Postmodernism: Rewriting Modernism

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PostmodernismRewriting Modernism
European Staff Conference August 2008
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A Changing Context

• Our culture has changed remarkably.
• Technologicallyfrom the space age to the
  information age.
• Politicallyfrom an ideological confrontation
  between Marxism and Western democracy to
  globalization.
• Religiouslyfrom a strong view of religion to a
  consumerization of faith.
• Debate an ultra-modern or a post-modern world?
• The first stresses continuity with the past.
• The second stresses discontinuity with the past.

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What do we mean by postmodern?

• Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern
  as incredulity toward metanarratives. This
  incredulity is undoubtedly a product of progress
  in the sciences but that progress in turn
  presupposes it The narrative function is losing
  its functors, its great hero, its great dangers,
  its great voyages, its great goal. It is being
  dispersed in clouds of narrative language
  elementsnarrative, but also denotative,
  prescriptive, descriptive, and so on Each of us
  lives at the intersection of many of these.
  However, we do not necessarily establish stable
  language combinations, and the properties of the
  ones we do establish are not necessarily
  communicable.
• Jean Francois Lyotard, The postmodern condition
  a report on knowledge.

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A Gross Oversimplification

• We cant believe the grand stories anymore.
• Progress in the sciences brought us to this
  point.
• The grand narrative has lost its hero and its
  goal.
• The narrative is being dispersed.
• Dispersion difference diversity
• Philosophically we privilege the particular over
  the universal.
• From the melting pot to a village.

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Which Story?

• Medieval Worldeverything is in its place
• God is in heaven above.
• Humanity is on the earth.
• Satan is in hell at the centre of the earth.

St. Thomas Aquinas
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Medieval Cosmology

• Schema from Dantes Inferno

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Which Story? (1)

• Modern Worldscience tells us where everything is
• Isaac NewtonPhilosophiæ Naturalis Principia
  Mathematica1687theory of universal gravity and
  the three laws of motion

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Which Story? (2)

• Edmond Halley noticed that a comet he observed
  had similar characteristics to comets observed in
  1531 and 1607.
• Halley predicted (in 1682) that the comet would
  return in 1758.
• This was confirmed by a German farmer and amateur
  astronomer, Johann Georg Palitzsch, on December
  25, 1758

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Modernism (1)

• ScienceWe know what we can see.
• This privileges the cognitive over the
  metaphysical.
• The question shifts from what is? to how do we
  know what is?
• Science describes reality.
• But faith, doctrine, the Bible?
• Things which cannot be observed are less real
• A belief in progress.
• Scientific progress and machinery will improve
  our lives.
• Consider transportation Horse and Buggy Train
  Automobiles Airplanes Jumbo jets.
• The War to End All Wars

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Modernism (2)

• Perfectibility of Humanity
• The universe will submit to geometry.
• The measuring (or mathematization) of the
  universe.
• Everything can be measuredincluding us!
• Science will lead the way forward.
• An exuberant optimism about the future.

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The Disastrous Twentieth Century (1)

• World War Imore than 40 million dead
• World War IIapproximately 72 million dead
• Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
• Pollution / Climate Change?
• The mechanization of death

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The Disastrous Twentieth Century (2)

• Auschwitz
• Postmodern philosophers say that we can no longer
  believe in grand narratives, or that we are no
  longer willing to do so.
• (However, this point is hotly debated, especially
  by scientists.)

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Metanarratives of the Twentieth Century

• Sciencewill improve human life and give us
  mastery over the world
• Progressthe human condition will continue to
  improve
• Freedompolitical, personal
• Communisma world-wide workers revolt will lead
  to the classless society
• Nazismsuperiority and triumph of Nordic peoples
• Developmentdesire to enter the global economy

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Auschwitz (1)

• Robert Faurisson, former professor at the
  University of Lyon, claims that there were no gas
  chambers at Auschwitz.
• I have analyzed thousands of documents. I have
  tirelessly pursued specialists and historians
  with my questions. I have tried in vain to find a
  single former deportee capable of proving to me
  that he had really seen, with his own eyes, a gas
  chamber.

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Auschwitz (2)
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Auschwitz (3)

• The survivors are placed in a dilemma
• No survivor can give proof for the existence of a
  gas chamber.
• If you had seen a gas chamber in operation, with
  your own eyes, you are dead.
• Therefore, you cannot testify to the existence of
  gas chambers at Auschwitz.

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Differend

• The survivors are made victims, because their
  claims cannot be heard.
• The demand is made to provide proofto have
  really seen, with his own eyes, a gas chamber.
• A differendthe inability to phrase your
  complaint in a phrase genre, which is admissible
  before a court of law (or which can be heard).
• This points to the limitation of language.

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Metanarrative as System

• The system oppresses whoever lies outside.
• It forgets the other.
• Scientismwhat cannot be observed is reduced to
  the observable or rejected as unreal
• Communismthose who do not fit within system are
  sent to the Gulag
• Nazismthose within the party are afraid of not
  being Nazi enough those who are not of the Arian
  race are exterminated
• Christianitythe Inquisition forgot to love the
  Other as neighbour

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Postmodern Resistance (1)

• The grand-narrative oppresses what it forgets.
• Thus, postmodern philosophers argue for
  resistance against the system.
• Resistance begins in the arts, spreads through
  the universities and popular culture.
• Example the precision drafting of Renaissance
  and Enlightenment art is challenged by the
  Impressionists

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Leonardo da Vinci, Burlington House Cartoon,
(1499?)
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Jacques-Louis David, Consecration of the Emperor
Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress
Josephine in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris
on 2 December 1804, Louvre (1808)
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Jacques-Louis David, Death of Marat, Musées
Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels,
Belgium (1793)
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Claude Monet, Impression soleil levant
(Impression Sunrise), First Exhibited in 1874
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Claude Monet, Woman With a Parasol - Madame Monet
and Her Son, National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C. (1875)
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Vincent van Gogh, A Pair of Shoes, Van Gogh
Museum, Amsterdam (1885)
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Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night, Museum of Modern
Art, New York City
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Postmodern Resistance (2)

• The grand-narrative oppresses what it forgets.
• Thus, postmodern philosophers argue for
  resistance against the system.
• Resistance begins in the arts, spreads through
  the universities and popular culture.
• A positive a real longing for justice.
• A challenge Christianity is considered the
  meta-narrative par excellence.

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Example of Christian ForgettingThe Trial of
Joan of Arc

• Joans claims could not be heard
• She heard beautiful voices while standing in a
  field (12).
• Saint Michael, Saint Catherine, and Saint
  Margaret told her to drive the English out.
• Joan made a prediction about a battle around
  Orleans that came true (16).
• She told Charles VII that the voice of God told
  her to lead the army of France in victory against
  the English.
• During the time of Joans military career, the
  French army enjoyed remarkable success.

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Example of Christian ForgettingThe Trial of
Joan of Arc

• Joans claims could not be heard
• She arrived at the siege of Orleans on April 29,
  1429 (17).
• Victories followed the lifting of the siege in
  various cities.
• The city of Reims opened its gates.
• Coronation of Charles VII on July 17, 1429 in
  Notre-Dame de Reims.
• Joan was caught after a skirmish on May 23, 1430.
• She was tried and convicted of heresy.
• She was made a victim, tried, convicted, and
  burned to death.

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The Trial of Joan of Arc (2)

• In accordance with the opinion of the
  University, the judges ordered that you should be
  over and over again charitably admonished,
  warning you of the errors, scandals and other
  sins you have committed, and begging and praying
  for the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who
  suffered so cruel a death to redeem mankind, that
  you should correct your words and deeds, and
  submit to the judgment of the Church, as every
  loyal Christian is obliged to do Pierre
  Maurice, doctor in theology

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We Need to Remember

• Who are we forgetting?
• Is there anyone we are leaving out?

Just then his disciples returned and were
surprised to find him talking with a woman. But
no one asked, What do you want? or Why are you
talking with her? Then, leaving her water jar,
the woman went back to the town and said to the
people, Come see a man who told me everything I
ever did. Could this be the Christ? They came
out of the town and made their way toward him.
John 427-30
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We Need to Remember

• Meanwhile his disciples urged him, Rabbi, eat
  something.
• My food, said Jesus, is to do the will of him
  who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not
  say, Four months more and then the harvest? I
  tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields!
  They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper
  draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop
  for eternal life, so that the sower and the
  reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying One
  sows and another reaps is true. Others have done
  the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits
  of their labor. John 431, 34-38

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What Modernism Forgot

• GodHe is there and He is not silent Francis
  Schaeffer
• Revelationdivine communication
• Heaven and Hellexistence beyond
• The human soulbeyond our physical existence
• Lovebeyond the chemical / hormonal

Afterglow Light Pattern 400,000 years after the
singularity
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The Basics of Postmodern Thought

• Plato lost
• Aristotle won
• No universals (or grand-narratives)
• Particulars (the larger broken down into the
  smaller)

Plato and Socrates The Vatican
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How can we recognize Postmodernisms impact on
our culture?

• Loss of faith in the universal.
• Privileging of the individual.
• To what extent do these metanarratives impact
  your host countrys culture?
• Scientismexplains all reality forgets its
  limits
• Freedompreferring individual autonomy (over the
  group)
• Consumerismthe global economy, state, and Church
  are there to serve me (the individual consumer).

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Christianity is a Narrative (1)

• The story of God acting throughout human history
• One needs to know the story to be a part of the
  people of God.
• In the future, when your children ask you,
  What do these stones mean? tell them that the
  flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of
  the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the
  Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.
  These stones are to be a memorial to the people
  of Israel forever. Joshua 46-7

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Christianity is a Narrative (2)

• Modernism carried out a direct assault on that
  story (e.g. the historicity of the Bible).
• Knowing the story doesnt mean that its real.
• Experts in leprechauns, Lilliputians, and little
  green men.
• Modernists demand that we show that our story is
  real. How can we do this?

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Opportunity and Challenge

• Postmoderns allow for the entrance of something
  Other.
• But they dont know what it is.
• It happens.
• Christianity is a metanarrative for Postmodern
  philosophers.
• The Church is the oppressor.
• The Churchs teaching is wrong or irrelevant.

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The Unseen God

• You shall not make for yourself an idol in the
  form of anything in heaven above or on the earth
  beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow
  down to them or worship them for I, the Lord you
  God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for
  the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth
  generation of those who hate me, but showing love
  to thousands who love me and keep my
  commandments. Exodus 204-6
• Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How
  can you say, Show us the Father? John 149

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What is Truth?

• Truth - 2a(1) the state of being the case FACT
  (2) the body of real things, events, and facts
  ACTUALITY (3) often cap a transcendent
  fundamental or spiritual reality.
  Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary
  Eleventh Edition

I am the way and the truth and the life
John 146 The Bible defines truth as
personal. Jesus is the truth.
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What is Truth? (2)

• The Gospel of John does not define truth as
• A set of propositions
• Facts that can be verified (scientific,
  historical, philosophical, and so on)
• A doctrine or creed
• Note all of these are good things!
• Praise God for archaeology!
• Our faith is based on historical events
  (reality).
• But these will never pass the scientific demand
  for demonstrative proof.

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What is Truth? (3)

• The game science plays is to increase knowledge.
  Only those things which can be shown are
  considered to be real.
• The Church plays by a different language game.
  The goal of that game is faith to make people
  into disciples of Christ (our unseen Lord).
• Like Abram, we are called to follow God into a
  land He will show us.
• Like the Disciples, we are called to drop our
  nets and follow Jesus.

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How does the Gospel speak to the needs of the
postmodern thinker?

• Many people think that it doesnt. The Gospel is
  irrelevant.
• It does. The Gospel speaks to the somethingism.
• There must be something more
• People need to see that the Gospel is real.
• God does the unexpected (John 8 Luke 15 Joshua
  2).
• God interrupts history (Dr. Lieven Boeve).

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What should we do?

• We are called to be witnesses.
• We are not called to give undisputable evidence.
• We will be made victims, whose testimony cannot
  be heard.
• The Holy Spirit is at work.
• Be ready to give reasonable answers to peoples
  questions.
• Understand the culture youre in.

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What should we do?

• The problem of the universal and the particular
  is being answered in favor of the particular.
• How do we celebrate our differences (or
  diversity) while holding the world together?
• Love is the answer. The answer to the problem of
  the universal and the particular is found in
  Christ.
• After this I looked and there before me was a
  great multitude that no one could count, from
  every nation, tribe, people and language,
  standing before the throne and in front of the
  Lamb. Revelation 79

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Personal Introduction

• Served as pastor for eleven years.
• Worked as missionary in Suriname, South America
  for six years.
• Helped establish De Wesleyaans Bijbel Instituuta
  Bible School for training pastors.
• Currently studying at Katholieke Universiteit te
  Leuven in Belgium.
• Research subject postmodernism
• Committed to helping train pastors and leaders in
  Europe.