. Its authority was deteriorating rapidly. If the Church was wrong about salvation, the Bible and history, then how could it be trusted at all?

Not long after this, a Christian philosopher named Descartes didn't just distrust Catholic authority. He began his project further back, questioning the reliability of even our senses. He asked why we should trust our senses when they deceive us. He wondered if there could perhaps be an evil god who is deceiving us. (Note, Descartes had a lot more to say here, but for now we'll let it rest.)

But David Hume took this line of thinking even further. Hume didn't doubt that we are really sensing something in the world, but he wondered if that is all we are doing. Hume didn't believe that we have any obvious proof of causation, because we have no "simple impression" of causation as a principle (we don't experience causation by sensing it with the 5 senses). We experience one event following another event, but we don't "see" causation. Causation is an idea we impose upon the events under observation. Could it be that the world is a totally random collection of events and we are merely imposing the idea of causal connections in order to "create" some meaning out of it all? We can't know if this is or isn't the case. It could be, and so Hume's skepticism emerged.

Then the existentialists came along, claiming that we cannot find rational certainty on most of the crucial philosophical questions, such as free will, evil, morality, rationalism v. nominalism, etc. But we can live individually and authentically according to our own bold vision. We are "thrown into" this absurd existence, says Sarte. So we must make meaning out of our meaningless lives.

And then came Darwin, with his "evidence" that we may indeed be nothing more than a purely accidental natural phenomenon and nothing else; a product of undirected, purposeless processes.

So lets put it all together and see what we get. Can't trust Church + Can't trust senses + Can't trust reason (Hume's skepticism) + Existentialism + Darwinian naturalism = Postmodernism!

If you want to know why the default answer to philosophical questions in our day is, "I don't know," or "It's just my view," or, "No one knows for sure," or "Truth is relative," etc., the reason is the equation listed above.

So what is postmodernism? To answer, let us consider Dr. J.P. Moreland's effective synopsis:

Posmodernism is a form of cultural relativism after the modern, or enlightenment, era. Cultural relativism is the idea that there are no unchanging, permanent principles. Principles are created and maintained in cultures, even down to the importance of science and mysticism. The Buddhists want to meditate while Europeans generally want to test things in a laboratory. Some cultures prize mysticism and some science, and all have their own independent right to "create" truth for themselves.

During the Enlightenment, thinkers like Descartes and Locke, even Jefferson and many of the founding fathers, held certain ideas; ideas that are largely rejected today.

Those ideas are as follows:

1. Metaphysical Realism (sometimes referred to simply as "realism"): This is the idea that reality is independent of mind. And it relates not merely to objects like "the desk," etc., but also to abstract ideas, such as love. The "realist" (as contrasted with the "nominalist") says that love is not merely a mental activity, but is "anchored" to the reality of love, just as my idea of the desk is anchored to the reality of the desk "outside" of my mental activity.

The postmodernist rejects this notion. Truth is whatever cultures define it to be. This shows up in debates about the definitions of marriage and family. The postmodernist believes that marriage is something we just made up and so we can make it different. Some textbooks will claim that there are many different kinds of families, and that family is something we just made up and so we can "redefine" it if there is a cultural need. Perhaps the best way to address this notion is to ask a few questions: Can we define the family as a man and his pets? Can we define a marriage as a man and a harem? Can we define a marriage as a man and a corpse? Is a family in which there are willing participants in incestuous relations an acceptable family? If the postmodernist complains here that there are some standards for family, then he has abandoned postmodernism for realism and has neglected to tell us the foundation of his realism. What standard is he using to determine that the harem is wrong?

2. The Correspondence Theory of Truth: This is the natural extension of "realism." If I believe there is a real world that my thoughts either rightly or wrongly appraise, then truth must have something to do with aligning my thoughts with reality. Thus the simple definition afforded by Dr. Moreland is, "When things are the way one takes them to be." He goes on to explain that truth is a relationship of correspondence between a thought or a sentence and reality. If I think that someone is slandering me when they are not, then my idea is false. If I think that God exists and He does, then I think truthfully.

The postmodernist thinks that truth is an attribute or a property of the speaker and not a relation of correspondence with reality. The speaker or writer has his truth and you have yours. In theory, the postmodernist must believe that it really is true for the Christian that God exists, and also that it really is true for the atheist that God does not exist. It is almost as if he is claiming that you can walk from the atheist student union to the Christian fraternity, and in that short walk God will magically come into existence because you've crossed into a community that "believes him into existence."

3. Psychological Objectivity: The claim here is that one can be objective in considering a philosophical question. And psychological objectivity has to do with "absence of bias" on the question at hand. Let's say for the moment that the question is Calvinism v. Arminianism. Some Christians might insist that one cannot be objective on this question since we are shaped by our cultural upbringing. If I am raised in a Methodist church, will it be likely that I will become a Calvinist? Perhaps it is not likely, but is it impossible?

Dr. Moreland points out that it seems apparent that people are not often psychologically objective, but that doesn't preclude the possibility. People are most often psychologically objective when they first consider a question. It is in these moments that people are generally neutral on a question. If one has never considered the question of Calvinism v. Arminianism, then perhaps one would consider the best arguments on both sides and then make a decision. It seems at least possible that a person can be objective in this sense.

But a question remains: Is it a good thing to be objective in this sense? One is tempted to say yes, but is it really good to be psychologically objective indefinitely? Is it good for us to be "neutral" on a question forever? Can you imagine a person moving to Tibet to become a Buddhist monk for years, then to Spain to become a Catholic, then to India to become Hindu, then to Saudi Arabia to become Muslim, and never committing to any one of them, because "neutrality" is better than "narrow-minded" commitment? Of course this is absurd. The curious thing about it is that the postmodernist has made a commitment to neutrality, which is surely narrow-minded, since it is at least possible that one worldview is true.

4. Rational Objectivity: The claim that one can discern good and bad arguments even with a bias towards one view. According to Moreland, enlightenment thinkers believed that a Christian, for example, could recognize and assess sound arguments against his worldview. Anecdotal experience is perhaps sufficient to support this claim. In my own life, I have noticed several good, even initially devastating, arguments against the Christian position. And my bias did not keep me from being able to recognize a reasonable refutation of Christian theology or philosophy. On deeper analysis, I've yet to find a rational argument against Christianity that holds, but certainly at least many of them require a well reasoned response.

The postmodernist denies this possibility, claiming instead that one's bias so clouds judgment as to make unbiased reasoning impossible. For example, a person raised as a Christian simply can never disentangle himself from his predilections towards that worldview in order to consider the merits of Islam, or atheism.

5. Linguistic Reference: This is the idea that words do in fact refer to reality, again bringing in the notion of correspondence and realism. Moreland's example is useful here. When I use the word "masculine," as a realist I at least admit that some objective meaning for this term exists, even if human ignorance and imperfection make progress in discovering it difficult.

The postmodernist insists on exactly the opposite. He insists that language is a construct of cultures, and that words only function as labels for meanings we invent and assign to our varied experiences. Back to our word, "masculine." The postmodernist would insist that in one culture the term "masculine" could stand for "strong, detached and reckless." In another community, the term could stand for, "courageous, faithful and hard-working." And both would be correct, because both have merely created a cultural sign-post by using the word however they desire.

6. Dichotomous thinking: This is the time-honored notion of either/or thinking. A subject is divided into two categories with the purpose usually of affirming the one and denouncing the other. We say some things are "good" and some "bad." Some people are "wise" and others "fools." In most cases, either/or language shows up in morality. Christians often speak of Jesus being "the way, the truth and the life," and that no one can enter heaven except by Him. This is particularly troubling language to a postmodernist.

The postmodernist, largely fueled by Nietzsche on this point, believes that dichotomous language is an oversimplification and a blatant attempt to assert one's power over others. We say "we are right" and "they are wrong" in order to feel that we are in control; that we are better than others. And so the enlightened and truly humble man will not use dichotomous language, because we are all "on our own journey," etc.

7. Metanarratives: Plainly put, a metanarrative is an "over-story." Another way of putting it is to say that it is a "big story" that is supposed to be true for everyone. Christians believe that Christianity is true for everyone, even if someone vehemently rejects it. Most atheists (the non-postmodernist variety) affirm the same thing. They believe that Christians, along with all other religious people, are hopelessly wrong about the thing that matters to them most.

The postmodernists rejects metanarratives and in their place puts the "micro-narrative" or "local narrative." In short, the local narrative is a cultural story that remains true only as long as the culture sustains belief in it. Zeus presumably was real until Christianity displaced the system of deities affirmed by the Greco-Roman system.

Assessment of Postmodernism: In short, postmodernism is irrational on many levels. This of course should surprise no one in an age when human reason has been incrementally neglected in favor of human passions.

But let's consider a few questions that expose the self-refuting, irrational nature of postmodernism:

1. Self-Refuting Notion 1: Language cannot refer to reality. Does the sentence “language cannot refer to reality” refer to any reality?

2. Self-Refuting Notion 2: Truth is defined in cultures. What if there is a culture that says, “truth is not defined in cultures?” Are they expressing a “truth?” Is the “truth” that “truth is defined in cultures” also merely a cultural "truth?"

3. Self-Refuting Notion 3: The meaning of a writer’s words is open to interpretation. What if I interpret this sentence to mean… "a writer’s words are not open to interpretation?"

4. Self-Refuting Notion 4: No such thing as an objective claim. Is this claim objective or so clouded by opinion that the opposite could be true?

5. Self-Refuting Notion 5: Dichotomous thinking is not worthy of thoughtful people. Are you dividing the world into two categories—those who use dichotomous thinking and those who claim they do not—and then saying that one is better than the other?

6. Self-Refuting Notion 6: There are no “meta-narratives. There are only local narratives. Is the opinion that there are no meta-narratives merely a local narrative or is it a meta-narrative? If it is a local narrative, I will choose to accept another narrative stating that there are meta-narratives.