The Bible and Postmodernism
I can’t wait until people stop talking about “Postmodernism” like it’s some amazing new idea that has revolutionized the world. It hasn’t, and quite frankly the whole concept is rather asinine. It’s sort of like the Segway PT of the philosophical world: all hype and flair but practically useless (and, like the PT, most people just look silly using postmodernism). Nonetheless it is a concept that continues to dominate the theological landscape and therefore warrants a comment as I wrap up the authority series of our Doctrine of Revelation study.
Postmodernism, for lack of a better definition, is really a junk-draw term that refers to all things anti-modern. In the specific area of epistemology the view is characterized by the belief that no objective truth exists or at least can be known. This is, as is often pointed out, a self-refuting statement (since, after all it is phrased as a universal objective truth that can be known). In the realm of authority this has massive implications. Postmodernists basically assert that authority is not innate and real, but rather is imposed or given. That is to say that authority, particularly in the form of sweeping metanarratives like the Scriptural Worldview, are constructed by the dominant culture of a society and are used to maintain their place as the dominate culture. This means that there is no objective truth, only “truths” bound by contexts and creators, bound by social communities. Postmodernism, then, applied to Scripture means that it may be a useful book but not an authoritative one. Because of its rejection of objectivity, postmodernism also rejects authority. The Bible can speak to us personally and as an inspiring text, but it cannot critique our culture.
Of course, out-right postmodernism must be rejected by the Christian. After all, how on earth can you really deny that there is truth and that it can, at some level, be known. D.A. Carson wryly comments, “The harder the postmodernism, the more absolute the claim, and the more internally illogical it is” (Christ & Culture Revisited, 107). That being said there is a form of postmodernism that fits quite comfortably with the Christian faith, Carson calls it soft postmodernism and combines it with a “chastened modernism”. Here’s how Carson explains it:
A chastened or modest modernism pursues truth but recognizes how much we humans do not know, how often we change our minds, and some of the factors that go into our claims to knowledge. A chastened postmodernism heartily recognizes that we cannot avoid seeing things from a certain perspective…but acknowledges that there is a reality out there that we human beings can know, even if we cannot know it exhaustively or perfectly, but only from our own perspective. (90)
We have talked about this already, in a previous post, but there is something we can learn, as conservative Evangelicals, from postmodernism: that our pursuit of truth must come with humility and must acknowledge that we bring our own presuppositions and perspectives to that pursuit. What this will mean, then, as we encounter Scripture is that it is the standard (the “norming norm” as the Reformers said), it is the authority…and yet our interpretation of it must be somewhat flexible. We do theology from within our community, not because our community is the possessor of authority (as if they decide what is and isn’t true), but because our community helps us to better wrestle with the text. Different perspectives, as I have written elsewhere, help us get closer to that real truth that exists. We can make certain statements about God, because God gives them to us, but we are never done reading and studying the text and probing it for more understanding and meaning. God’s Word is a never ending mine and as He grants us understanding we don’t stop the dig, but we press on further in.
Ultimately, then, our submission to the Word of God means that we must not give more credence and authority to our theological systems and expressions than is right. But we can still speak with certainty, and the reason is because God reveals His truth to us and He speaks with certainty. I leave you with the brilliant way that D.A. Carson explains it:
We may know some things truly, that is, our knowledge of them may conform to reality, not because we have omniscient knowledge of them (that standard belongs to God alone), but because the knowledge we have of them, however partial, however mediated, is predicated on the revealing words and acts of God: human knowledge is still knowledge of the truth. (101)
Update: check out this discussion between Tim Keller, John Piper, and D.A. Carson on the subject of Biblical Authority in an Age of Uncertainty
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