POST-MODERNISM & APLOLGETICS:
DANGERS TO AVOID
Douglas Groothuis traverses the dangerous game of postmodernism’s fallacious representations succinctly in his appeal to danger avoidance in chapter six of Truth Decay. When the stability of objective realities ballast is removed, when truth is viewed as an object of ethereal significance, the base of Christianity is removed. Faith in Christ is not a blind, abject acceptance of mythological fables that are ungrounded in historical reality. There is a space/time continuum factor that has been essentially integrated into the Christian faith’s substantive proposals. Documents, geological veracities and archeological realities: all coalesce into a broader materialism of a biblical nature that in effect under girds the truthfulness of the Gospel’s natural essence. The metanarrative’s absorbs the significant minor narrative potency to create a holistic appraisal of truth’s verification.
Postmodernism’s gravest difficulty, when attempting to be absorbed into Christian theology, is expressed in the denial of factual data’s conclusiveness. Propositions cannot simply give way to synthetic suggestions ad infinitum. There must be a standard, objective nuance that substance is evaluated against. Herein lay the dilemma of philosophical/theological integration. Most rationalistic attempts to enumerate the plausibility of God’s existence utilize formulae that include God into the configuration. This can be seen in a minor equation such as:
A (I+O) – M = E = A/O
O (F+l) + M = S
In the equation: A = Alpha, I = Infinity, O = Omniscience, M = Mass (substance), E = Eternality, O = Omega, F = Finite, L = Limitations, M = Mass (substance), S = Spatial Reality. The combination of the two creates the Alpha/Omega equation.
While these mathematically induced language valuations may help humans to logically comprehend formulae, the problem remains: God isn’t a part of any equation. He is the equation. Holy Writ begins with, and is permeated throughout with an unalterable objective assumption. God exists. Equational summations may point to His existence and not the opposite. As such, the tension exists in the assumption. Reality has a point of origin, with an initiator whose reflective qualities are seen imprinted throughout creation. Christianity is not compatible with pre-modern variations of pantheistic ruminations. Narrative data is appropriate as long as the representations fit within the metanarrative are focus: understanding the assumption of God.
The possible inclusion of postmodern thought into the Christian faith may be found in the intransigent focus upon that which is unknowable and unattainable. Perhaps this worldview may readily adapt to the Augustinian/Calvinistic views of the awesome majesty of God as incomprehensible and glorious. Postmodernism’s illogic may appeal to the incarnational realities of the witness in objective reality’s space/time limitations. Pursuit of this line of reasoning may possibly find some value in the apologetical determinations of man interacting with God.
