By Farther Steps

Reformed and Reforming, semper reformanda to Christ's glory.

Posts Tagged ‘post-modernism’

A Borrowed Optimism

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Offered as a follow on to my previous post.

None of these ideas–the goodness of the material [world], the progress of history, the dignity of individuals, the significance of choices, and the value of emotions–made any sense in an impersonal universe and therefore they had never arisen. Nietzsche’s great critique of modern secular humanism strikes at the irony of this point: Though none of these (basically Christian) moral ideas rationally follows from an impersonal universe, late modernity has inherited them, intensified and absolutized them, and cut them completely loose from any transcendent grounding fruit of Christian ideas and severed the root. Now all these ideas must be held in the face of what is thought to be a completely impersonal universe, even more impersonal than the ones believed in by ancient societies because it has no supernatural or spiritual aspect to it at all. – Tim Keller, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism, 129.

Late modernism borrows heavily from Christianity and absolutely refuses to acknowledge it. If the universe is impersonal, as science claims it must be, and history is pointless, then why get up in the morning? There’s no benefit to dragging a comb across the crown of your head because in 10,000 year, a blink of an eye to the impersonal universe around you, you won’t exist nor be remembered. Your contributions and efforts will have affected nothing. Late modernism borrows Christianity’s optimism and then criticizes us for the reasons for our hope.

An Inescapable Irony

The interesting thing about this comic is that the author expects us to get the joke that the character claims we can not understand. She uses words to explain why communication can’t happen and does it in a visual medium. Let that roll around in your mouth for a moment before you eject it into the spit bucket.

This is post-modernism, or as Tim Keller calls it, late modernism, which I think is more accurate. Post-modernism would imply that we’ve left modernism and moved on to some other idea. We haven’t done that as the practical worship of science shows.

Yet, despite the verbal protests, words have meaning. Communication is possible. Understanding, though imperfect, is achievable because God spoke. He spoke the universe into existence. That universe understood the words of its creator and complied. The very created universe, then, continues to communicate. Day to day pours out speech, night reveals knowledge (Ps. 19:1-2). God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen in what he’s made (Rom. 1:20). God’s words are the universe and they continue to speak.

He made humans in his image and he spoke to them, expecting them to understand and obey. He told Adam, “Any tree but that tree” and Adam understood. God expected Adam to explain that to Eve. She got it a little wrong (Gen. 3:2-3) but she got it.

Even after the fall, God continued to communicate and expect comprehension. “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” (Heb. 1:1-2) He gave us his gospel, the words of life (John 6:68), and told us to speak them throughout the world. He expects people to understand them.

Communication is possible because our communicative God created us to communicate. God has always existed as three distinct persons in one God. He has always had an other to communicate with. Communication is part of who God is and God is reasonable and rational so that which he creates reflects that. And yet, the author of the cartoon above, indeed post-moderns in general, insist that communication is chaos and shaded by personal experience, all the while using God’s gift of words to do it. And they expect us to get it. The irony is inescapable.