Postmodernism and Creationism (Speculative)

[shernren]

Working thesis:

Creationism claims to be an answer to the assault of atheistic modernism on Christianity, by attacking the centerpiece of its edifice - atheistic evolutionism. However, in the process, scientific creationism has developed several approaches to the problem of conflicting evidence, many of which actually represent the infiltration of postmodern-type thinking into the Christian fundamentalist consciousness. While this in itself is not intrinsically wrong, it has made the philosophy accompanying creationism a mess - materialistic modernism coupled with overarching postmodernism to be used against atheistic modernism.

Topics of interest include the implications of the Omphalos interpretation and the origins vs. operational distinction on the nature of truth and reality in comparison with postmodernism's recognition of alternative viewpoints. Also, the creationist position of "alternating frameworks operating on the same evidence yield alternative results" seems to be analogous to the postmodern device / examination of deconstructionism.

[Well, that's what I intend to examine at any rate, but I really don't know where to start. So far I've read Brian McLaren, but not enough, and I think I know quite a bit about the implications and correlations between quantum science and postmodernism, but I need a good grounding in general postmodernism itself. Can anyone suggest any good primer titles?]

 

[jereth]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, shernren.

YECism claims to be a system that solidifies and delineates truth -- for example, YECists insist upon historical creation week, historical Adam, historical serpent, historical forbidden fruit, etc. They baulk at anything which makes truth and history indistinct. Yet when one looks closer, one notices how blurry and indistinct their beliefs really are. There are many specific issues, both of a theological and scientific nature, where it is impossible to pin them down.

(Eg. how was Genesis 1 written and transmitted? Where is the dividing line between mortal and immortal creatures in the pre-fall world? What exactly happened at the fall/curse to turn animals into predators? What was the mechanism of the flood? What was the mechanism which sorted the fossils? How do we see starlight in a young universe? How was the solar system cratered? How did species proliferate after the flood? etc. etc. etc.)

As an illustration, it is interesting to see how reluctant YECists on this forum have been to vote about their own beliefs. I started a poll on the creationism forum 1-2 weeks ago, and so far have only received 4 votes:
http://www.christianforums.com/t2968208-basic-yec-vs-advanced-yec.html
Why the reluctance? It's only an opinion poll, we're not asking you to pronouce the absolute truth.
They don't seem to be rushing to answer philadiddles "curious about YEC specifics" thread either.

Look at how fluid YECist scientific theories have been over the years. Vapour canopy -> hydroplate -> catastrophic plate tectonics. C-decay -> wormholes -> W.H.C -> ???

On close examination, YECism has an incredible relativism of belief. It seems that when you want to tighten up one particular category of dogma (i.e. a literalistic interpretation of Genesis 1-9) everything else has to loosen and/or dissipate.

"Goddidit" = "facts don't matter" ???
(that's a pretty good definition of "relativistic postmodernism"... or is that "postmodernist relativism"?)

 

[artybloke]

First of all, post-modernism =/= relativism. Post-modernism looks at the cultural/historical/psychological baggage that comes between us and a full understanding of truth; it doesn't necessarily imply that truth doesn't exist. In some ways, it's just stating the obvious: we can't know everything.

Secondly, I disagree. It's YEC's attachment to a modernist concept of truth as only equalling factual statement (as in logical positivism - the last bastion of modernist thought last century) that makes it problematic.

 

[shernren]

First of all, post-modernism =/= relativism. Post-modernism looks at the cultural/historical/psychological baggage that comes between us and a full understanding of truth; it doesn't necessarily imply that truth doesn't exist. In some ways, it's just stating the obvious: we can't know everything.

Secondly, I disagree. It's YEC's attachment to a modernist concept of truth as only equalling factual statement (as in logical positivism - the last bastion of modernist thought last century) that makes it problematic.

That's the whole point - I haven't really pinned down what post-modernism is yet, so I need advice as a rookie in the field. Where do I look, who should I read? Well, thanks for your criticism.

This is something I really just don't get. Creationism seems to operate completely differently at three levels I can identify. The theological "philosophy of God" level, the ontological "philosophy of nature" level, and the folk level.

On the theological level, creationism sets itself up as a defence of absolute truth and the Bible as the ultimate arbiter of that truth in every sphere of life.
On the ontological level comes the reversal of the framework approach - the same evidence read by different frameworks yields different theories. This finds relativism in, of all places, nature and scientific thinking.
And on the folk level the situation is reversed and we now have all evidence pointing to one absolute scientific possibility which is recent rapid creation with global flood. The evidence doesn't even begin to support evolutionism. Even AiG teaches this on the level of their daily articles.

That's what I really don't get about scientific creationism - the array of bewildering switches of positions.

 

[gluadys]

That's the whole point - I haven't really pinned down what post-modernism is yet, so I need advice as a rookie in the field. Where do I look, who should I read? Well, thanks for your criticism.

This is something I really just don't get. Creationism seems to operate completely differently at three levels I can identify. The theological "philosophy of God" level, the ontological "philosophy of nature" level, and the folk level.

I've sent an inquiry to my daughter to see if she has any recommendations.

But the basic is as Arty explained. Post-modernism looks at the cultural/historical/psychological baggage that comes between us and a full understanding of truth. The deconstructionist aspect involves identifying the demographic that created our theories, philosophies, idealogies, etc. and how that may have distorted their viewpoint. Then there is the move to look for the voices of people who did not have the opportunity to add their perspective, who were either inadvertently or deliberately excluded.

Take Christian theology for an example. It doesn't matter much whether its Protestant, Catholic or Orthodox. It was developed by European males, most of them celibate. The fact that they were male and valued celibacy has a huge impact on how they theologized about the role of women, not only in the church, but in society and domestic life. The fact that they were Europeans who saw themselves as civilized (and Christianity as a mark of civilization) has a huge impact on how they saw the role of Europe (and later America) vis-a-vis non-European, non-Christian peoples. In both cases, that impact has been largely negative, precisely because it is so partial.

What a post-modernist would do is seek out how Christianity has been appropriated by non-European theologians and by women. What contribution does feminist theology make to a fuller, more complete Christian theology? What contribution does Afro-American theology and African theology make? What can we learn from the ways Asian Christians are using the bible? And from the liberation theologians of Latin America who interpret Christianity from the perspective of the poor?

Each way of examing the scripture brings new insights that a Euro-American white male would probably never notice. The whole gives us a deeper, richer vision of the message of the bible.

It is interesting too, that many post-modernists are highly skeptical of science. Science, too, has been dominated by Euro-American white males. What are we not learning--what are we even not asking--when other voices are not part of the scientific endeavour. And how is even what we know distorted?

One anecdote I heard was that if physics were done mainly by women rather than men, we might be describing the origin of the universe as the Great Hatching (of the cosmic egg) rather than as the Big Bang. How would we think differently about the universe if we used a feminine rather than a masculine metaphor?

Still more interesting, the Hebrew term that describes the Holy Spirit moving over the waters of creation is that of a mother bird hovering over her nest. This is something few theologians remarked on until feminist theology was developed. So that's an example of how post-modernism works in Christian thought.

 

[Willtor]

Indeed. I think another thing feminist theology has added to the discussion is the nature of "He" as a pronoun for God. A father begins with a transcendent relationship with a child and moves towards an imminent one. A mother begins with an imminent relationship and works towards a transcendent one. Calling God, "Father," takes into account something of the nature of God's relationship with us.

The notion of the relativity of truth is compatible with postmodernism, but postmodernism does not suppose it. But I don't know good sources for postmodernism besides people I've known.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

from pg 37 of _Reaching out without dumbing down_ quoting Gertrude Himmelfarb

postmodernism repudiates both the values (truth, justice, reality, morality) and the rhetoric of the Enlightenment--that is, of modernity. In rejecting the "discipline" of knowledge and rationality, postmodernism also rejects the "discipline" of society and authority. society and authority. And in denying any reality apart from language, it subverts the structure of society together with the structure of language. The principle of indeterminacy is an invitation to creation ex nihilo. It presents the historian with a tabula rasa on which he may inscribe whatever he chooses.

you're right, it sounds like the relationship of YECists to science. rejects the discipline.

 

[artybloke]

"Post-modernism" is a notoriously slippery concept and I'm not sure many of us have that good a grasp of it. It often involves long words like "phallo-centricity" and "hegemony" and causes lots and lots of arguments.

One thing it doesn't do is repudiate anything, however. It doesn't so much repudiate the Enlightenment as question it, "ironise" it if you will. It asks, "what is the basis of this idea of truth you're carrying around with you?" It does this, not to question the existence of truth, but to actually see if what you think is the truth really is the truth.

And then, maybe, after we've deconstructed the notions of truth we've been carrying around, we can begin to construct a truth that more accurately reflects reality. Or at least, we'll be able to see that whatever truth we hold on is always going to have blurred edges, beyond the framework that we place around things. It says that what exists beyond the edge of your worldview might actually be interesting and enlightening.

If you read any "post-modernist" academic literature, you'll find they never really abandon the "scientific" method of writing. Abstract, evidence, conclusion, reading searches, presentation of a case are all there.

As for YECism - its basis is Enlightenment modernism because at heart it's looking for a "common-sense" interpretation of both the Bible and the world. Science, of course, has long abandoned "common-sense" as an explanation of anything, and philosophy has too. Only fundamentalists look at the Bible as if it has no context, no history of interpretation, and as if the people coming to the Bible themselves were free of any possible bias. But we all read the Bible through our own variety of tinted glasses. It's post-modernist thought that has shown us just how those different tints affect what we see in the Bible.

But look at this way: we're all sinners. How can we not read the Bible through sinful eyes?

 

[shernren]

One line which has made a deep impression on me recently is this:

The term post-modernism is often used pejoratively to describe tendencies perceived as Relativist, Counter-enlightenment or antimodern, particularly in relation to critiques of Rationalism, Universalism or Science. It is also sometimes used to describe tendencies in a society that are held to be antithetical to traditional systems of morality.

from Wikipedia, "Postmodernism"

I think that's a bit of what has been happening in the world where postmodernism isn't very understood. But looking at, say, Brian McLaren, whom I consider a postmodernist Christian writer, relativism doesn't really feature in his writings. What happens is that the allegorical element he ascribes to the Bible as myth has been conflated with relativism and then both with postmodernism, so that critique flows from one to the other thoughtlessly.

Still I am intrigued by the parallel between what I read of deconstructionism (albeit a very brief, terse read of it) and YEC's approach to the scientific evidence. It is almost ironic - using the scientific method to prove the incompetence of the scientific method.

 

[gluadys]

One thing [post-modernism]doesn't do is repudiate anything, however. It doesn't so much repudiate the Enlightenment as question it, "ironise" it if you will. It asks, "what is the basis of this idea of truth you're carrying around with you?" It does this, not to question the existence of truth, but to actually see if what you think is the truth really is the truth.

And then, maybe, after we've deconstructed the notions of truth we've been carrying around, we can begin to construct a truth that more accurately reflects reality. Or at least, we'll be able to see that whatever truth we hold on is always going to have blurred edges, beyond the framework that we place around things. It says that what exists beyond the edge of your worldview might actually be interesting and enlightening.

One further insight from a conversation with my daughter. Lots of people get as far as understanding that we all construct a basis for truth on different perspectives and jump from there to relativism, instead of to an examination of how we can know truth.

Also, it is far easier to deconstruct than reconstruct. Anyone can deconstruct, even by themselves. But in a post-modernist framework, reconstruction cannot be undertaken as an individual enterprise. One needs a venue where many perspectives are brought together and a brilliant facilitator to lead the discussion. So it is a lot more difficult to get to the visioning side of post-modernism than in other frameworks where one can research and study a lot on one's own.

Anyway, the conclusion I've come to is that it makes no sense to have a theology. We need many theologies, allowing them to impact, influence and enrich each other. And often we need to become comfortable with ambiguity. What else can we expect when we are dealing with something so much greater than our comprehension?

 

[gluadys]

Guess what I just found in our Bookroom. A primer on postmodernism. And not just postmodernism, but a Christian engagement with postmodernism.

It is called Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to Church. The author is James K.A. Smith and it is published by Baker Academic.

I haven't had time to read it yet, but here are a couple of jacket blurbs that led me to a rare impulse purchase.

"This delightful book is a twofer. Smith first shows, through a careful reading of the texts, that central themes of three major postmodern philosophers are a threat not to biblical Christiantity but only to an all too modern, all too complacent church. He then argues strongly for a church that learns from postmodernism how to revitalize its premodern heritage." Merold Westphal, Fordham University.

"Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? will be a boon for those working in and for the churches, especially in the world of evangelicalism. It will wean them from unexamined commitments to modernity and introduce them to a world of new ideas that are perhaps more useful to Christianity than they would ever have thought possible." Kevin Hart, University of Notre Dame.

 

[Willtor]

Cool. Post a review once you've read it. I've been looking for some good literature on the subject.

 

[gluadys]

Cool. Post a review once you've read it. I've been looking for some good literature on the subject.

High time I complied with this request. So here goes.

Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to Church.
by James K.A. Smith
published by Baker Academic

Smith is associate professor of philosophy and director of the Seminars in Christian Scholarship at Calvin College. He is of the conservative evangelical Reformed tradition, a student of Francis Schaeffer of L'Abri. He is using what he calls a Schaeferrian strategy to analyse postmodernism.

The book has only five chapters. After the introductory chapter, three are devoted to three principal themes of postmodernism as formulated by three well-known postmodernist thinkers. A final chapter explores the connections between tradition and postmodernism through the lens of Radical Orthodoxy.

Smith chooses to explore three postmodernist slogans:

"There is nothing outside the text." (Derrida)
Postmodernism is "incredulity toward metanarratives". (Lyotard)
"Power is knowledge." (Foucault)

He notes that "Generally these three slogans are invoked as being mutually exclusive to confessional Christian faith." However, he contends that:

"The problem is that all these questions are rooted in a misunderstanding of the claims being made. In other words, these slogans (which were never intended as slogans by their authors) are treated like bumper stickers: claims made without a context."​

The first task he sets himself is to provide the context from the authors themselves in order to understand the slogans better. Then he sets out to show that, properly understood, these postmodernist claims have a deep affinity with central Christian claims.

The three central chapters all follow the same structure. First, a recent movie is used to introduce the key elements of the postmodernist claim e.g. Memento, a tale of a man who, due to an accident, can no longer form memories and forgets every experience in a matter of minutes, is used to introduce Derrida's claim that there is nothing outside the text.

Then the central claim is introduced and explained in the context of the author's work. The aim of this section is to go beyond bumper-sticker superficiality to a genuine understanding of the claim.

This is followed by the implications of the claim for the church in both theology and practice. Finally each chapter ends with a "tour" of a postmodern church which is integrating this theology and practice into its life. A specific case study is included in each "tour".

In the final chapter, Smith makes the case that postmodernism takes us back to our roots and a postmodern church will be "a thickly confessional church that draws on the very particular...and ancient practices of the church's worship and discipleship." In other words "the best way to be postmodern is to be ancient and the best way to proclaim Christian faith in the postmodern world is not quietly...but unapologetically."

I found this book a pleasure to read. It helped me understand better what postmodern thinking is and why and how it rejects modernism. I confess that its application to the Church won me largely because it affirmed themes that I already considered of great importance e.g. a commitment to social justice as an essential aspect of Christian witness, and the importance of community and the sacraments. Nevertheless, I hope my bias in this respect does not deter anyone from reading this thoughtful and thought-provoking book.

End of review

From the beginning, I found Smith's theology very reminiscent of that of rmwilliamsll on this board. It's a good deal more conservative than mine, but it is a conservatism for which I have much respect. I must have sub-consciously resonated with the phrase "radical orthodoxy" since in a couple of polls recently I have rejected a liberal-conservative dichotomy to claim a position of radical orthodoxy without realizing where I had picked up the term. The other term Smith uses frequently is "the emerging church" (connected with the work of Brian McLaren, Leonard Sweet and others). Since I read little coming from conservative circles, these names are unknown to me. Perhaps others here can tell me more of the "emerging church" which they propose.

I'm am going to look at what I now understand of postmodernism as it applies to Origins Theology. I see ways that YECism both uses and rejects postmodernism. I also see some implications for the arguments used by TEs.

 

[Willtor]

That sounds like a really good book. Four and a half smiling Gluadyses, I assume?

My undergrad Intervarsity staff worker used the term, "emerging Church,", and I think he influenced my thinking in a big way.

 

[sfs]

Working thesis:

Creationism claims to be an answer to the assault of atheistic modernism on Christianity, by attacking the centerpiece of its edifice - atheistic evolutionism. However, in the process, scientific creationism has developed several approaches to the problem of conflicting evidence, many of which actually represent the infiltration of postmodern-type thinking into the Christian fundamentalist consciousness. While this in itself is not intrinsically wrong, it has made the philosophy accompanying creationism a mess - materialistic modernism coupled with overarching postmodernism to be used against atheistic modernism.

Topics of interest include the implications of the Omphalos interpretation and the origins vs. operational distinction on the nature of truth and reality in comparison with postmodernism's recognition of alternative viewpoints. Also, the creationist position of "alternating frameworks operating on the same evidence yield alternative results" seems to be analogous to the postmodern device / examination of deconstructionism.

[Well, that's what I intend to examine at any rate, but I really don't know where to start. So far I've read Brian McLaren, but not enough, and I think I know quite a bit about the implications and correlations between quantum science and postmodernism, but I need a good grounding in general postmodernism itself. Can anyone suggest any good primer titles?]

My lit crit days are long past, but I do remember that a good introduction to deconstructionism (but not to postmodernism in general) was Jonathan Culler's On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism. It is still in print, and seems still to be well regarded.

If you ever want to get seriously involved in the implications of postmodern literary approaches to Christianity, and specifically to Biblical interpretation, consult Anthony Thiselton's New Horizons in Hermeneutics. It is long, dense and difficult -- perfect beach reading, if you plan on spending several months lying on the beach.

I've read lots of Maclaren, by the way, and I like him, but I find him only vaguely postmodern. Of course, postmodernism is pretty vague to start with.