An Introduction to Epistemology (Part 2)
Last week we saw that there were different people who said there were different ways of knowing about the world. That is, we were introduced to the idea of epistemology. This week I want to return to two of those views, modernism and post-modernism, and how as Christians we should respond to them.
Modernism
Modernism, if you remember, is the idea that people can know everything…eventually. That is to say that with the right amount of time and effort and technology we can know all. This means that the only real things are things you can feel and touch. This of course means that God does not exist! Many of you will see this sort of thing in your lectures as this is the premise of the modern university.
As Christians there are some things that we want to agree with in the modern point of view. We want to agree that there is objective truth. We want to say that the world has a certain order to it that can be seen and measured. This is what the writers of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes both claim to have done.
But on the other hand we do not want to say that Christianity is “modern” in it's approach to life. Modernism is based on the presupposition that man is pretty good; that he is able to know the world. The Bible is somewhat pessimistic on man's ability to know all about the world and on what man will do with the knowledge once he has it. This is not to mention the modern approach to God—that He does not exist—is a problem for most Christians!
Postmodernism
As a reaction to modernism, postmodernism says that there is no objective truth. We can only interpret the world. The point here is that there is more to what we see in the world and what we see is somewhat limited, who is to say that that is all there is to life? Hence there are no absolute standards. All we know is a product of our cultural up bringing. If you remember this as a lot to do with globalization and interaction between different cultures with different points of view. It is viewed as “arrogant” to see one “better” than another one.
Again as Christians there are some things that we want to agree with in this view. We do want to say that man is limited in what he can know about the world. We also want to agree that there is more to the world than what we can see, touch and measure. We also want to say that truth is not culturally bound.
However we also want to disagree with this approach as well in places. We want to disagree with the idea that there is no objective truth, only interpretation. We also want to question the relationship between culture and truth.
The Christian Response
The basis of all knowledge is ultimate reality. That reality is God and He has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ. The means that, in opposition to postmodernism, the truth is indeed “out there”. But it also means, in opposition to modernism, that the truth and knowledge of the world can only be known through our seeing the world. The fundamental point of knowledge must be revealed.
As Christians we must be careful of taking a particular cultural perspective, whether that be modern or post modern or post post-modern. The Bible has its own view of the world and knowledge and it is this one that we must follow. This view is based upon the fact that knowledge is based fundamentally on something that has been given to us in Jesus, not something we can work out for ourselves.
Further Reading:
James Sire, The Universe Next Door (IVP, 1976,1988)
Dennis McCallum, The Death of Truth (Bethany House Publishers,
1996)
Pete Hughes
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