Rustin and I had a really good chat back on the 22nd. I can't really summarize everything we talked about, we didn't follow the book exactly. Hopefully we can get together sometime in Sept. again, and Chuck and Paul, and whoever else, can join us again. Right now between work, Caleb's baseball, and a trip to Colorado (unless Caleb's team makes it to the World Series) I'm not going to have time. But September should open up a little bit.

About the time Rustin and I were leaving the church on the 22nd we were talking about postmodernism. Rustin made a comment that perhaps 'postmodernism' is going to run its course and lead to a 'neomodernism'. I've actually had a lot of thoughts sort of along those lines, but I prefer to call it a return to 'premodernism'.

This is something I've more or less adapted from what I've learned from studying the Christian philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. A helpful way to view the history of western thought is to break it down into 3 basic time periods: 1) Judeo-Christian, which includes a significant amount of modified Greco-Roman ideas, up until the 18th century 2) Modern, from the 18th to mid 20th century, and 3) Premodern. Of course this is an over-simplification, but it is useful. And it is understood that you can't throw the baby out with the bath water. Not everything about modern and postmodern thought is wrong. Modern science, for instance, can't just disregarded. That's the thing about heresy; it has a hint of truth in it.

A major concept that defined the Judeo-Christian period was the idea of teleology, or design/purpose. Things were designed for a purpose by a designer. The consequences of this are particularly striking in ethics. If you understand the proper purpose and meaning of man, and that he is created in the image of God, certain ideas of right and wrong will follow. God has established reality such that there is a certain way things ought to go. He has revealed many of these things to us, including the fact that we are created in His image, through the prophets, Christ, the Apostles, and Scripture. And an important point here is that the Judeo-Christian view recognizes the truth that has been revealed to us as objectively true.

The change in the definition of "objectivity" marks an important distinction between the Judeo-Christian and the modern worldviews. In the next couple of days I'll post something more about the modern and postmodern views of things, and about objectivity. In the meantime feel free to post your own thoughts.