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Are These Really Uniquely Dark Times Today?
A Debate About Whether Times Really Are Dark
A very high percentage of people with whom I speak agree with deep decline of the United States. I ask many people the question, “Do you think the country is in decline?” Very few say “no.” Two different men touched on this subject in recent days, and I want to comment on their conclusions.
First, Kevin Schaal, president of the FBFI, wrote, “Wars and Rumors of Wars,” beginning the post with “we live in dark days.” Second, Aaron Blumer, owner of fundamentalist website SharperIron, wrote in criticism of Schaal’s introduction with “Do We Live In Dark Times?” First, Kevin Schaal, second, Aaron Blumer, and now I will write my thoughts addressing the question, “Are these really uniquely dark times?”
Maybe Not Any Darker?
From what I read, the older people in succeeding generations in the past complained about decline from a previous generation to theirs. The new generation changes. The former generation interprets this as decline. Some would say this happens again and again. Some would say what’s happening right now is just more of the same. Is this true? Blumer says it’s not much different and maybe better based on certain data. At least in his introduction, Schaal says, No, these are uniquely bad times, enough to call them “dark.”
Blumer contends there have always been bad times. He says this trend goes back to the beginning. Job, Jesus, Paul, and Peter talk about dark days then and into the future, Blumer writes. He also bemoans how leaders feed the anxieties already inundating the news media.
Preliminary to Christ’s Return?
I don’t think Kevin Schaal was feeding anxiety. He was saying recent world events seemed tell-tale as something preliminary to the coming of Jesus Christ. For a Christian, that doesn’t cause anxiety, but joy or happiness.
Mainly Schaal pointed to wars: Ukraine, Israel, rumors of possible war in Taiwan, and maybe something bigger in the Middle East with Iran. These are the dark times to which he referred, pointing to them as a warm-up for the seven year tribulation on earth. Maybe Blumer totally missed Schaal’s point. I believe Schaal thinks the catching up of the saints with Christ in the clouds, the rapture, precedes the second coming of Christ by seven years.
Yes, Darker Than Ever
When I talk to people out in the world, I too talk about uniquely dark times. Based on the way true Christians judge the world, this world is darker than ever. The United States, the greatest light for the Lord in recent world history, is as spiritually and morally bankrupt as ever. It is the worst by far based on every way you can judge.
In the 1980s William Bennett published his Index of Leading Cultural Indicators. Using accurate data, he reported the measurement of the downgrade in every cultural area. At that time, there was little to no positive presentation of homosexuality in the media. Now it is rampant and normalized. It’s worse than that. Conservative homosexuals now stand as leading spokesman against woke transgenderism. There is a steep decline in this country and nothing indicating that we’re coming back.
Apatheism and the Start of a Turnaround
I’ve never seen greater ignorance of the gospel in places once considered the Bible belt. Atheism has grown, but it’s not just that. It’s what someone rightfully calls “apatheism.” Apatheism might be worse than atheism. It’s at least atheism from the neck down but in greater numbers by far than actual atheism.
When I preach and serve, I don’t act like we can’t come out of the present cold or lukewarm spiritual condition today. I behave like we can see this all turn around. Do I think it will turn around? No. But if it is, it will start with me, then my church, then my community and my county. I’m not thinking of something as big as a nation changing. Let’s start with our church and then our neighborhood.
Modernism Is Not an Acceptable Alternative to Postmodernism: Jordan Peterson
Early Experience with Modernism
Growing up in small town Indiana, no one exposed me to modernism. Without anyone telling me, I read the Bible as literal. Everything happened in it just like it read. When I was twelve, my dad took us all off to Bible college in Wisconsin when he was thirty-five years old, but he was never some theologian.
I interacted very little with modernism in college or graduate school. When I wrote papers, I provided alternative views to my position, so I read a little modernism then. Faculty did not assign modernist books to read in a fundamentalist college. The modernist books, I must admit, I used to pad my bibliographies, quoting them in selective fashion.
My theological separation divided the saved from the unsaved. People either received or rejected Jesus Christ. I did not categorize someone a modernist. He just rejected the truth, an unbeliever. Modernism held no attraction to me. If someone was a modernist, through my lens he was just an unbeliever.
More Mature Understanding of Modernism
In graduate school, I took a class, History of Fundamentalism, taught by B. Myron Cedarholm, because the normal teacher, Richard Weeks, was ill. In that class, I heard how that fundamentalism began as a movement in response to modernism or liberalism pervading and then controlling religious institutions. Modernism invaded Southern Baptist seminaries and the Presbyterian, Princeton Theological Seminary. None of this still mattered much for me. It registered as something written on paper, because I had no experience with it.
After marriage and a move to the San Francisco Bay Area to evangelize and then start a Baptist church, I came into recognition of modernism in a personal way, listening to a liberal radio talk show. I listened to the Ronn Owens Show and his interview with Uta Ranke-Heinemann, a female liberal theologian from Germany. She wrote, .Putting Away Childish Things: The Virgin Birth, the Empty Tomb, and Other Fairy Tales You Don’t Need to Believe to Have a Living Faith.
On a regular basis, I then encountered modernists in the San Francisco Bay Area. They went to modernist churches in almost every religious denomination. They often didn’t reject the Bible. Instead, they viewed scripture in a mystical way, not taking it literally. Modernists likely denied the supernatural aspects of scripture. Many times they allegorized the Bible to make it more malleable for their liberal cultural and social causes.
The Arrival of Postmodernism
As years passed, progressivism turned from modernism to postmodernism. Now postmodernists can make modernists seem at least moderate, if not conservative. Postmodernists rejected modernism. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I ask that you consider what I wrote in 2021:
Modernism then arose and said revelation wasn’t suitable for knowledge. Modernists could point to distinctions between religions and denominations and the wars fought over them. Knowledge instead came through scientific testing, man’s observations, consequently elevating man above God. Man could now do what he wanted because he changed the standard for knowledge. Faith for sure wasn’t good enough. With modernism, faith might make you feel good, but you proved something in naturalistic fashion to say you know it. Modernism then trampled the twentieth century, producing devastation, unsuccessful with its so-called knowledge.
Premoderns had an objective basis for knowledge, revelation from God. Moderns too, even if it wasn’t valid, had human reasoning, what they called “empirical proof.” Postmoderns neither believed or liked scripture or empiricism. This related to authority, whether God or government or parents, or whatever. No one should be able to tell somebody else what to do, which is to conform them to your truth or your reality. No one has proof. Institutions use language to construct power.
Postmodernism judged modernism a failure, pointing to wars, the American Indians and institutional bias, bigotry, and injustice. Since modernism constructed itself by power and language, a postmodernist possesses his own knowledge of good and evil, his own truth, by which to construct his own reality. No one will any more control him with power and language.
Dangerous New Acceptance of Modernism
Jordan Peterson
Modernists today very often stand with conservatives on certain principles. When I hear him talk about the Bible, and he does very much, Jordan Peterson sounds like a modernist. In recent days Peterson appeared in a new series on the Book of Exodus and apparently he wrote a book soon published on the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He talked about that in a podcast. In his conversation on Exodus, his interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah, and in a talk about the book of Jonah, Peterson in recent days pushes his modernist position on tens of thousands of especially young men.
What excites many about Peterson’s talks is that he even talks about the Bible at all. He acts enthused about scripture. Peterson thinks the Bible is very important. He puts great effort into communicating his modernist position and interpretations of the Bible. Almost five years ago, I already warned about Peterson, still hoping he might change. He hasn’t and today he’s doubling down on his modernistic approach.
Modernism Versus Divine Verbal Plenary Inspiration
Jordan Peterson does not comment on the Bible like God inspired it. When I say inspired, I mean verbal plenary inspiration. God breathed out every word and all of them in the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Perhaps I will put more time into exposing the false interpretations and teachings of Jordan Peterson sometime in the future. In the meantime, please know that Jordan Peterson does not expose what Genesis, Exodus, or almost anything in the scripture actually says. He leads people astray with his false doctrine.
Don’t get me wrong. Peterson says many good things. You and I can rejoice in that. I’m happy he agrees with freedom of speech. He rejects a cancel culture. Peterson accepts a patriarchy. He does not, however, proclaim an orthodox view of God or the Bible, even though he refers to scripture all the time.
Two Approaches to Reality, One of Which Is True: Either Construing or Constructing Reality
Let’s say that I’m on vacation to Turkey. I want to look at Asia Minor and the geographical locations of the Apostle Paul’s churches there. In addition I’m interested in Istanbul and the history of the Eastern Roman Empire. While touring, I’m grabbed, a gunny sack pulled over my head, and thrown into the back of a dark cargo van. The next thing I’m sitting on a metal chair in a crumbling urban brick building with a camera pointed at my face.
Moslem terrorists rip the sack off my head and through very bright light I see several swarthy, angry men each with AK-47s. One of them puts a crumpled paper in my hand with English text, that says I must admit confess that as an American spy I reject the Republican form of government and pledge my allegiance to Allah.
I look up from the script my interrogators gave me and tell them that I can’t read this, because it isn’t true. One of them punches the side of my head with the butt of his rifle and I see a flash of bright lights. I shake out the cobwebs and everything looks blurry. As my brain starts to clear again, I feel a stream of blood down the side of my head. As everything starts to clear, I look at the script and reassess whether I might go ahead and read it.
What’s on the piece of paper isn’t true, even if the audience believes it. The kidnappers constructed a reality. It isn’t true. I don’t believe it. I reject it. Someone else wrote it. Saying it or writing it more doesn’t make it any more true. What they’ve constructed is not reality. The language on the paper means to construct a new reality.
Maybe you’ve heard that perception is reality. A person can create his own reality based on his perception, one which might not be true. A person with perceptions will call it reality, when it isn’t. This is a reality again of his own construction, perhaps based on his misconstruing his own reality. Perception is reality, is not reality. He could perceive reality, but his perception does not make it reality. Very often it is not. Even though it isn’t reality, he forms language to construct a reality as he perceives it.
Construct or Construe
A popular postmodern notion today is that people construct their own realities. Reality is what people want it to be. Therefore, they reject objective reality and/or objective meaning.
For the sake of discussion, I am saying that construing reality is describing reality as it is, as it really is. Constructing reality describes reality as we want it to be. God alone constructs reality outside of our own perception. At most, we construe it. If we truly construe reality, then we describe it as it is. If we don’t like the reality God constructed, out of rebellion against him we might construct our own reality. It still isn’t reality though.
Postmoderns say men constructed the patriarchy, that is, the patriarchy is a social construct. They constructed the patriarchy using language. They say language is powerful. Language constructs reality. Language also changes reality, so using language they construct a new reality, an egalitarian one. Construction of a new, different reality starts with deconstruction of the old. Then using language, they construct a new one.
The patriarchy is reality. People’s job is to construe reality. People might not like the patriarchy but that does not change the reality of patriarchy. Since God constructs reality, reality is objective and, therefore, meaning is objective. Our life only has meaning if it describes reality as it really is. Someone construes reality only when he describes it or understands it as it really is.
Is patriarchy construing reality or constructing reality? It construes reality. It construes what God constructed. Why do people then construct reality? Objective reality, what we should call “the truth,” contradicts people’s lusts. They then construct a reality that conforms to their lust and call it their own reality. Also, they call it their truth. They use language to construct their own reality. This is why language becomes so important in secular institutions. They reject God, leaving themselves to construct their own reality.
The Idolatry of Using Language to Construct a New Reality
In the beginning, God constructed reality out of language. John 1:1-3 read:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
The Word made all things. With Him was not anything made that was made. God alone did this or does this. When a man constructs his own reality using language, it is a form of idolatry that proceeds from pride and lust. Therefore, he worships and serves the creature rather than the Creator (cf. Romans 1:25).
Rejecting reality, that is, not describing it as it really is, also rejects God. It is a more subtle and significant way to eliminate God or to dethrone Him. God created everything for pleasure. Man deconstructs reality and constructs his own reality for his own pleasure.
Scripture reveals the reality God constructed, using language. God spoke the world into existence. He upholds all things by the Word of His power. God’s Words construct reality.
Those God created are responsible to construe reality based upon scripture. No one is neutral. When they don’t receive what God said, they will construct a new reality with their own language in defiance of God.
More to Come
The Who-Is-Nicer or Who-Is-Meaner Argument for the Text of Scripture
Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five
I am calling this post a part of my discussion on critical text versus textus receptus. So much air time, so much ink is spilt for style and tone in debate, that it becomes an argument to be addressed.
You want to determine the preservation of scripture. You weigh textus receptus versus critical text. What is your criteria? Just by sheer mention from notable critical text supporters, such as James White and Mark Ward, the following is a major argument. You want to come to the right decision about the text, have the correct thinking? Ask this question. Which advocates are either nicer or meaner? From the sheer volume of talk about who-is-nicer or who-is-meaner, it must be the critical text is right. In almost every presentation, at some point James White or Mark Ward will talk about how mean the other side is, implying that James White and Mark Ward are nice, so the critical text position must be right.
I wonder of ecclesiastical text, standard sacred text, confessional text, or traditional text men, who thinks that James White and Mark Ward are nice? Perhaps you’ve seen a child come running to his mother, saying, “He wasn’t nice to me.” Or, “She wasn’t nice to me.” If you are a dad, and your little boy does that, you really, really don’t want to hear it. Maybe you just ignore him or you say, “Just go back and play.” Maybe when the little girl says it, you weigh it, and maybe you say, not really believing it, “Children, be nice.” I wouldn’t be convinced that the one protesting is the nice one.
We live in an era, where “he wasn’t nice” is an argument. It isn’t, but you would think it is by the sheer number of times critical text proponents mention it. I say, “Stop already. Both sides say mean things.” James White and Mark Ward are at least as mean or at least as not nice. Fun, isn’t it?
Condescension, eye rolling, sarcasm, and a certain kind of smarmy tone someone might consider to be mean or not nice. Even the constant mention of “you’re-not-nice” isn’t nice. When two men are having a discussion, they might get a little rough. Neither side should call the “whaaaambulance” and claim injury, as if they are a strip mall defense lawyer. “You’ve been injured in a biblical text discussion, call Mark Ward or James White, and they’ll represent you.”
When you were a child and you played games with friends, did you think it was nice when someone just rose, walked off, and stopped playing, because he didn’t like how it was going? Or did you think that was in itself, a mean or not nice act? Adults do this pulling the game board, taking the toys and going home.
A hard discussion, where the other side isn’t as nice as we want or doesn’t follow our preferred rules of decorum, will often occur. Very often both sides, when in disagreement, don’t like how the other side disagrees. That isn’t persecution though. Entering a boisterous give and take with someone, where we feel the other side hurt our feelings, is not persecution. We don’t deserve sympathy for a rugged debate.
Maybe 35-40 years ago, I remember reading letters written to one of my professors, Thomas Strouse, from Peter Ruckman. No one said things as harsh as Peter Ruckman. Dr. Strouse never said anything about the Ruckman style in the argument. Ruckman would straight out insult and call derogatory names. Ruckman was so nasty, that he was funny. No one had hurt feelings. They just laughed. I think this was just a different generation of men. They were less touchy feely. I wonder if you agree.
White and Ward both imply some spiritual problem or lack of sanctification in their opponents. They are the judge, jury, and executioner. They are nasty and harsh too. They weaponize the criticism though.
I think I could have better style or tone. I could speak to my opponents in a more sensitive way. When I argue, I could take more consideration of the opposition’s feelings. When two people disagree, it’s better if they try to get along too. I agree with that assessment.
What I wish is that the two sides could also take the meanness or niceness criteria out of the debate, especially the one side that nearly always brings it up. I don’t think Jeff Riddle wants to be mean. He’s nicer than me. And yet Mark Ward says he’s not nice either. He’s nicer than others, but he’s also too mean. Mark Ward might pull the game board on him. We’ll see.
What really happened is that Riddle exposed Ward and Ward didn’t like it, so Ward pulled from a contributor for Riddle’s most recent book, “Satan’s Bible,” or something like that, speaking of the critical text (see comment section). This is the meanness or niceness argument being utilized. Riddle had already taken a preemptive strike with “toxic review,” speaking of Ward’s use of toxic to describe the book.
Can we just debate and stop bringing up who is nice and who is mean? Both sides will say things the other does not like. In my recent writing, I mentioned that Ward made a mocking argument, using tone and facial expressions and giggling type glee. He did. It’s easy to see in the video. He won’t admit it, because he can’t cede that high ground he believes he has based on his own judgment of himself. Then I came out and called him on that and I said he put his foot in his mouth. I said it was a dumb argument for a PhD. I am debating on an equal rhetorical plane as Mark Ward. James White and Mark Ward won’t admit it, but it’s just true.
Ward often mentions how gracious he is. He does that at least as much as he says how mean the other side is. People on our side have not talked about this (that I know of), but Ward uses straw men. He misrepresents positions. He employs ad hominem. When his position is answered, he talks his way out of admitting it. He very often won’t concede when he gets it wrong or the other side is right. When he does concede, it’s difficult to tell. It doesn’t sound like he conceded on important points.
At one point, Ward said that the NKJV came from an identical text as the text behind the KJV. I showed him five places. He tried to explain them away. I gave him five more. He did the same. I gave him five more. He did the same. He finally conceded, but not to the point that he made originally. When I gave the first five, that should have ended the discussion, and for sure after the second five. Why didn’t it? I think he thought I would shortly run out of examples and he could explain it away. However, he just couldn’t concede. He changed the rules right in the middle of the discussion. This is Mark Ward, ladies and gentleman, the very, very nice man by his own admission. If I told him he wasn’t nice, I know we would have started a not-niceathon, trying to top the other in who was less or more nice. You could picture two jr. high girls.
Living in Utah right now, a normal, every occasion argument from LDS is the sameness between historical, biblical Christians and LDS. They try to take that posture right away. They will treat me like we’re the same. Half of them get offended by refuting the sameness. I find critical text the same. Critical text men want the other side to say that they too believe in the preservation of scripture. They too hold an orthodox position. Both sides should agree to disagree. Can we instead say that we don’t agree and that both positions are not the same? We really do believe they are attacking a true doctrine of scripture that is important. That doesn’t mean we don’t like them. We just disagree with them and believe that for God we need to oppose what they’re saying.
When I bring up the style and tone of Ward, I don’t do it for the same reason as White and Ward do. I do it, because I wish they would stop bringing it up. We both use tone and style in disagreement that the other side doesn’t like. I wish there was a moratorium on mentioning it. Just leave it alone and continue the debate. I don’t expect it though. It works well to their audience. Maybe it’s a replacement for real persecution for men who don’t face actual persecution.
I have an opinion about the criticism of meanness or lack of niceness. It is in the realm of ‘gird up your loins, like a man,’ something God said to Job twice. This is a battle and both sides just should put on their big boy pads and expect contact.
How Even Apparently Conservative Evangelicals Justify Disobedience to Scripture as a Deconstruction
Today churches have gone “woke.” Many accept critical race theory and same sex relations. Before contemplating those extremes, we might consider something short of that and what leads to it.
A man I know well pastors in the same city as a conservative evangelical does, and the two discussed separation. The conservative evangelical church accepts membership of many and widely varied doctrinal and practical positions. Everyone is worldly also to sundry degrees, many very much so.
The conservative evangelical graduated from Masters Seminary and in general follows its way of thinking and operation. In a conversation, the man who I know well mentioned to the conservative evangelical 1 Timothy 1:3:
As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into Macedonia, that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other doctrine.
Paul besought Timothy to charge the pastors at Ephesus that they “teach no other doctrine.” That’s very clear. “Teach no other doctrine” is one Greek word, heterodidaskaleo. This matches up with what Paul also said in 1 Timothy 6:3-5:
If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness . . . . from such withdraw thyself.
Here’s what the conservative evangelical, who went to Masters Seminary, said: “We teach that “doctrine” there [in 1 Timothy 1:3] is [or means] ‘the gospel.'”
This is the kind of dealing with scripture or teaching that justifies disobedience to scripture. Is “doctrine” “the gospel” in 1 Timothy 1:3 and in 1 Timothy 6:3-5 among other verses of scripture? Of course not. Still, that’s how conservative evangelicals will go ahead and understand “doctrine.” “Doctrine” refers only to “the gospel” in that passage.
Calling “doctrine” “the gospel” is a type of deconstruction. Rather than a verse asserting absolute truth, a person assigns a meaning that he conceives at that moment in time. In Is There Meaning in this Text? Kevin J. Vanhoozer writes (pp. 21-22) about the deconstruction of the postmodernist Derrida, the one most associated with it:
The belief that one has reached the single correct Meaning (or God, or “Truth”) provides a wonderful excuse for damning those with whom one disagrees as either “fools” or “heretics.” . . . Neither Priests, who supposedly speak for God, nor Philosophers, who supposedly speak for Reason, should be trusted; this “logocentric” claim to speak from a privileged perspective (e.g., Reason, the Word of God) is a bluff that must be called, or better, “deconstructed.”
A teacher or preacher may dismantle Christianity by deconstructing the language. Christianity is based upon language, the language of the Bible. Rather than say you don’t believe the Bible, you can just deny a “single correct meaning.”
Deconstructing the biblical text allows and even instructs men not to believe and obey the Bible. They not only disobey, but they disobey while thinking they’re obeying, because of the deconstruction of the language of scripture. A church can grow in numbers from the welcome of plenteous and diverse disobedience, while still labeling it obedience. It doesn’t fool God now or ever.
Postmodern “Grace”
The author of Hebrews in 12:15-17 warns:
Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.
C. H. Spurgeon wrote concerning the failing of the grace of God:
Under the means of grace, there are many who do “fall short of the grace of God.” They get something that they think is like grace, but it is not the true grace of God, and they ultimately fall from it, and perish. . . . [I]n church fellowship we ought to be very watchful lest the church as a whole should fail through lack of the true grace of God, and especially lest any root of bitterness springing up among us should trouble us, and thereby many be defiled. We must remember that though we are saved by grace, yet grace does not stupefy us, but rather quickens us into action. Though salvation depends upon the merits of Christ, yet those who receive those merits receive with them a faith that produces holiness.
Spurgeon explains that this “failing” is “falling short,” and then “falling short” is not getting “the true grace of God” but “something that they think is like grace.” He says the true grace of God “does not stupefy us, but rather quickens us into action.” The placebo for the true grace of God does not produce holiness.
The true grace of God saves us. Most people want salvation, but they also don’t want the holiness true grace produces. Hebrews uses Esau as an example. He allowed his fleshly desire to keep him from true grace, replacing it with something short of it. God’s grace produces holiness.
Root of Bitterness
Through the years, I’ve read many different opinions about the “root of bitterness.” In the context, it causes a failing of the grace of God. Some say that the root of bitterness is an apostate in the church, like Esau, who then brings about further apostasy from others. Others say that it is sin, which is bitter and defiling. Rick Renner writes:
“It” pictures a person who is continually troubled, harassed, and annoyed by thoughts of how someone else wronged him. The offended person is now so troubled that he is almost emotionally immobilized. Instead of moving on in life, he gets stuck in the muck of that experience, where he wallows day after day in the memories of what happened to him. If that person doesn’t quickly get a grip on himself, he will eventually fulfill the next part of the verse.
Tozer explained it the same way:
The sad and depressing bitter soul will compile a list of slights at which it takes offense and will watch over itself like a mother bear over her cubs. And the figure is apt, for the resentful heart is always surly and suspicious like a she-bear!
Perhaps the preceding verse, verse 14, gives a clue:
Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.
Esau lacked peace between he and his father, Isaac, and his brother, Jacob. So many especially today allow the slights, real and otherwise, and even actual sins against them to keep them from the grace of God. They also often use these temporal affronts to justify their lusts, incongruous with the true grace of God. It ultimately reflects on their view of God and His goodness to them.
Postmodern Grace
Spurgeon assessed failing of true grace comes by replacing it with something short of the grace of God. I’m titling what I believe is the most common contemporary replacement for true grace, “postmodern grace” (Jesus Loves Me with postmodern lyrics). It isn’t the grace of God, because it is short of the grace of God.
Postmodern truth is your truth. Postmodern grace is your grace. It doesn’t follow peace, because it allows a grudge and resentment to keep it from that. It doesn’t follow holiness, because it sells holiness for temporal, carnal appetites, like the morsel of Esau. Adherents though count this as the grace of God. They remain bitter with those who reject their failing of the grace of God. The bitterness fuels further rejection of true grace, accompanied, like Esau, by tears of grudge-filled resentment.
Postmodern grace isn’t about pleasing God, but about pleasing self. Postmodern grace self-identifies as grace, which is in fact moral relativism. It doesn’t follow after holiness, but after its own lust.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Postmodernism, and Critical Theory
People in general don’t want to be told what to do. This arises from the sin nature of mankind, a cursed rebellion passed down from Adam. So people won’t have to do what an authority tells them, they disparage the credibility of it. They especially attack God in diverse manners so He won’t hinder or impede what they want.
Premodernism, Modernism, Postmodernism, Critical Theory, and Epistemology
The premoderns, even if some did not view themselves or the world correctly, related everything to God. Truth was objective. They knew truth either by natural or special revelation of God. If God said it, it was true, no matter what their opinion. Many invented various means to deal with their own contradictions, but God remained God.
Modernism then arose and said revelation wasn’t suitable for knowledge. Modernists could point to distinctions between religions and denominations and the wars fought over them. Knowledge instead came through scientific testing, man’s observations, consequently elevating man above God. Man could now do what he wanted because he changed the standard for knowledge. Faith for sure wasn’t good enough. With modernism, faith might make you feel good, but you proved something in naturalistic fashion to say you know it. Modernism then trampled the twentieth century, producing devastation, unsuccessful with its so-called knowledge.
Premoderns had an objective basis for knowledge, revelation from God. Moderns too, even if it wasn’t valid, had human reasoning, what they called “empirical proof.” Postmoderns neither believed or liked scripture or empiricism. This related to authority, whether God or government or parents, or whatever. No one should be able to tell somebody else what to do, which is to conform them to your truth or your reality. No one has proof. Institutions use language to construct power.
Postmodernism judged modernism a failure, pointing to wars, the American Indians and institutional bias, bigotry, and injustice. Since modernism constructed itself by power and language, a postmodernist possesses his own knowledge of good and evil, his own truth, by which to construct his own reality. No one will any more control him with power and language.
Critical theory proceeds from postmodernism, but is ironically constructed to sound like modernism. It’s not a theory. Theory is by definition supposed to be rational and associated with observations backed by data. Critical theory criticizes, but it isn’t a theory, rather a desire. People desire to do what they want and don’t want someone telling them what to do, so they deconstruct the language to serve their desires and change the outcome. In the United States especially, theorists criticize white males, those who constructed language and power for their own advantage. According to their theories, white men kept down women, all the other races, and sexual preferences.
The postmodernism behind critical theory procures its knowledge with total subjectivity. Those proficient in theory based on their own divination know what’s good and evil, making them woke to this secret knowledge. They have eaten of the tree. White men are evil. The patriarchy is evil. Anyone contesting gender fluidity and trangenderism is evil.
Epistemology is a field of study that explores and judges how we know what we know and whether we really know it, that it is in fact knowledge. What is a sufficient source of knowledge? You can say you know, but do you really know? The Bible uses the term “know” and “knowledge” a lot. Biblical knowledge is certain, because God reveals it. You receive knowledge when you learn what God says. You can’t say the same thing about what you experience or feel.
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
In Genesis 2 (vv. 9, 17), what was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? In the same context, Genesis 3:5-7 say:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods,, knowing good and evil. 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. 7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
If Adam and Eve depended on what God knew, they would not have eaten of the forbidden tree. Instead they trusted their own knowledge. The tree wasn’t the tree of the knowledge of good. God provided that knowledge. Just listen to Him. Eating of the tree brought the knowledge of evil. The knowledge of evil, what someone might call, carnal knowledge, reminds me of three verses in the New Testament.
1 Corinthians 5:1, It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.
Ephesians 5:3, But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints.
Romans 16:19, For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil.
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