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Source: (consider it) Thread: Purgatory: Post-modern Metanarratives
Glenn Oldham
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quote:
Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
That looks less like postmodernism and more like critical realism,

[Waterworks] Oh no! Wrong a second time!

You are quite possibly correct, J. J.! The reason that I suggested that some postmodernists might hold such views came from AB's criticism of my earlier characterisation of postmodernism and from a perusal of the excellent and very readable book on social constructionism by Ian Hacking called The Social Construction of What? (Harvard UP, 1999). From the latter I had gathered that there are those who like the social constructionist approach who do have that kind of critical approach. Others are as barmy and extreme as my earlier description.

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J. J. Ramsey
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quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
quote:
Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
That looks less like postmodernism and more like critical realism,

[Waterworks] Oh no! Wrong a second time!

Not so sure if you are really wrong per se. At least as expounded by N.T. Wright in The New Testament and the People of God, critical realism seems to be a response and a correction to the postmoderns' excessive reaction (rebellion?) against the naïve realism of modernists. So, AFAICT, postmodernism is part of critical realism's pedigree.

Of course, I could be wrong about that. [Waterworks] Wouldn't be the first time.

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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.

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magnum mysterium
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quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
Yes, I have over-generalised about postmodernism, taking the more objectionable and extreme parts of it as representative of the whole. I was thinking in particular of those who, for example, deny that language can refer to reality.

Why should language refer to something in reality? I think you have misunderstood the point here - and also have confused postmodernism with poststructuralism.

Poststructuralism says that a sign cannot refer to a real thing or truth. Signs operate by difference - the meaning of "cat" and "bat" is made by the difference of the sound of one letter, not because there is any inherent "batness" or "catness" about the words "cat" and "bat". I hardly find that "objectionable" or "extreme".

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Orb

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I think Christianity has a meta-narrative. There seems to be a body of literature (the Bible and doctrinal studies by non-biblical authors), a tradition and a reasoned ethic that props up every person's version of Christianity (they may overlap profusely [i.e. most evangelicals [Biased] ], or they may share BUT ONE THING in common [i.e. most Anglicans [Biased] ]). Call me naive, but I think there is a base of Truth, although I think it is scandalous to suggest that we can fully know ALL of the truth at every moment, never mind know ALL of the truth by the end of our lives. I also think Truth abstracted is a very, very dangerous thing and that is why postmodernism is so powerful because it asks Christians to take their abstractions and make them concrete not only in the way they lead their lives, but also in the way they explain, defend and analyse their faith to postmoderns and/or non-Christians...

I don't think we should forget that postmodernism IS a challenge to Christian faith. Which is what we are recognising here.

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“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

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AB
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But is Postmodernism/ity a threat to Christianity? I personally see the chance of breaking Jesus free of a propositional, rational, "we've got his licked" religion a really exciting prospect.

That postmodernism/ity will mean changes for our faith is not really in doubt, but surely it's only a threat if we insist that Chrisitianity is all about propositions and absolute truth - an assumption we should do well to consider carefully.

AB

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- Søren Kierkegaard

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Psyduck

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AB:
quote:
But is Postmodernism/ity a threat to Christianity?
To faith, no. To the institution(s)...

quote:
That postmodernism/ity will mean changes for our faith is not really in doubt, but surely it's only a threat if we insist that Chrisitianity is all about propositions and absolute truth - an assumption we should do well to consider carefully.
Agree with all that, except for the word 'only'. I think we also need a power-analysis in terms of institutions, and the way in which, in modernity, they have exerted power, which has often been through things not unrelated to metanarratives, viz. discourses, which have constructed subjectivity in certain ways. (I think that's where "respectability" fits in.)

And for many people, the survival of Christianity is all about the survival of its institutions and power-structures. That's to say, it's precisely survival that's their model of life, not - to quote Sir Edwin Hoskyns - Crucifixion-Resurrection. (That's what he had put on his gravestone! Just that, his name and dates, if I remember... [Cool] )

Singleton:
quote:
I don't think we should forget that postmodernism IS a challenge to Christian faith.
Again - absolutely. And vice-versa. But I do agree with AB that postmodernity may well prove to be an unexpectedly propitious environment for Christianity. And it's where we are, anyway.

--------------------
The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)

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Glenn Oldham
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quote:
Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
Yes, I have over-generalised about postmodernism, taking the more objectionable and extreme parts of it as representative of the whole. I was thinking in particular of those who, for example, deny that language can refer to reality.

Why should language refer to something in reality? I think you have misunderstood the point here - and also have confused postmodernism with poststructuralism.

Poststructuralism says that a sign cannot refer to a real thing or truth. Signs operate by difference - the meaning of "cat" and "bat" is made by the difference of the sound of one letter, not because there is any inherent "batness" or "catness" about the words "cat" and "bat". I hardly find that "objectionable" or "extreme".

[Waterworks] Oh no! Wrong a third time!
Sorry, I thought that some of the postmodern gurus were poststructuralists and thought that there was a link there.

The issue of reference is a complicated one and perhaps tangential to this thread. However the fact that it is true that signs 'operate by difference' and that there is no 'inherent "batness" or "catness" about the words "cat" and "bat"' does NOT logically imply that 'a sign cannot refer to a real thing or truth'. Why should it?

Glenn

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magnum mysterium
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Because a sign is a culturally imposed thing. An object or truth doesn't know what its name is. Why should it?
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Psyduck

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quote:
An object or truth doesn't know what its name is.
Or where its boundaries are.

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"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)

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Glenn Oldham
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quote:
Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:
Because a sign is a culturally imposed thing. An object or truth doesn't know what its name is. Why should it?

But what have those facts got to do with whether or not language can be used to refer to reality?

1) When I say to my friend 'pass the salt, please' I could not care less that the salt doesn't know that it is called 'salt' (in English). All I care about is that my friend knows that it is the salt that I wish him to pass to me rather than the butter or the pepper. And generally speaking saying 'pass the salt, please' works! It is hard to see how it can do so if it does not refer to reality in some way!

2) Some objects do know what they are called. Many human beings, such as myself, know what their names are. But my knowing my name is not what makes it possible for other people to refer to me amongst themselves. They might all refer to me behind my back as 'Mr Recession'. My not knowing it would not prevent others from successfully refering to me in their conversations using this (sadly increasingly accurate) nickname.

Glenn

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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)

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Citeaux
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..sounds very much like that scientific duo 'Heisenberg and his principle' (NOT principal...)
.. Big H argued that the act of observation changes the nature of what is observed.. therefore can there be any absolute..except the search (..or journey, in New Age parlance)?

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Jengie jon

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I am slightly confused. My understanding is that there is no discussion on whether there is an objective truth, but only whether a subject can know an objective truth. Is it possible so to rule out our culture which is embodied in the very way we see the Universe, that we can truly say we know something objectively?

My personal take is rarely humans do have such truth revealed to them but in the instance of embodying (e.g. telling someone else about it) that truth we move away, albeit imperceptibly, but surely, from that which was revealed.

Thus was are betrayed ultimately in our quest for closure by the very tools we use so often in searching for it.

Jengie

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Glenn Oldham
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quote:
Originally posted by Jengie:
Is it possible so to rule out our culture which is embodied in the very way we see the Universe, that we can truly say we know something objectively?

My personal take is rarely humans do have such truth revealed to them

I sympathise with the way that you have put this Jengie, but viewed from another angle it is remarkable that so many people seem so extremely doubtful about their ability to know things.

'The world contains animals called cats.'
'I am sitting on a chair.'
'There are stones in my garden.'

I cannot utter these sentences without using my culture to utter them (they are in English, they employ concepts that may be absent from other cultures - such as 'garden'). But why should I doubt that these extraordinarily common views are not objectively true? Why is the attainment of objective truth regarded as such a rare or even impossible acheivement?

What would it mean to say that it is true that from the perspective of my culture there are stones in my garden but from the perspective of culture X there are not stones in my garden? Is it just because Culture X does not have the concept 'stones' or 'garden' then that does not make my statement untrue? It just means that my statement cannot be said in culture X.

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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)

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AB
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I think it's not so much that the truth isn't any less truer, just that you'll have no joy explaining it propositionally to someone who, say, doesn't know about cats or whose concept of cats is radically different*

Show them a cat though, and well, that's a different matter.

* unless they are prepared to take it on faith, but that's a whole different kettle of fish...

Hopefully you can see where I'm leading this idea...

AB

--------------------
"This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love."
- Søren Kierkegaard

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Jengie jon

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Knowing for me is different from truth. I know a lot, that means I have intellectual models that allow me to charaterise and communicate with others about the signals my brain receives.

I have been taught this system since I was born by those around me and each time I say the word 'cat' or here the word 'cat' my notion of 'cat' and the word 'cat' is changed very slightly. Indeed with the notion of 'cat' that change has been very small for a far back as I can remember though it did change dramatically once when I saw a book that was talking of 'the big cats of the world' and there were pictures of tigers and lions and such. Before then I had considered these different entities to cats now I could see similarities and understand another usage of the word 'cat'. That is what we are doing when we use language we are seeing a specific incident and giving it a label. Those labels are also not set in clear terms, indeed English has a word that has changed from a synomyn for 'white' to one for 'black' because of how it was used.

Given these flexibilities we have a range of knowledge that is culturally formed. I would not like to say it was the only way of forming knowledge that is culturally valid. I was interested to catch on the radio 4 Start the week which was talking to Hugh Brody about his work with the Moo speakers of the Kalahari and how important it was to learn the concepts behind the Moo language because this would tell us how the Bushmen of the Kalahari understood their relationship with the Land and thus help with land claims in the courts for them.

Jengie

[ 29. December 2003, 10:13: Message edited by: Jengie ]

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magnum mysterium
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quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
1) When I say to my friend 'pass the salt, please' I could not care less that the salt doesn't know that it is called 'salt' (in English). All I care about is that my friend knows that it is the salt that I wish him to pass to me rather than the butter or the pepper. And generally speaking saying 'pass the salt, please' works! It is hard to see how it can do so if it does not refer to reality in some way!

You are relying on the fact that your friend has experienced the same cultural background and is able to use elements of a common discourse (ie. the English language, and some courtesies known to both the speakers). It really has nothing to do with 'reality' at all, more to do with the fact that you are both conversant in the same discourses. It is not true that "pass the salt, please" works because each word is inherently true and points to something else - 'reality' or whatever. It works because each of those occupy a place and function as part of a mode of understanding operating purely as part of your culture.
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Glenn Oldham
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quote:
Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
1) When I say to my friend 'pass the salt, please' I could not care less that the salt doesn't know that it is called 'salt' (in English). All I care about is that my friend knows that it is the salt that I wish him to pass to me rather than the butter or the pepper. And generally speaking saying 'pass the salt, please' works! It is hard to see how it can do so if it does not refer to reality in some way!

You are relying on the fact that your friend has experienced the same cultural background and is able to use elements of a common discourse (ie. the English language, and some courtesies known to both the speakers). It really has nothing to do with 'reality' at all, more to do with the fact that you are both conversant in the same discourses. It is not true that "pass the salt, please" works because each word is inherently true and points to something else - 'reality' or whatever. It works because each of those occupy a place and function as part of a mode of understanding operating purely as part of your culture.
I am utterly baffled again. I just do not see how is this supposed to be a reply. Of course my friend is only going to understand me if he speaks English. Of course his familiarity with that is essential to his being able to pass the salt in response to my request. But that still doesn't explain the question of the interaction with reality that results! I don't have the salt, I speak and ask for it, I get it. Here we have it: language and reality connected! He passed me the salt cellar and not the napkin or a hat! Why on earth say that it has nothing to do with reality at all? How much more real do you want?

And of course a word can't point in and of itself to reality. It can only do so as part of a language, as part of a convention, as part of ways of life. I do not hold to some naive picture theory of meaning! But nor do I subscribe to the idea that the arbitrary nature of the sign is any obstacle to reference as you seem to do (for reasons I still am unable to fathom).

Since your signature flashes your academic credentials MM I will point out that my protests are not unsupported by academics either. Michael Devitt and Kim Sterelny also cannot fathom why some people seem to think that the arbitrary nature of the sign should be taken as an obstacle to reference (see their book Language and Reality An Introduction to Philosophy of Language (2nd edn. Blackwell, 1999).

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Jengie jon

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The next example is silly because I am supposing a culture that as far as I know does not exist. There are however cultures where just such sort of differences exist. I believe the Inuit have forty different names for snow according to its type, texture, formation process and what it can be used for.

Now imagine the person you ask the salt for is from a culture that works only on the external appearance. So ice if it is cracked is different from clear ice. However white crystals are white crystals. Then even though he knows English, he might well infer that salt is a different word for sugar and pass you the sugar instead. He has translated what correctly into his language but has falsely identified the item you are asking for because the culture he belongs to does not distinguish sugar from salt.

Jengie

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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge

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magnum mysterium
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quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
I am utterly baffled again. I just do not see how is this supposed to be a reply. Of course my friend is only going to understand me if he speaks English. Of course his familiarity with that is essential to his being able to pass the salt in response to my request. But that still doesn't explain the question of the interaction with reality that results! I don't have the salt, I speak and ask for it, I get it. Here we have it: language and reality connected! [/QB]

Where is language and reality connected? You haven't shown how it is!

You are assuming that "salt" is "salt" no matter what. As Jengie has pointed out, "salt" might be viewed as a cultural construct. Some other culture could easily confuse salt with sugar because their language does not accommodate a distinction between the two. Thus what is "real" to speakers of one language, is not necessarily what is "real" to speakers of another.

[ 30. December 2003, 04:18: Message edited by: Magnum Mysterium ]

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AB
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I bet their cakes are horrible.

[Biased]

AB

--------------------
"This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love."
- Søren Kierkegaard

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Psyduck

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"You are the salt of the earth, Sugar..."

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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)

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The Undiscovered Country
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Following this debate reminds me of the story of Arthur Blessitt attending a conference on 'how to win the lost'. Finding himself getting increasingly bored with all the theorising, he walked over the road to a cafe, stuck his head in the door and asked whether anyone wanted to get to know Jesus. A waitress said that she'd been thinking and wondering about God a lot and wanted to know more. After some discussion she chose to become a Christian. Arthur then led her over the road to the conference, took her onto the platform and said 'whilst you've been talking about it, i've been doing it!'

Don't get me wrong. I strongly believe in having a clear understnading for what we as Christians believe and why we do what we do, and debates such as those on this thread are important and healthy. However I think there is a real danger that we get so obsessed with finding the right cultural models and appropriate ways to communicate that we get too scared to open our mouths about our faith at all. Most people are not operating a big filter on who they will talk to, waiting for someone to communicate within their culture-they simply looking for someone to accept them and be their friend. If we are simply willing to be open people who will offer a ready friendship and welcome people into our homes and lives, that will overcome a thousand cultural miscommunications.

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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore all hope of progress rests with the unreasonable man.

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magnum mysterium
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That's one perspective, yes, Jeff.
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Orb

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Although, in my own experience, people who have an "objective truth" seem quite hung up on the idea...

--------------------
“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

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Glenn Oldham
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quote:
Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:
Where is language and reality connected? You haven't shown how it is!

OK, I have been away today and have been unable to post so just a quickie reply for the moment.

My target in my postings is the idea that because names like 'salt' and 'sugar' are arbitrary and conventional they therefore cannot refer to the world or to reality. That simply does not follow. And you still have not come up with anything to show that it does, MM.

The fact that language is a convention does not mean that it is not also shaped by reality. This is because language exists in the context of practice, i.e. in part in the context of doing things in the world. Things like asking for things, telling others how to do things, making things and so on. There may indeed be cultures that lack the equivalent concepts of salt and sugar, but ours has them. Why? Well, in part because some of us like sweet tea or cakes or whatever. As part of our practice of achieving these practical tasks of getting sweet tea and so forth our language picks out a white crystaline substance and labels it 'sugar' and, to aid our practices we lablel another non-sweet white crystaline substance 'salt'. We print the word 'sugar' on bags of the sweet white crystaline substance for ease of getting it when we want it, and 'salt' on the other non-sweet white crystaline substance so we put the right stuff in our tea. That is part of what language is about: making actions easier. But we would be unable to make this distinction and continue with our current practices if there was no real difference between the substances sugar and salt. Reality has thus shaped our conventions. Language is not sealed off from the nature of the world.

The fact that another culture does not have these practices and does not make this kind of distinction does not mean that there is no real difference between sugar and salt. Nor does it mean that the other person would never be able to come to understand our distinction.

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Glenn Oldham
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Re-reading earlier posts I should also add that I am not arguing that language always refers to reality. I am simply arguing against claims that, because it is true that signs 'operate by difference' and that there is no 'inherent "batness" or "catness" about the words "cat" and "bat", language can never refer to reality.

Why is this important? Because this mistake can lead to a sloppy relativism about truth which is the counter error to dogmatism about what is true.
Glenn

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Psyduck

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# 2270

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Jeff Featherstone:
quote:
However I think there is a real danger that we get so obsessed with finding the right cultural models and appropriate ways to communicate that we get too scared to open our mouths about our faith at all.
I think that that's a very valid point - but not really at the centre of my interest in the postmodern. I'm actually more interested in the notion of postmodernity than -ism. I think that postmodernisms philosophize in more-or-less useful ways differences in the way in which contemporary people are human.

For instance, Baudrillard's use of the 'simulacrum' - the 'perfect copy for which there is no original' - makes sense of something that I think appalled and horrified all of us when it started, viz. the wave of kids in the US being killed (and several in this country being attacked) by other kids who stole their trainers. There isn't an original Nike Air Jordan in a museum somewhere - or if there is, it isn't 'the' original, but yet another copy. Yet what kids desired, to the point of murder, was Nike Air Jordans.

But if you take Lyotard's classic definition of the postmodern condition as 'incredulity towards metanarratives', and believe that this is how people are nowadays, then the spaces in which people live mentally who trust physics every time they turn on the TV, yet get the feng shui consultant in to their new flat, become more comprehensible. And that's where the Church has to live. I actually think that, once we're through the period in which Christianity is still seen as Yet Another Metanarrative, and ipso facto greeted with incredulity, (and also hated because it's suited modern states for 450 years to hire the Christian God as the "cop in your head" to keep us all in line and socially disciplined, we'll find that we're in a strangely congenial - if in some respects desperately dystopic - world.

The problem is that the non-Catholic, non-Orthodox world is careering down the dead-end of approaches that just exactly do present Christianity as metanarrative, and covertly - or sometimes overtly - present faith as the ability to keep on being credulous towards this metanarrative. Which is an extension of the conservative Protestant approach that faith is the ability to believe seven impossible things before breakfast.

And what's attractive about that particuar ship is simply the numbers of people who are piling on board. That's what makes it look successful.

Ironic, really!

Oh, oh, we haven't had anything on about postmodern irony yet...

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magnum mysterium
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quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
This is because language exists in the context of practice, i.e. in part in the context of doing things in the world. Things like asking for things, telling others how to do things, making things and so on. There may indeed be cultures that lack the equivalent concepts of salt and sugar, but ours has them. Why? Well, in part because some of us like sweet tea or cakes or whatever. As part of our practice of achieving these practical tasks of getting sweet tea and so forth our language picks out a white crystaline substance and labels it 'sugar' and, to aid our practices we lablel another non-sweet white crystaline substance 'salt'. We print the word 'sugar' on bags of the sweet white crystaline substance for ease of getting it when we want it, and 'salt' on the other non-sweet white crystaline substance so we put the right stuff in our tea. That is part of what language is about: making actions easier.

Would that it were that easy. Unfortunately language isn't always that unambiguous. As has been argued on this thread before, signs do not always have such simple interpretations. A sign (a word, a phrase, a text) may be read in many different ways, even if those other readings are quite outside the way in which the author intended. Thus, a phrase like, "Pass me the salt please" may not always be the unambiguous request that we might ascribe on first reading. A simple word like "please" has tied up in it connotations of power and domination. We are taught from a very young age to "remember our manners", we are subject to the domination of a power holding entity - those who claim that "manners" are something "natural" to be taught to children.

But we shouldn't rush to conclude that something we consider "natural" (ie manners) to necessarily constitute that which represents "reality", something universally true across all times. One only need to look back a few hundred years in western history of table conduct to realise that what we consider "normal" is not what our ancestors considered "normal". Thus, your statement "Pass me the salt please" is loaded with YOUR perception of reality as governed by the paradigm to which you subscribe.

quote:
Reality has thus shaped our conventions. Language is not sealed off from the nature of the world.

Your second statement here is quite true - language certainly is not sealed off from the nature of the world. I would go so far as to say that language in fact governs the nature of the world - language has in fact shaped our conventions, which in turn shape that which we consider to be "reality".
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watchergirl
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I must admit that I've had difficulty following some of this thread as I am definitely not a philosopher. However, as a student and teacher of both literature and language and a former student of critical theory (that didn't last long but started to give me a background in postmodernism and other cultural theories), I've long considered myself a postmodern Christian. Brian McLaren's book 'A New Kind of Christian', which has already been mentioned, helped to crystallise some of my thoughts on what a postmodern Christian might be - though really, I'd guess that postmodern Christianity would be as hard to pin down and categorise as postmodernity itself.

The current debate over homosexuality (which I think many of us believe is really about interpretation of the Bible) is just one manifestation of the conflict between modernism and postmodernism within the church. I think a postmodern theology is already emerging within the Christian church to deal with this. Dave Tomlinson's 'The Post Evangelical' (which I always think needs hyphenating, at the very least) and Gordon Lynch's 'Losing My Religion' are two books that encapsulate the reactions of many Christians to the clash of modernism and postmodernism between the Church - particularly evangelical and Catholic churches - and the secular world.

I'm pretty sure I would have left the Church a long time ago if I hadn't realised that there were others, like Tomlinson, Lynch and in fact many Christians I've met, who not only recognise this clash but would like the Church to change and move beyond it. We're living a reactionary existence at the moment, and I think that's a huge part of why we're failing to engage the culture around it. We should be in the world but not of the world - we're currently not even in it. I think that means that we're failing the postmodern culture in a serious way.

[ 03. January 2004, 12:48: Message edited by: watchergirl ]

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Isaac David

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# 4671

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I've read this whole thread and I'm none the wiser; I think I understand what postmodernity and postmodernism are, but could somebody explain what a postmodern Christian is? I'd prefer an answer from somebody who considers themselves to belong in such a category.

Isaac David

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Glenn Oldham
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# 47

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This reply returns to an earlier posting by Jengie, sorry that it does not directly address Magnum Mysterium's most recent post.

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie:
Now imagine the person you ask the salt for is from a culture that works only on the external appearance. So ice if it is cracked is different from clear ice. However white crystals are white crystals. Then even though he knows English, he might well infer that salt is a different word for sugar and pass you the sugar instead. He has translated what correctly into his language but has falsely identified the item you are asking for because the culture he belongs to does not distinguish sugar from salt.

This is a very reasonable example. Different cultures use different concepts in their talking about the world. What are the implications of that? Some postmodernists have seen the implications as very radical, but are they?

Here is a quote from Susan Haack’s article ‘Reflections on Relativism: From Momentous Tautology to Seductive Contradiction’ (in her book Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate ) (I have put a bit in bold myself; the italics are her own):

quote:
The thesis of conceptual relativity says that how many and what kinds of objects or properties there are is relative to conceptual scheme or vocabulary. But what could it mean to say, “relative to conceptual scheme C1 there are rocks, but relative to conceptual scheme C2 there are not”? It seems to waver unsteadily between the trivial: “you can’t describe the world without describing it” – the momentous tautology of my subtitle – and the manifestly false: “incompatible descriptions of the world can both be true” –the seductive contradiction of my subtitle.
.

So in Jengie’s example our conceptual scheme C1 has sugar and salt in it, but our visitor from C2 does not. Let’s say that he calls both salt and sugar ‘whikral’.

The momentous tautology in this case is that if he is going to call salt and sugar something then he has to use some term or terms for them. If that is what conceptual relativity says then that is very un-radical.

The seductive contradiction is to suppose that if he calls salt and sugar ‘whikral’ in his conceptual scheme but we call them ‘salt’ and ‘sugar’ then this proves that we both hold [b[incompatible but equally true beliefs[/b] about the world. But this does not follow at all.

For, firstly, we can easily understand the two conceptual schemes as both true and compatible. For us ‘whikral’ can probably be translated into something like ‘white crystals’. If our visitor from C2 accepts that we are picking out real differences between sugar and salt, he may accept that ‘sugar’ should be translated as something like C2 language equivalent of ‘whikral that tastes sweet’ and ‘salt’ as ‘whikral that tastes sea-watery’.

Secondly. we can also understand the two conceptual schemes as incompatible but with one (or both) untrue. Suppose he tells us that his calling both sugar and salt ‘whikral’ is a claim that they are both exactly the same substance. We might say to him, ‘but they taste different, have different degrees of solubility, can be burnt in different ways, have different chemical composition (which we can demonstrate to you).’ In this way he would learn from us how to pick out a difference in the world that he was not previously aware of. He would realise that he was wrong about sugar and salt being exactly the same substance.

But on the other hand He might say to us ‘yes, we know all that, but it is like ice, water and steam. You call ice, water and steam by different names and they have many different qualities, but you know they are all really the same substance - water. Well in the same way we know that salt and sugar are really both whikral.’ If he was able to back this claim up, we might come to learn from him how to pick out a similarity in the world that we were not previously aware of. We might then realise that we were wrong about, say, our atomic theory.

So none of this means that we have to take the view that just because different cultures conceptualise the world in different ways that therefore incompatible descriptions of the world can both be true. On the other hand none of this means that we have a privileged and unassailable conceptual scheme. Our conceptual scheme may face a challenge from others and may need to adapt to new evidence and insights from those other schemes. How securely grounded our scheme is will depend on lots of considerations about evidence, coherence and so on.

Do people with different conceptual schemes live in different worlds, or occupy different realities? In one sense, no they don’t, we all live in the same physical world. In another sense, yes, insofar as conceptual schemes affect the way society is organised, how people behave and so on it does alter reality in all sorts of ways, some mundane, some interesting. I live in a world or in a reality where people drive on the left side of the road and where if anyone begins to speak to me they virtually always do so in English. That quite clearly makes my reality different to that of my counterpart in Paris.

There is nothing especially radical about this except insofar as becoming aware of it challenges us to assess how, and how far, our conceptual scheme might not be as certain and secure as we think it is. Then it can be very challenging indeed.

Glenn

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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)

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Glenn Oldham
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# 47

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Magnum Mysterium,
I have no objection whatsoever to acknowledging that manners such as saying 'please' are quite clearly matters of convention (and socially constructed, as they say). But our use of 'salt' and 'sugar' are not conventions in the same way. That salt and sugar taste different is not a matter of convention but is a matter of their inherent nature and its interaction with our physiology. Likewise that they have many demonstrably different physical properties is not a result of convention.

That is the point that I was making.
Glenn

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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)

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Jengie jon

Semper Reformanda
# 273

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Ah yes Glenn

I said it was a silly example but what about colours.

English has seven, Shona has four and Bassa is minimalist with two.

Of course Bassa has the minimal you need but that does not make the others wrong and will effect very much how we see the world.

Jengie

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Jengie jon

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# 273

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Sorry to double post but this is too gorgeous to miss.

Please read from this posting on on the Hell thread "Can I please just shoot..." and you should give some idea of the complexities postmodernism addresses.

Jengie

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Glenn Oldham
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# 47

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quote:
Originally posted by Jengie:
Ah yes Glenn

I said it was a silly example but what about colours.

English has seven, Shona has four and Bassa is minimalist with two.

Of course Bassa has the minimal you need but that does not make the others wrong and will effect very much how we see the world.

Are you using 'see' metaphorically or literally? Tests have been done, I understand, to show that people belonging to these cultures are not sytematically colour blind.

What seems to be the case is that their culture is such that distinguishing as many different colours as we do has no role in their culture. This would not amount to saying that our colour concepts have no basis in reality and are purely conventional and pick out no real differences in the world.

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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)

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Jengie jon

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No neither metaphor not reality.

The fact is that colour is a half way house between culture and reality. The whole way I think of colours, the colours of the rainbow, the laws of mixing colours are predicated on my understanding of there being seven colours. The laws of mixing colours say blue and yellow make green etc.

I was taught at school that their could only ever be the seven colours of the rainbow and you could show this by passing light through one prism, through a second prism. The English school child in such circumstances would still only see seven colours. This was a science lesson not a cultural one. A Basso child would of course see a spectrum going from blue to red of which there was only one divider in the middle where it changes from blue to red. There is of course no point in talking of primary colours to the child brought up in Basso. Yet their vision is conceptually to the scientist in me much more accurate.

The fact is the way we see colour is not purely an effect of the rays of light entering our eyes but the culture that surrounds us.

Jengie

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Glenn Oldham
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# 47

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quote:
Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:
... - language certainly is not sealed off from the nature of the world. I would go so far as to say that language in fact governs the nature of the world - language has in fact shaped our conventions, which in turn shape that which we consider to be "reality".

It is somewhat ambiguous to say that 'language governs the world'. I am assuming that you mean human language rather than God's.

If you mean that human language has an effect on how the world is, then that is clearly true in many ways, some straightforward ('chop that tree down!') some complex (anorexia is an area that springs to mind here). But, of course language is not the only thing that governs the world. I do not need oxygen to live because it is a convention. When the days are very short in the UK they are long in New Zealand, but not by convention. We cannot, alas, by using language, bring my dead cat back to life. That we cannot do so is not a convention of language, a quirk of grammar.

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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)

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Glenn Oldham
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# 47

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quote:
Originally posted by Jengie:
No neither metaphor not reality.

The fact is that colour is a half way house between culture and reality. The whole way I think of colours, the colours of the rainbow, the laws of mixing colours are predicated on my understanding of there being seven colours. The laws of mixing colours say blue and yellow make green etc.

I was taught at school that their could only ever be the seven colours of the rainbow and you could show this by passing light through one prism, through a second prism. The English school child in such circumstances would still only see seven colours. This was a science lesson not a cultural one. A Basso child would of course see a spectrum going from blue to red of which there was only one divider in the middle where it changes from blue to red. There is of course no point in talking of primary colours to the child brought up in Basso. Yet their vision is conceptually to the scientist in me much more accurate.

The fact is the way we see colour is not purely an effect of the rays of light entering our eyes but the culture that surrounds us.

This is a fascinating point Jengie.

Just a few thoughts largely in the form of questions (but aimed more at myself than you necessarily). What would it mean to say that when one looks at the spectrum one only sees, say, three colours? If you only have three words for colours in your cluture then how would you count more than three? What stops you from saying that there are more than three? Is it that you see the spectrum differently from someone who has more colour words, or is it that you do not have more than three colour words to use? You were told in science class that there were seven colours. But the same science class would now teach that the spectrum is continuous. There are many shades of blue. Paint shops have very many more than seven colours. Do you see the spectrum differently now? Or do you describe it differently? Do you notice things you did not notice before (as one can do with practice and learning). When I was at university I would look at electronmicrographs (photos) of cells. They just looked like bathroom lino to me, all those jumbled lines, but then I learned to see mitochondria and golgi apparatus in the photos. Someone saw them first though, without prior concepts to guide him or her, and the structures proved themselves over time, as reliably replicable.

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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)

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Glenn Oldham
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# 47

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quote:
Originally posted by watchergirl:
The current debate over homosexuality (which I think many of us believe is really about interpretation of the Bible) is just one manifestation of the conflict between modernism and postmodernism within the church. I think a postmodern theology is already emerging within the Christian church to deal with this.

Watchergirl,
I still find it extremely hard to get a grip on the concepts of modernism and postmodernism. Perhaps your example may help to enlighten me. Can you tell me what it is about modernism that would lead to a condemnation of homosexual activity? Those who oppose such a condemnation often do so because they would argue that the condemnation of acts that can deepen a constructive relationship is cruel and thus out of step with Christian morality. How would that be postmodern? Are not both sides appealing to reason and authority, albeit in different ways? I thought that postmodernism involved a radical repudiation of reason, a continuous deconstruction of all arguments and all texts including its own?

Glenn

[ 03. January 2004, 22:18: Message edited by: Glenn Oldham ]

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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)

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Psyduck

Ship's vacant look
# 2270

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Glenn Oldham: Ihab Hassan produced a famous table of oppositions between modern and postmodern, which is reproduced here. It gives a very interesting sense of the contrasts, and is oddly relevant to your query about sexuality. It's one of the iconic articulations of the modern/postmodern problematic, and it's one of those things that (a) sticks in your mind after you've seen it, and (b) you need to know where to find so you can go back to it.

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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)

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Glenn Oldham
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# 47

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quote:
Originally posted by psyduck:
Ihab Hassan produced a famous table of oppositions between modern and postmodern, which is reproduced here.

Excellent link, psyduck, many thanks, though I'll have to use my dictionary!
G

[ 04. January 2004, 08:33: Message edited by: Glenn Oldham ]

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Psyduck

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# 2270

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Glenn Oldham:
quote:
Excellent link, psyduck, many thanks, though I'll have to use my dictionary!
G

Or not... Dictionaries are about representation - a possibility denied in postmodernism. [Ultra confused] You could maybe guess - it's more fun! [Yipee]

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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)

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magnum mysterium
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# 3418

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quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
quote:
Originally posted by Magnum Mysterium:
... - language certainly is not sealed off from the nature of the world. I would go so far as to say that language in fact governs the nature of the world - language has in fact shaped our conventions, which in turn shape that which we consider to be "reality".

It is somewhat ambiguous to say that 'language governs the world'.
Mr Oldham, you have misquoted me to begin with. I did not ever say that "language governs the world". But that aside, having reread this post, I could have been a little more precise. For instance, when I say "language governs the nature of the world" I should really have written "language governs the way in which each of us perceives the nature of the world".

[ 04. January 2004, 11:00: Message edited by: Magnum Mysterium ]

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watchergirl
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Glenn Oldham: Not the issue of sexuality itself - I haven't really considered exactly how that would fit into the postmodern debate, although perhaps I should - but interpretation of the Bible. Postmoderns (and I hate categorising, since 'postmodernity' defies categories, but I'm going to anyway) tend to see each individual's view of the world (and thus the Bible) as valid. For me, the debate over how the Bible should be interpreted is a clash between modernity and postmodernity because moderns tend to interpret the Bible one way and believe that that is the only way to interpret it, whether liberally or literally. In contrast, postmoderns allow for different views of the world by different individuals. You said "Those who oppose such a condemnation often do so because they would argue that the condemnation of acts that can deepen a constructive relationship is cruel and thus out of step with Christian morality" - yes, but they have stepped out of their own experience and looked at the experience of others in order to come to that conclusion, and they have questioned the 'this is the only way to understand the world' theme that many of those on the other side of the argument would hold. Evangelicalism seems to me to be very modern in its immovable values. But in other ways, as Brian McLaren points out, so is liberalism. Others would disagree with me on either or both of those statements, and they have the right to see things differently. That's the postmodern approach, after all. [Smile] I see the whole Biblical inerrancy (and homosexuality) debate as extremely modern: two groups with very fixed views fighting with each other to be recognised as the group with the monopoly on truth, while the rest of the world is sitting back and going 'huh?' at an argument that most of them got past a while ago by accepting that, in today's postmodern society, people just have different world views.

Brian McLaren says the following about postmodernism (I'll try and keep it short in the hope that I'm not breaking any copyrights here): "In a way, you cross the threshold into postmodernity the moment you turn your critical scrutiny from others to yourself, when you relativize your own modern viewpoint... You begin to see that what seemed like pure, objective certainty really depends heavily on a subjective preference for your personal viewpoint" ['A New Kind of Christian', McLaren]. Postmodern Christianity, if it exists or will exist, will in part be about letting go of the 'objective certainties' that both evangelicals (in doctrine) and liberals (often in tradition) find so appealing.

I'm sure that was appallingly written, as I'm only just starting to consider a lot of these ideas - and because I often don't have the theories to support them. But I think it's hard to deny the cultural clash that is going on between the modern Church (and other modern institutions or religions) and postmodern society. I think it's a big part of why so many Christians here feel out-of-step with the Church, as though we don't fit into Christian culture particularly well. I think there will be more of that before we develop a Christian culture that, while still being completely Christian, is able to engage with the world around us in the way that Paul did in the Athenian marketplace.

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Glenn Oldham
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Thanks for your illuminating reply, watchergirl. I seem to be gradually getting the picture. A quick comment on the McLaren quote.

quote:
Originally posted by watchergirl:
Brian McLaren says ... : "In a way, you cross the threshold into postmodernity the moment you turn your critical scrutiny from others to yourself, when you relativize your own modern viewpoint... You begin to see that what seemed like pure, objective certainty really depends heavily on a subjective preference for your personal viewpoint" ['A New Kind of Christian', McLaren]. Postmodern Christianity, if it exists or will exist, will in part be about letting go of the 'objective certainties' that both evangelicals (in doctrine) and liberals (often in tradition) find so appealing.

Now it is unjust of me to judge a book from one sentence, but this triggers in me a lot of quarrels with the kind of analysis this sentence offers. It is so patronising towards people by implying that they only believe what they do because it is convenient for them. As if people haven't gone through a lot of soul-searching and agonising about what to believe. If, however, the main thrust is to recommend a self-critical, sometimes agnostic and cautious, sometimes robust and confident approach to matters of belief then, bravo, that is precisely what I like about the contemporary liberal approach.

quote:
Originally posted by watchergirl:
I see the whole Biblical inerrancy (and homosexuality) debate as extremely modern: two groups with very fixed views fighting with each other to be recognised as the group with the monopoly on truth, while the rest of the world is sitting back and going 'huh?' at an argument that most of them got past a while ago by accepting that, in today's postmodern society, people just have different world views.

Yes, a large number of people think -'hey, do and think what you like!' But this itself is a moral viewpoint that has much to be said for it but as a complete view is inadequate. It can be contested and requires justification and qualification. Besides, I don't think that either camp that you mention claims a monopoly on truth-as-a-whole. Perhaps you mean that they claim to be right on this particular issue, innerrancy say, or that particular issue, homosexuality say. If so, what are the alternative approaches? Is the bible inerrant (and if so in what way) or is it not (and if so what does that imply about how we use it)? How do we answer this? Are you recommending that as postmoderns we should ignore the question and not think about it? Or are you recommending that we be self-critical about it, in which case we will each need to think carefully about the issue and the evidence and come to a conclusion. But isn't that what these people in these camps are doing already? Or is everyone just believing what they want to believe?

Or is the postmodern view that the bible can be inerrant for one person and not inerrant for another and that both views are true. How are we supposed to make sense of that? And if so, then what is the Christian message? Isn't such a relativistic approach the death knell of Christianity?

Please feel free to tell me to shut up and go and read McLaren's book!
Glenn

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AB
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Glenn (and probably Isaac David who was looking for a description of post-modern Christian faith),

The postmodern take on (say) inerrancy, is not that an objective truth does exist, but that we can't be 100% sure that our take on the subject is objective.

Thus if one person looks at the evidence and declares that the Bible is inerrant, and another looks on the same evidence and decides the opposite - who are we to arbiter between them? In the end our take on it will be based on loads of factors to do with our culture, upbringing, and yes, eventually personal taste (though I doubt ever explicitly declared as such).

Thus the post-modern can say, "if it helps you to be a better Christian, then the Bible can be inerrant for you, I read it the other way, but I am no more necessarily right than you are"

It's not just tolerance, it's a wholehearted acceptance of our own lack of truth, rather than being prepared to tolerate someone you 'know' to be incorrect.

AB

[ 04. January 2004, 21:41: Message edited by: AB ]

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"This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love."
- Søren Kierkegaard

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Psyduck

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But of course inerrancy tends to mean "Inerrant for you as well as for me, whether you accept this or not!" Which can usually be effortlessly deconstructed into "I'm right and you're wrong!"

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The opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty.
"Lle rhyfedd i falchedd fod/Yw teiau ar y tywod." (Ieuan Brydydd Hir)

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The Undiscovered Country
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quote:
Originally posted by AB:
Glenn (and probably Isaac David who was looking for a description of post-modern Christian faith),

The postmodern take on (say) inerrancy, is not that an objective truth does exist, but that we can't be 100% sure that our take on the subject is objective.

Thus if one person looks at the evidence and declares that the Bible is inerrant, and another looks on the same evidence and decides the opposite - who are we to arbiter between them? In the end our take on it will be based on loads of factors to do with our culture, upbringing, and yes, eventually personal taste (though I doubt ever explicitly declared as such).

Thus the post-modern can say, "if it helps you to be a better Christian, then the Bible can be inerrant for you, I read it the other way, but I am no more necessarily right than you are"

It's not just tolerance, it's a wholehearted acceptance of our own lack of truth, rather than being prepared to tolerate someone you 'know' to be incorrect.

AB

I have to be honest and say that I have a real difficulty in thinking of anyone in the Bible or in the heroes of faith over the past twenty centuries who adopted this approach. Throughout we see people who are no only personally convinced of their position but also passionately argue for it. This does not seem to me to require one to dismiss differing views out of hand but neither does it mean passively saying 'your truth might be right for you'. It does mean not just knowing what you believe but why you believe it and be prepared to debate that, and to be preapred to change your views if oyur position can be demonstrated to be wrong. That seems to me to be a fundamentally more honest and intelligent approach to take which does not passively accept anything as possible truth but also does not leave one immune to argument and to a change of position. It stands half a chance of together genuinely discovering truth.

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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man adapts the world to himself. Therefore all hope of progress rests with the unreasonable man.

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AB
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Indeed Jeff, I'm in no way advocating a namby-pamby-we-can't-know-truth style of Christian living where we just don't bother trying to figure out stuff - it's amusing to me especially as I have a reputation as the Church trouble maker when it comes to theology! (in a good way) [Biased]

Proper dialogue is crucial to living faith, but should that dialogue result in an impasse (which it often will) with both camps entrenched with their own personal views - what right do I have to arbiter about who is right and who is wrong?

In any case, arguing the toss over a theological topic is a fairly modern form of 'growing' - I'd prefer to embody my viewpoints and show that they can provide a valid and passionate christian life. By their fruits will you know them, and all that.

AB

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"This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love."
- Søren Kierkegaard

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Glenn Oldham
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quote:
Originally posted by AB:
Thus the post-modern can say, "if it helps you to be a better Christian, then the Bible can be inerrant for you, I read it the other way, but I am no more necessarily right than you are"

It's not just tolerance, it's a wholehearted acceptance of our own lack of truth, rather than being prepared to tolerate someone you 'know' to be incorrect.

I am not happy with the way you have put this, since "I am no more necessarily right than you are" is an extremely unclear way of putting it.

You would not, I take it, be prepared to say: "if it helps you to be a better Christian, then the holocaust is a fiction for you, but I read the evidence the other way, but I am no more necessarily right than you are"
Glenn

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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)

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