Chapter 3 – Planting Your Feet in Mid-Air
Epimenides of Crete was a 6th century BC Greek seer, prophet, and philosopher-poet. Not many specifics are known about the life of Epimenides, but several myths about his life have survived. According to one of these myths, he fell asleep for fifty-seven years in a Cretan cave sacred to Zeus and then awoke with the gift of prophecy.
Plutarch reported in Life of Solon that Epimenides was a great help to Solon in purifying and reforming the Athenian state after the pollutions brought by Alemeonidae. Particularly helpful in this process was Epimenides' expertise in sacrifices and reform of funeral practices. Pausanias reported that when Epimenides died, his skin under his clothing was found to be covered with tattoos. This would have been odd, because generally only slaves in Greece were tattooed. This was quite probably evidence for the fact that Epimenides had become initiated as a Central Asian shaman.
Many of the works of Epimenides have been lost to history. One of those exceptions is his poem Cretica. The New Testament quotes twice from this poem, although specific citation to Epimenides is never given. In the poem, Minos addresses Zeus:
They fashioned a tomb for thee, O holy and high one
The Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies!
But thou art not dead: thou livest and abidest forever,
For in thee we live and move and have our being
The fourth line of the poem is quoted without attribution to the author in Acts 17:28. The second line is quoted in Titus 1:12, although Epimenides is not credited by name. He is only identified by the veiled, "one of their own prophets." Clement of Alexandria, an early church father, wrote that the prophet referred to by Paul was, in fact, Epimenides. Clement mentions that "some say" Epimenides should be considered among the seven wisest philosophers.[i]
Near the beginning of Paul's letter to Titus, he counsels his young "son in the faith" who is serving God in Crete. Titus, evidently, is facing a fair amount of hostility from the people of Crete. Paul's response is basically, "Well, what did you expect? Look at who you're dealing with." Paul then quotes Epimenides, a Cretan, to show what kind of people Titus is dealing with. Epimenides claims that all Cretans are liars, brutes, and gluttons. Most Bible readers will catch the irony in Epimenides' logic. If all Cretans are liars, and Epimenides is a Creatan, then how can we trust his statement that all Cretans are liars? He may be lying.
This conundrum with Epimenides is similar to the flaw from which post-modernity suffers. One of the tenets of post-modernity, and probably the most well-known, is that there is not such a thing as absolute truth that can be objectively known. Just as Epimenides' statement that all Cretans are liars is a self-refuting one, so is the claim that there is no absolute truth. This is an absolute statement that says there are absolutely no absolutes. Self-refuting statements simply cannot be taken as true (We will look at this concept in detail later in the chapter.)
Post-modernity is a rising philosophy that is quickly replacing modernity in our culture. It is a cataclysmic shift in thinking that happens only every 500 years or so. The shift from modernity to post-modernity is no small change. It has and will continue to necessitate changes in the way Christians view the world, communicate with the world, and train our children.
Post-modernity is an important concept for Christian parents and youth workers to understand for two reasons. The first is that most parents of teens were probably still brought up in the modern-thinking world, and we tend to think and view the world as moderns. Our children, on the other hand, are growing up in a world that is increasingly post-modern in its views and philosophies. They will see the world in a much more post-modern way than will their parents and grandparents. Many adults who grew up with modern philosophies don't understand post-modernity and see it as dangerous, yet, it is all their children will know.
The second reason that parents and youth workers need to understand post-modernity is due to the large impact that it is having and will continue to have on children and the world-at-large. This is no short-term trend. Post-modernity will likely change the way the world and everything in it is understood and viewed, including the Bible and Christianity. If Christians don't understand these changes and are unable to convey the gospel to a post-modern generation in a relevant way, the church runs the risk of becoming irrelevant and being discarded by a majority of the new American culture.
The belief systems of Secular Humanism and post-modernity are not identical. Not every Secular Humanist is a post-modern, nor is every post-modern a Secular Humanist. In fact, Secular Humanism's roots are decidedly modern. Just as the church has gone through major philosophical changes and has splintered into various denominations over the years, Secular Humanism is undergoing its own set of changes. Much of what students will find at schools these days is a hybrid of Secular Humanism and post-modernity, as opposed to classic Secular Humanism rooted in modernity. In many ways, it would be correct to say that the most popular and burgeoning faction of Secular Humanism is the denomination of post-modern Secular Humanism.
Before we can look at the tenets and beliefs of post-modernity, the major philosophers of post-modernity, and how to answer post-modernity, we must first look at modernity. It is impossible actually to understand post-modernity without having a grasp of modernity, so we will briefly define and look at the history of first modernity, and then a slightly more in-depth look at post-modernity.
Modernity
The foundations for the modern view of truth and knowledge were laid by Francis Bacon in the late 16th century. Bacon said that humans could master the world by discovering its secrets. He believed that science and knowledge would be the vehicles that would drive humanity to the place of being able to conquer the universe and everything in it. In the early 17th century, philosopher and mathematician, Rene Descartes affirmed modernity's belief in objective truth and human reasoning by affirming the 5th century theologian Augustine's concept of "I think therefore I am." Then came Isaac Newton in the late 17th century. Newton had a scientific view of nature that said that everything in the world was a machine governed by laws. Modern thought believed that knowledge was certain and discoverable through human reasoning. These enlightenment thinkers believed that the autonomous self had the ability all by itself to discover the absolute truths of God's creation. Eventually, however, God was pushed to the side and the only things that became important were the all-knowing self and the discovery through science of a universe that was now believed to consist of only the material. The modernists, primarily after Darwin, began to argue that nothing supernatural beyond the material world existed. Another aspect of modernity's exaltation of knowledge was the belief that the discovery of knowledge was not only objective but that it was always a good thing. Knowledge, they said, was always pushing man towards progress and eventual utopia.
Autonomous self accesses truth/knowledge through reason
To the modern thinker, all of the actions, thoughts, emotions, and perception emanating from an individual human were all components of a coherent autonomous self. This autonomous self served as the ultimate arbiter of reality. Truth, which is finite and singular, was able to be discovered and perceived by this autonomous self. The concept of this autonomous self led to rise of concepts such as nation-states, self-discipline, and even urbanization. The autonomous self became sovereign rather than any external authority. With the advent of the autonomous self and the belief in evolution, God was no longer necessary for most modern philosophers.
Human reason provides objective view/knowledge of reality
In modernity, human reason is the ultimate arbiter of knowledge, truth, and reality. The universe, they believed, was structured and discoverable. There was one true answer to every question and humans had the ability to discover that answer. The answers would come, they argued, through the scientific method developed by Bacon, which relied on experimentation and observation. Man was an objective, outside observer who was able to discover the truths of the universe through reason and deduction.
Objective truth/knowledge can be know with certitude and is inherently good
To the modern thinker, objective knowledge was inherently good. They embraced John Locke's view that each human being was a clean slate. Humans did not, said Locke, have an inherently evil or sinful nature. To the modern thinker, the universe was inherently reasonable, knowable, and orderly and was manifested in an over-arching harmony. Harmony, then, was not only a characteristic of the universe but was an ethical ideal that should and could be reached by all humans.
Knowledge leads to technological advancement
Building of the foundation of Descartesian thinking, modern thinkers believed that the universe was able to be known by humans because it was orderly and reasonable. By using the proper methods, humans could discover the truths inherent in the natural universe. Since the universe was made up of laws and order, the discovery of these laws would always be a positive because it would allow humankind to work in harmony with the universe. All discovery of knowledge was necessarily advancement because it brought mankind closer to the ultimate truth of the natural universe.
Knowledge and technological advancement allows benevolent control of the universe
Because the universe was considered reasonable and orderly, knowledge of that universe was also considered reasonable and orderly. Any knowledge and technology was simply a progressive advancement towards the final and ultimately knowable truths of the universe. With each discovery, mankind would be able to make life more reasonable and orderly, and consequently better. Man could bring the universe into submission as they garnered more knowledge which would afford them the ability to solve the ills that had plagued society. Knowledge was, in their mind, the key to solving man's problems. In essence, knowledge was the salvation of mankind.
Post-Modernity
Post-Modernity is an interesting worldview and philosophy in that it exists more as a criticism of the excesses and arrogance of modernity, than as a stand-alone, consistent worldview. It is a radical rejection of the Enlightenment mind-set that gave rise to modernity. Post-modernity has rejected the belief in inevitable progress and has ushered in a growing pessimism about the future and mankind's ability to fix it. (For instance, it is unlikely that the global warming movement would have gained any momentum in the modern age, because it would have been believed that science and technology could find a solution, whereas with post-modernism, a "sky is falling" mentality has set in.)
Post-modernity has rejected the modern belief that rationality and reason are the arbiters of truth. The philosophers of post-modernity look at any claim of absolute truth with skepticism. Rather than reason, non-rational ways of knowing such as emotions and intuition are given priority. "Postmodern holism entails a rejection of the Enlightenment ideal of the dispassionate, autonomous, rational individual. Post-moderns do not seek to be wholly self-directed individuals but rather whole persons"[ii] In other words, truth can only be known to an individual if they use every part of their being (emotion, experience, spirit, body, etc.), and then the truth is only true to them. One person's truth may not be another's. The post-modern's understanding of truth leads them to be less concerned than moderns to think systematically or logically. This also means that post-moderns are generally unconcerned with being right or wrong. What is right for them may be wrong for someone else. The one exception to this is those with an absolute worldview, but we will consider that in detail later in this chapter.
One major aspect of the post-modern philosophy is deconstruction. The task of deconstruction is to take apart the concepts that have served as the axioms or rules for a period of thought. It is, as stated earlier, more of a criticism of modernity, than a stand-alone philosophy. It seeks to deconstruct modernity and then see what comes of the world. This is seen in an old story going around that describes two umpires talking after a game. The modern umpires says, "There are balls and strikes, and I call them as I see them." The post-modern umpire says, "There are balls and strikes, and they're nothing until I call them."
The Architects of Post-Modernity
Three major philosophers of the post-modern movement are Friederich Nietzsche, Michael Foucault, and Jacques Derrida. Each has contributed a different aspect to the post-modern thought system.
Friederich Wilhelm Nietzsche, a German, was born in 1844 and died in 1900 after an eleven year battle with insanity. Nietzsche's father, a Lutheran pastor, died when he was four so he was raised by women, primarily his mother, grandmother, and sisters. Nietzsch struggled with mental illness throughout his life, and was completely incapacitated during the last eleven years of his life, following a complete mental breakdown. Although he is known as a philosopher and critic, Nietzsche preferred to be called a psychologist. He sought for the re-evaluation of all values based on their actual value for life. Nietzsche argued that all knowledge is a matter of perspective, knowledge is really interpretation, and all interpretations are lies. According to Nietzsche, Truth is not really accessible due to the restraints of language. Reality, he said, was a construct of language. If language cannot convey truth, and reality is constructed by language, then there is no knowable truth. Nietzsche is often considered the father of post-modern thought and is, perhaps, most famous for his declaration that "God is dead," in which he argued that western civilization was no longer influenced by religion.
Paul Michel Foucault was born in France in 1926 and died in 1984 from AIDS. He later dropped the "Paul" from his name due to his hatred for his surgeon father. Foucault suffered from acute depression throughout his life resulting in at least one suicide attempt. Foucault was well known for his critiques of social institutions such as psychiatry, medicine, and the prison system. He was also famous for his views on human sexuality which included his own extremely deviant homosexual life-style. Foucault is known as a philosopher for identifying knowledge with power and was opposed to all social constructs that implied an identity. According to Foucault, Western society erred in believing that there was an objective body of knowledge that we could possess and that would benefit. It is not possible, though, he argued to obtain an objective body of knowledge. Each society, then, created its own body of knowledge and its own controlling narrative (which is the controlling story through which each society interprets the world), which was equally valid to any other society's narrative.
Jacques Derrida was born El-Biar, Algeria in 1930 to an Algerian Jewish family. He moved to France at the age of 22 to begin his studies in Paris. It was Derrida who contributed the concept of deconstruction. He believed that language was such an imprecise and multi-layered construct, that it was impossible to read any text and know what the author meant by it.
The Tenets of Post-Modernity
Just as we looked at the major motifs of modernity, it will be helpful to look at the motifs and beliefs of post-modernity before we look at the impacts of the post-modern belief system.
An objective unbiased truth or view of reality does not exist.
Whereas modern thinkers purported that objective truth existed, the post-modern thinker argues that there is no objective, knowable truth. They contend that there is no fixed point from which humans can gain objective truth. Rather than discovering absolute truth, each community creates its own reality through the construct of language. By doing this, each group creates its own reality which is just as viable as any other reality. Because we cannot step outside of our own constructed reality we do not find absolute truth but only constructive and useful truths. Post-modernity rejects the modern notion of the objective self that can discover absolute truth and argues instead that each community constructs one of an infinite possibility of answers to each question.
Truth/knowledge are not inherently good.
The modernist would argue that there is a meta-narrative that embodies truth that is applicable and knowable by all humans at all times. The closer we get to that truth, the more advanced our society becomes and the better off we are. Knowledge is, therefore, inherently good. The post-modern rejects the truth of the meta-narrative and says, instead, that each community constructs its own narrative through its use of language. Each community creates these local narratives which are equally valid but since their can be no objective human observer, there can be no pronouncement of absolute truth to any individual narrative. Knowledge cannot, subsequently, ever judged to be inherently good because what may be good in one community is not good in another.
No inevitable progress
Once the modern concept of knowable truth is gone, so is the idea that further acquisition of that knowledge, which is inherently good, will inevitably lead to progress for mankind. Without absolute truth, says the post-modernist, any thoughts of inevitable progress evaporate. The reason for this is that there is no objective way to conclude as to what is progress or what is digression. Since each community constructs its own reality and truth, there is no objective means for humans to decide what progression is.
Truth/knowledge are not limited to rational
According to the post-modern philosopher, truth and knowledge are not limited to the rational. They are not absolutes waiting to be discovered by human reasoning and intellect. Advancements in science fields such as physics and quantum mechanics seem to indicate a sub-atomic world that is erratic at times and does not follow set laws. This eats away at the modernist foundation of rational laws that govern the universe. The post-modernist believes that within and beneath the real world is a second world, which is unseeable, yet somehow more real.
Truth becomes communal – assigned value by the group
Post-modernity teaches that rather than discovering the objective universe, we construct it through the use of language. This "real world" is constructed by societies through the use of language. Because languages are always changing, these constructed realities are constantly changing. Due to the fact that reality is constructed by the language of a society, that language and its subsequent truth are only valid and understandable within the confines of that society. The truth created in one society does not necessarily apply to another group.
The Impact of Post-Modernity
Post-modernity is far more than just a trendy new philosophy that is being taught at colleges and universities among the academically elite. It is a torrent of new ways of thinking and viewing the world that is changing civilization as we know it. This new way of thinking has been embraced by many Secular Humanists and is now part of the everyday language in schools. It is the language in which most curriculums are written and it is how the students are being taught to view the world. In what follows, we will discuss three aspects of post-modernity that has had, and will continue to have, the biggest influence and impact on society, the three biggest influences and impacts on the way the Bible is to be understood, and three practical impacts on the average teen.
Societal Impacts
The first area of post-modern thought that is deeply impacting society is the deconstruction of knowledge and truth. Because the post-modern would argue that truth is unknowable, this means that no one can ever be sure that they are right about anything. This, conversely, means that no one can ever be sure that someone is wrong about anything. Public schools are now, routinely, turning out students that are no longer able to identify evil. "The virus of moral relativism has created a mental and moral psychosis that has rendered a younger generation of citizens incapable of recognizing the existence of evil. Their ethical imperative is to be tolerant, nonjudgmental, and affirming of people no matter what."[iii]
Professor Robert Simon, professor of philosophy at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, says that at least 20 percent of his students who acknowledge the Jewish Holocaust as fact, can't bring themselves to admit that killing millions of people is wrong. They report deploring the actions of the Nazis but only as a matter of personal taste or preference, not a moral judgment.[iv]
Christina Sommers, who teaches philosophy at Clark University in Massachussetts says that a majority of her students now will say that treating humans as superior to animals is immoral. She said that students coming to college "dogmatically committed to a moral relativism that offers them no grounds to think about cheating, stealing and moral issues." She says that young people today are suffering from "cognitive moral confusion" and says that they not only have trouble distinguishing right from wrong, they won't acknowledge that such standards even exist. Sommers says that she often meets students who are incapable of making one single confident moral judgment.[v]
The new absolute is that there are no absolutes. This leaves only moral relativism. Subsequently, if all morals are relative to the individual, then absolute evil is impossible in the eyes of the post-modernist.
The second major area of societal impact of post-modernity is the deconstruction of the autonomous self. The all-powerful "I" was king during the age modernity. Each individual was in control of his or her fate and was capable of discovering truth for themselves through knowledge. Individuals were constantly capable of improving themselves. Society was built around the autonomous self; summed up in the famous, "I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul."
This is rapidly changing with the onset of post-modernity. The "I" is just a floating mass of symbols that means nothing apart from his or her community. The irony of post-modernity is that while they have deconstructed universal truth, they have affirmed that each individual creates their own truth. None of that is too terribly important, though, because each person's personal truth changes constantly as they change. There is no permanent self, just a mass of shifting beliefs and truths.
The third major area of societal impact of post-modernity is the death of the meta-narrative. Modernity had an implicit narrative that told the story about the way the world was. History had been steadily improving through technology, marching towards utopia. Societies that were advanced technologically were more superior, period. This meta-narrative has been rejected by post-modernity as oppressive, imperialist, and self-serving. Post-modernity has said that any narrative that claims to be absolutely true and to explain the world must be rejected. All meta-narratives are suspect; they are all power games. This means that even Christianity, in the eyes of the post-modern, is no truer than the Nazi super-Aryan religion, and that each are equally power games. It is nearly impossible for post-modern American students to declare that any country can be considered to be good in conflict with an evil combatant, even if that combatant is a terrorist organization. Since there are no true narratives that are universal for everyone, neither side can be declared absolutely good or evil. What one society would call a group of evil terrorists another would call valiant freedom fighters. The post-modern would say that they are both right, because that is their truth.
Biblical Impacts
Just as post-modernity holds many implications for society as a whole, it promises to change the way people understand and read the Bible. If we are to understand the true impact that this culture shift will have on Christianity, we must understand how it will affect the world's understanding of God's Word.
The deconstruction of the meta-narrative has a large impact on the way that the post-modern generation views the Bible. The Bible is the story of God's covenant relationship with His people, first the Jews, then Christians. For the post-modern, though, all narratives are suspect. Rather than viewing the story of the Exodus as a glorious account of God protecting His people through whom He would bring salvation to the world from their enemies, post-modernity would ask "what about the Egyptians on one end and the Canaanites on the other end?" There can never be one point of view. What about, for instance, the fact that the Jewish way of telling the story of the Middle East is now deeply damaging to the Palestinian communities who comprise most of the native Christians in that part of the world.
The second major area of impact in the way that the Bible is viewed in post-modernity is the biblical view of reality. It comes under attack in the world of the post-modern. Paul saw things his way, but what about those that he branded heretics who also thought of themselves as Christian. Paul's viewpoint has survived, they would say, because his side was the conqueror, not because Paul had the truth or God on his side. Many post-modern authors now claim that rather than Paul arguing passionately from the cross to a particular way of truth, he is actually manipulating his readers and hearers with impressive-sounding rhetoric that is really just another power trip. This is a classic example of postmodern deconstruction of a passage of the Bible.
Biblical historian N.T. Wrights describes this deconstruction of the Bible, noting:
The Biblical view of the whole of reality, in which Jewish-style creational monotheism is by and large taken for granted, is also under attack; some have argued that this rather one-dimensional and puritanical Deuteronomic viewpoint was imposed heavy-handedly upon various other viewpoints, scrunching the little stories of the cheerful and interesting semi-polytheists in Israel under the jackboot of a uniform, and subsequently canonized, monotheism. (The imagery is not chosen at random; memories, and imaginations, of the tyrannies of the first half of the twentieth century provide fertile soil for the protests of the second half. Postmodernism looks back to Hitler and Stalin and says, 'Modernism; that's what it always does.')[vi]
Practical Impacts
Post modernity is not evil in and of itself. It holds some valid criticisms of modernity. Modernity did put too much value on the material world, knowledge and self. It had replaced God with its own master narrative of a technologically-driven world marching towards utopianism. What started out with good observations, though, has ended with bad conclusions. Creationist Kent Hovind often tells a story of scientists studying a frog that can jump 100 inches. They cut off one leg of the frog and it then jumps 80 inches. They cut off a second leg and it jumps 60 inches. After cutting off the third leg, it jumps 40 inches. The scientists then hypothesize that after they cut off the fourth leg, the frog will jump 20 inches. They watch as the frog refuses to jump and finally conclude that frogs with all of their legs cut off lose their hearing; good observations, bad conclusion. In the same vein, post-modernity correctly identified the problems with modernity and its adulation of the individual's ability to discover perfect truth. They came to a bad conclusion, however, in determining that this must mean that there is no absolute truth.
Students today will march off from the house of their modernist parent's right into temples of Secular Humanism where they will come out full-fledged post-modern Secular Humanists. Although, there are good aspects of post-modernity, there are three specific aspects of danger in this philosophy for the children of Christian parents that we will consider here.
The first is that the absolute way of Christianity is destroyed in the post-modern worldview. They will be taught to believe that it is impossible for one viewpoint to corner the market on truth. Christianity may work for some people, but it cannot work for everyone. When Christians say that it does, they are committing acts of rhetorical violence towards people whose worldview is just as valid as that of the Christian. The only thing wrong, then, with Christianity is when it claims to be the only way. The problem with this is obvious. If Christianity is not the only way, then Jesus was a liar and Christianity is completely false.
Kids are being taught to think differently right under their parent's noses. These children come away from school incapable of seeing the world in a truly biblical manner. They have been taught to believe that there is no such thing as one truth for every human. What this means is that as soon as Christianity doesn't appear to be working for them, they will quickly shed it for a new worldview that does work at the time.
The second problem for children of Christian parents is the way they arrive at truth. Of course there is no universal truth, but there is temporary personal truth. They are trained, however, to view the world so that whatever they believe at the moment becomes truth. Rather than believing something because it is true, they declare something to be true because they believe it.
This means that rather than viewing the Bible as a collection of the very words of God that will bring all men to truth and salvation, it is simply a record of the fleeting truths of a certain community of people at a particular time. The truly post-modern thinker will not accept the Bible as a timeless, universal truth. If it works for them for a while, they will believe it and that makes it true, but that is as far as it goes. This is one of the primary reasons that so many post-modern's grasp on to Christianity so fervently, only to reject a few months or years later.
The third major problem is the disconnection between modern parents and post-modern children. This is more than just a generation gap. This is a deep divide between two worldviews. This problem will fade away in a generation as modernity completely dies out, but for now it is a major problem. Parents think and live in the language of modernity. Students think and live in the language of post-modernity.
Where the modern thinker values the rational, the post-modern thinker values the experiential. The modern thinker values the scientific; the post-modern thinker values the spiritual. The modern thinker values unanimity; the post-modern thinker values pluralism. The modern thinker values exclusivity; the post-modern thinker values relativity. The modern thinker values egocentrism, individualism, functionality, and the industrial world. The post-modern thinker values altruism, communalism, creativity, and environmental. The modern thinker values the local, the dichotomized, the relevant and relational; the post-modern thinker values the global, holistic, and authentic.
Parents and kids are speaking a different language and the parents don't realize it. Schools and the secular culture have learned to speak the language of post-modernity. When society speaks the language of our children and the church and home are not, what do you think the result will be? How effective would we be if we spoke only English while our student spoke only French? If they went to a French-speaking school, the school would have far more influence than we, as parents, would. Yet when it comes to connecting to our children on a worldview level, we are not speaking the language of our children. Most parents don't understand their kid's worldview language, and even worse, don't even realize that this is the case.
Answering Post-Modernity
Many in the religious community have become so freaked out by the relativism of post-modernity that they have completely demonized the entire movement as from Satan. As with anything, however, there are positive and negative aspects of post-modernity. Post-modernity does offer some wonderful opportunities for the Christian community. The first area is in their emphasis on community. Rather than putting all emphasis of importance and truth seeking on the self, the post-modern looks for community to bring them identity. The post-modern also rejects the belief that there is nothing beyond the natural; they have once again opened up the world to accept the idea of the supernatural. The final positive aspect of post-modernity that we will discuss here is that they have preached the Fall of man to an entire generation. Modernity believed that mankind was inherently good and constantly marching towards utopia. Post-modernity has deconstructed the individual man, the concept of absolute good, and the belief in a certain utopia. This means that the Christian community no longer has to try to convince men that something is wrong; they now know that something in the world has gone terribly wrong. We simply need to show the world that the problem is that they are in exile from God, separated from Him. This is the cause of the problems of the world.
Post-modernity, as we have already seen, does, however, have some serious problems. I believe that none is more dangerous for the Christian parent and youth worker than the rejection of absolutes. This leads to this concept of relativism that puts all beliefs, opinions, religions, societies, etc. on equal footing. Of all the aspects of post-modernity and Secular Humanism that have been discussed above, this relativity of post-modernity is the most difficult to combat once a young person has completely integrated it into their way of viewing the world. Once someone has embraced that there is no absolute truth, it is difficult to convince them otherwise. The problem is that one simply cannot be a true Christian if they completely reject the concept of absolute truth. Unless one believes that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, their Christianity will be no different from a sweater they put on when they are chilled. As soon as the temperature changes, the sweater will come off.
The fact is this rejection of absolute truth has hit Christian truth as surely as it has effected non-Christian youth. According to the Barna research group, 81 percent of teens who identify themselves as evangelical Christians claim, ". . .all truth is relative to the individual and his/her circumstances.[vii] Humanist thinking has infiltrated the minds of our children. This idea that truth is relative, that there are no absolute truths, is perhaps the most pervasive and dangerous of the Humanist beliefs. It is the most difficult to combat.
There is no other area of post-modernity that is pushed more than this new definition of tolerance. No longer does tolerance mean to respect and protect the legitimate rights of others; listening and learning from other perspectives, cultures, and backgrounds; and living peaceably alongside others despite differences. The post-modern definition of tolerance includes the idea that there is no objective truth so "The definition of new. . . tolerance is that every individual's beliefs, values, lifestyle, and perception of truth claims are equal. . . There is no hierarchy of truth. Your beliefs and my beliefs are equal, and all truth is relative."[viii]
Christian parents must learn to embrace the positive aspects of post-modernity while training their children to identify and reject the negative aspects such as the belief in moral relativism. Make no mistake, many teachers and curriculums intentionally seek to plant the "truth" of moral relativism in the minds of children.
On common technique is to give students seemingly impossible moral situations to prove to them that morality is not as black-and-white as they thought. The most common technique to accomplish this is to present a situation for students and then ask them to solve it morally. The problem is so artificially difficult as to be virtually unsolvable.
One example is that of a poor man whose child is about to die. There is a medicine that will cure the child but they cannot afford it and no one will give it to them. The only thing that will save the child is for the loving parent to break into a pharmacy and steal the medicine. The question then presented for the unsuspecting student is, "what is the right thing to do here?"
Most of these situations are so artificial that they would never happen, but that is not the point. For example, another scenario given to students is that there are five people trying to survive on a life raft that is designed to hold only four people. If one person isn't thrown out, everyone will die. What should they do?" They use this difficult question to confuse students and argue for moral relativism. In other words they say that if killing a person in this situation is right, then that proves that there is no such thing as absolute right and wrong; that it depends on the situation.
On the surface, both of these situations seem to make a good case for moral relativism, but in fact, they both prove that there is a moral law. If stealing or killing weren't morally wrong, there would be no dilemma. Who cares? Let the kid die, steal the medicine, throw all five people in the water. If there is not morality then none of these are problems. These are only difficult scenarios because of the moral law that God has written on the hearts of each man and woman.
Just because morality is sometimes difficult to determine in complicated situations does not mean that there is no morality. It would be foolish to throw out the truth of the moral order because of a few complicated situations. The fact is, we may get it wrong in some difficult situations, but we get it right when it comes to the basics. Serial killers like Jeffery Dahmer, or mass murderers like Hitler are wrong. We know murder is wrong.
The basic principles are clear even if some difficult scenarios are not. This does not prove that the principle does not exist. Asking the question, "Can murder ever be justified?" shows that at least one moral law has been accepted (that murder is wrong). If we accept even one moral obligation like don't murder, don't steal, don't rape, or don't torture babies, then the moral law exists. If the moral law exists then the moral Law Giver exists.
This goes to show that moral relativity can be combated in our own minds and the minds of our children if we are aware of the tactics used send us down that road of thinking. There is a very simple principle that will insulate the well-trained child against the theories of moral relativism. The fact is that all the morally relativistic mantras of post-modernity and Secular Humanism are self-refuting. Children can easily be shown how the beliefs of this worldview don't hold up to their own standards. Norman Geisler, in his book I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, calls this the road-runner technique, named for the coyote who would run through his own trap and off a cliff, only to look down and realize that he was standing in mid-air. Let's see this in action with eight common mantras of post-modern Secular Humanism.
"There are no absolutes"
This statement, like the other seven we will look at, is self-refuting. It says there are no absolutes, yet it is an absolute statement. The person saying there are no absolutes is saying that there are absolutely no absolutes. Either there are absolutes or there are not. It is not logical to say there are no absolutes except the one in which I believe. The Christian, for instance, would say there is only one true way, but there are many absolutes in life. This is a consistent worldview. The post-modern view of no absolutes is not consistent.
"Truth is unknowable"
If this statement were true, then how would I know that it was true? If truth cannot be known, what is the point in saying that truth cannot be known? What is the point of saying anything? To say that truth is unknowable is an automatically self-refuting statement, because the person saying it is assuming that you accept that this particular statement is true and knowable. It is, evidently, only in all other statements that truth is unknowable.
"It's true for me, but not for you"
This statement, like all the others is self-refuting. Is this statement true for you, but not for me? If so, then I reject the notion entirely. I contend that some truths are absolute. Is it possible that this belief could be true for me but not for you? Can truth be absolute for some people, while for others there are no absolutes? This is not logical or possible.
"There are no meta-narratives"
This statement presupposes that there are no prevailing stories or worldviews that can explain the world that are true and universal. Yet, the belief that there are no meta-narratives is, in itself, a meta-narrative. It is a meta-narrative that there are no meta-narratives. Again, it is not logical or tenable in the real world.
"You can't push your morality on me"
The easiest way to answer this question is with another question: "why not?" This is also a self-refuting argument because they are, in fact, pushing their morality on you while telling you that you cannot push your morality. It is like saying "The first rule is that there are no rules."
"Christians are judgmental"
This can also be refuted easily with a question: "What's wrong with that?" Relativists will often say that Christians are judgmental. That is their judgment on Christians. Why are they being so judgmental? The mantra that people shouldn't be judgmental is, in fact, a judgmental statement, so it is self-refuting. In addition, if there are no absolutes, or no concept of right and wrong, then who is to say that being judgmental is a bad thing?
"We need to be tolerant"
For post-modern Secular Humanists tolerance is a virtue of the highest order. This is also inconsistent. If they really value tolerance then they have to be objectivists. You can't argue for tolerance and tell people that they have to be tolerant unless you accept that there are moral absolutes. In order to demand tolerance as a virtue, the one doing the demanding must believe in absolutes. You simply cannot be a relativist and still call for everyone to be anything, including tolerant.
"You think that way because you accept the either/or philosophy rather than the both/and"
If backed into a corner, some post-modern thinkers will try to assert that the law of self-refutation only seems to dismantle their beliefs because we are working from a Western "either/or" philosophy. This, they say, is not necessary. We should abandon the "either/or" philosophy and embrace the Eastern "both/and" philosophy. While the "either/or" philosophy says something either is true or is not, the "both/and" philosophy says that something can be both true and not true at the same time. While it is true that many Eastern cultures embrace this philosophy, it still has a fatal flaw. Its proponents will say that we should reject the "either/or" in favor of the "both/and." In other words, we have to choose either the "either/or" or the "both/and." In their very attempted refutation of "either/or," they are using "either/or" logic. The "both/and" philosophy doesn't hold up in the real world because in order to get there one must use "either/or" philosophy.
The other weakness with all of these type statements, which are all just different expressions of relativism, is that if carried out to their full measure they become ridiculous. For instance if there are no moral standards and right and wrong are up to each individual to decide, then who makes the rules? You have no authority on which to declare anything to be wrong. I could steal your car or even kill you. It works for me, so who are you to say it's wrong? Unless there is a Creator God that sets the moral standard, then all bets are off and anything goes. The true moral relativist has no grounds on which to ever call any action wrong.
Conclusion
The important thing for parents to understand is that post-modernity is probably not going away any time soon. It is the way of viewing the world that our children will face. Just as modernity had its strengths and weaknesses, and was neither inherently positive nor negative, so it is with post-modernity. The dangers come when post-modernity is taken to extremes and combined with Secular Humanism. As shown above, however, the child who is armed with critical thinking skills and an understanding of basic logic will be better-prepared for their encounters with relativism and the negative aspects of post-modernity.
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Chapter 3
[i] Epimenides, < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides> (July, 2006)
[ii] Stanley Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdman's Publishing, 1996), p. 14.
[iii] Maddoux, Public Education Against America, p. 42
[iv] Robert Simon, "The Paralysis of 'Absolutophobia,'" The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 27, 1997): B5-B6.
[v] Christina Hoff Sommers, "Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong," Imprimis, (March 199): Volume 27, Number 3, 1.
[vi] N.T. Wright, The Bible for the Post-Modern World, http://latimer.godzone.net.nz/orange_lecture/orangelecture99.asp (July, 2006)
[vii] Barna Research Group, "Third Millennium Teens" (Ventura, CA: The Barna Research Group, Ltd., 1999), p. 43.
[viii] Thomas A. Helmbock, "Insights on Tolerance," Cross and Crescent, summer 1996, p. 2.
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