There is no committee on post modern thought that determines whether an idea is post-modern enough to be truly post-modern, and people don't really think purely in one or even two philosophical systems. We have beliefs and understandings that make sense in one system and we have beliefs and understandings that make sense in another.
One aspect of post-modern thought is that it is impossible to view and understand the world from someone else's point of view. You can enlarge and expand your point of view, but you are always interpreting new information based on your unique experiences. An example of this is myself. I grew up in Chicago, but I lived in the south for the past 11 years. My understanding of southern life has expanded, but I never will have the true experience of a southerner. No matter how long I live here I will interpret southern life through my northern goggles.
I do not believe that post-modernism says that there is no absolute truth, simply that we view it from our individualized goggles that we simply can't take off. I believe that is why different Christian denominations have developed. Each denomination reveals a different aspects of that universal truth. Because it is impossible for us to see from all angles, we have limited understanding of God and his creation. The Bible even acknowledges that there is truth in other religions by including proverbs from other religions in the book of Proverbs, but obviously is not endorsing the entirety of those religions. This does not mean that all religions and denominations are equal; some goggles are dirtier and more out of focus than others.
1 Corinthians 13:11-12 even says:
It's like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now. (NLT)
This explains to me why 2 people can read the same passage in the Bible and interpret it 2 completely different ways and both be equally right (or wrong). It is not there is not absolute truth, but that we can not yet fully comprehend it.
5 comments:
I believe we can obtain absolute truth, but only from the Holy Spirit. The problem is, as you say, the different goggles we use to identify Who the Holy Spirit is. Scripture tells us different ways to identify Him, but too often we don't look for ourselves and we let other people in positions of "power" tell us what the Bible says. It's good to have spiritual coucil and wisdom, but relying fully on another person to interpret scripture for us is dangerous. So I think we need to be patient when trying to understand a biblical concept and to weigh it against scripture, to continue searching, even if we think we have all the answers. I think denominations form when someone claims to have all the answers to theological questions, leaving no room for the Holy Spirit to correct us.
This is one reason why I partly support the emerging church (though I do not support many of their creepy practices). They are allowing, in some churches, for the Holy Spirit to reinvent what Man has deemed truth. Unfortunately some churches are throwing "the baby out with the bath water" so there is a balance we should strike.
I'm kind of half with you and half not with you on the whole pomo thing, which is why I'm more about finding out what each individual has to say.
I do not believe that post-modernism says that there is no absolute truth,
When I first heard this statement made I gritted my teeth. I think that is one school of post-modern thought, but I haven't seen it in the writings of Christian Pomo thinkers. If anything, the CPT'ers regard the Bible as the only absolute truth and all other doctrinal constructs as transmutable. I lean heavily toward pomo thinking in some respects, but there are some doctrines that I think are soundly scriptural and don't have that much room for change (adult baptism, for instance.)
Where I part ways with some of the Christian Pomos "on the ground" is when they begin talking about the Bible being a "relative" document. I don't think it is. And I haven't heard McClaren say that it is. Bishop Sprong, on the other hand, yes.
Sprong. *Shudder* *Cringe*
I haven't heard McLaren say it was "relative" either, but I can see how some might misinterpret his words based on some of his other writings. The line of demarcation is so milky it seems both urgent and superfluous to distiguish it.
You can take anything too far. I believe that the Bible contains absolute truth but also that we often missed the absolute truth and cling to the relative application of the absolute truth.
Oh, I meant to include this before. A good book to read on post-modernism is A Primer on Post-Modernism by Stanley J Grenz. It is a good discussion on post-modernism from a Christian viewpoint without as much of a focus on it application in the contemporary church. It is kind of a survey of post-modernism for an undergraduate course at a college. Also I forgot to mention that perhaps a bigger part of post-modernism is the rejection of reason and technology as the saviors of mankind and that it may actually be our downfall. This seems particularly of interest to a Christian to me.
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