Modernism to Postmodernism

In the article I gave you the link to in the last post, http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/Tortured-Logic.html,
he gives you a couple of syllogisms.

If God does not exist, then morality cannot be justified
But morality can be justified
Therefore God must exist

and

If God does not exist, then morality cannot be justified
God does not exist
Therefore, morality cannot be justified

These are both categorical syllogisms. It is deductive logic, which briefly means that if the premises are true, and the conclusion really does follow from the premises, then the conclusion is 100% guaranteed. In logic there are rules to follow to make sure the conclusion really does follow from the premises. (Incidentally, traditional logic is mostly concerned with proper reasoning from a given set of premises, not necessarily having to do with whether the premises are true.)

The first of the above syllogisms has a form called modus tollens.

If p, then q
Not q
Therefore, not p

The other is modus ponens.

If p, then q
p
Therefore, q

Both of these are examples of proper reasoning, i.e., they are both valid. However, those of us with a Judeo-Christian ethic recognize the first example here of having all true premises. Therefore it is not only valid, but sound. A sound argument is a valid argument with true premises.

The problem the enlightenment thinkers ran into is that they hadn't thought this through. They were trying to show you can have 'Good without God,' and it hadn't quite hit them that, "If there is no God, then everything is permissible," as Ivan Karamzov says in Dostoevsky's book. From about the time of Dostoevsky on people realized, as did Nietzche, that the major premise of the above syllogisms was true. So then one must decide whether the minor premise of the modus tollens or the modus ponens form is true.

If one accepts the modus tollens form, it seems to me one must reject much of what the Enlightenment accepted. Again, I'd be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. (see previous post) Although much of the Enlightenment was mistaken, not all of it. But generally speaking, if the Enlightenment was wrong, it seems prudent to back track and make sure we haven't thrown the baby out with the bath water in rejecting the Judeo-Christian view of reality. Unfortunately, that is what the major thrust of modernism has done.

So, it seems modernism embraced the modus ponens argument. What you end up with is the cognitive dissonance that most people find now. They want to say nothing is right and wrong, all the while telling you you're wrong for being a Christian. There is no right or wrong, only power.

That will lead us into some discussion of postmodernism. But one more quick point. Another name for the Enlightenment, or modernism, is the 'Age of Reason.' Supposedly we rejected Judeo-Christian thought for something more rational, and we are now at least inheritors of the 'age of reason,' if not still in it. Isn't it odd that we don't teach reason, ie logic, in the schools. I think it is that at the end of the day, the rejection of the Judeo-Christian worldview and adoption of modernism wasn't really all that 'logical'. To accept the modernist (and postmodernist) view of things we have to avoid logic, and just accept what we are told. Odd, isn't it.

So, the Ancient and Medievil thinkers embraced logic and reason much more than descendants of the 'age of reason.' It is important to understand that reality is not merely logical or rational. There is more to faith than that. But it is not irrational or illogical. Logic is important. Remember what we have talked about before, John 1:1 could just as well have been translated "In the beginning was the logic (logos), and the logic was with God, and the logic was God."

Modernism

This afternoon I just read an article from the Classical Teacher magazine. It just happens to be apropos. You can read it here http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/Tortured-Logic.html.

To start with, if you look back a ways in the blog I brought up Nietzsche, and how he is so misunderstood. He was an atheist, and he was wrong in the big picture, but there were a lot correctly insightful things in his ideas. He is a complicated character.

But for the moment let me get back to the idea of objectivity. I recently heard someone say that if something is objectively true, that means I can show it to you. If something is subjectively true it is based on my personal opinions and feelings, and I can't necessarily demonstrate it to you. Now, that is probably close to what the dictionary would say. But my point is that is a decidedly modern definition, not a Judeo-Christian definition. Up until the Enlightenment objectivity had to do with something coming from outside of ourselves, verses coming from our own tastes, desires, feelings, and opinions. Take, for example, the Ten Commandments. Are those truths objective or subjective? The Judeo-Christian perspective is that they are objective. They don't change based on our personal preferences, and they are imposed on us from outside us. They aren't a creation of our own.

The modern definition of objectivity is a little different. Things are objective only if they can be demonstrated through the senses. If you can see it, touch it, hear it, smell it, or taste it then it can be shown to be objective (another name for that is empiricism). This presents a problem for anything of a moral or religious nature. This is why at the end of modernity some people have been trying so hard to marginalize Judeo-Christian ideas which put so much stake in objective morality.

But there was a transition period in the early modern period. People like David Hume and Immanuel Kant believed in a 6th sense. It was not the same as the 6th sense in the Bruce Willis movie, but it was more or less the conscience. The conscience was a moral sense of knowing right and wrong, and it was objective in their view.

But here is where Nietzsche comes in with some profound insight. One of the goals of the Enlightenment was to establish good without God (Hume was an atheist, Kant was probably a practical atheist although a practicing Lutheran). If the Enlightenment was to throw off religious superstition they would have to show that they could prove things through reason and/or empiricism alone, without direct reference to God. The problem exposed by Nietzsche was that this 6th sense, or conscience, that was claimed to sense what was right and wrong, was really just a collection of personal tastes and opinions. The reason that people could generally agree early on in the Enlightenment about what the conscience said was because they were still recovering Christians, holding on to the old morality.

He was right. They said they wanted to prove what was 'good' without reference to God, but their ideas of 'good' were really ideas they inherited from their ancestors, who got them from God. Nietzsche realized that if God didn't exist some 'uberman' or 'higher man' would have to come along to show what was really right and wrong, and enforce it. It wasn't that he believed that whatever anyone powerful enough to enforce what he believed was ok. He believed, like the ancient Greco-Romans who he had a lot of respect for, that there was a certain way that lead to a vibrant and flourishing human life. There was some design or purpose, if you will. But it had to lead to a really powerful human life. His quote 'will to power' was kind of a mocking of Schleiermacher's (I think) quote 'will to live'. The 'will to live' was weak and pathetic in itself. Just a desire to live, to get by, was nothing. The 'will to power', to a vibrant and healthy and robust life was what was really needed. (Incidentally, that's partly why Nietzsche didn't like Darwin. 'Survival of the fittest' meant nothing to him. Mere survival, like the 'will to live' was weak.) But Nietzsche himself could not see exactly where to turn to find this Uberman. That's why he ended up speaking of an abyss.

That's about enough about Nietzsche. I just want to add that part of the reason he rejected Christianity was that to him, dying to yourself is weak and could not lead to that robust, vibrant life. Overall, I think Nietzsche was a confused and conflicted man. He knew the Enlightenment had failed, but he was left without anything to really turn to. To back up what I said a little, here's a quote from Dinesh D'Souza, a Christian writer. http://finchesandsparrows.blogspot.com/2009/04/nietzsches-abyss.html

I have more to say about the failure of the Enlightenment and Modernism, but I'll close this post for now. But before I digressed, part of my initial point was that all too often we Christians don't think with a Judeo-Christian mindset, but a modern one. This is dramatically evident in the difference between the Judeo-Christian and Modern definitions of objectivity. When discussing morality and justice, for instance, with non-Christians we don't have to assume the modern view of objectivity and we have every right to claim God's morality as objective and true.

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.

Meeting tonight

Cory,

If you are trying to contact me, I'm home now and plan to meet you and others, (if any) at church at 7:00 tonight. Please try to call again. :-)

Rustin (aka Foxpup)

OK, Wed night, July 22, at the church, 7 PM. We'll have some coffee and dessert, etc. Let's plan on discussing up through ch. 5, or whatever comes up.

Wednesday evening looks best for me. I could meet 15, 22, 29th. If more were available on Monday, I could rearrange some things to make that work also.

Chuck

ithink dates?

Hey everyone, I'd like to try again to get ithink together. We just went to 12 hour shifts at the hospital, and it is going to make my schedule a lot different, but also more flexible as far as ithink is concerned. Here are some dates coming up that I can meet, and whenever we can get the most people together we'll try and do it.

Monday evening July 13
Wed. evening july 15
Mon. evening July 20
Wed. evening July22
Sat. evening July 25
Mon evening July 27
Wed eveingin July 29
Sat. evening Aug 1
Mon evening Aug 3
Wed evening Aug 5
Mon evening Aug 10
Wed evening Aug 12
Sat evening Aug 15

Hopefully at least one of those days will work. I was thinking we could just catch up a little, and maybe discuss the first 5 chapters of Colin Brown's book. Chapter 5 finishes the ancient world with From Greeks to Gospel. It's a good summary of why understanding the ancient world is important for Christians.

So, let me know what you think, and maybe we can get together soon.

Cory