Epistemology III - Post-Modernism

Post-modernism's epistemology and its effects are in many ways less clear than those of modernism to the average person in Western society. There are probably multiple reasons, among them:

• It is a more recent development,


• It encompasses developments in several areas ("post" simply means "after"), and


• Its epistemology is grounded largely in a recent (and relatively opaque) linguistic theory...not the sort of thing kids read about in middle school (unlike the scientific method).

At the risk of fatal oversimplification, I'll define post-modernism (as an epistemology) as follows:

The understanding that

• knowledge is ultimately shaped by and grounded in language,


• language both reflects and reinforces existing power structures, and


• the key task of the knower is to deconstruct the existing assumptions and power structures seen in a text.

Note that the task of the knower is largely de-structive (vs. the con-structive activity engaged by the modern knower), though via a specified process.

This has various implications:

• All knowledge is subjective, relative, narrative, and specific to a time, place, and individual knower,


• All language and knowledge claims are best seen as attempts to exert power,


• All claims to objective universal knowledge are attempts to oppress others.

Although this summary is may be closer to parody than reality (or maybe it's closer to a deconstructed post-modernism), I think it's a reasonable summary for purposes of thinking about its influence on epistemology.

In the area of general revelation, even the hardest of modern science is seen by some as socially constructed, and therefore relative (not objective). In the popular arena, this critique finds a sympathetic hearing among those who see technology (being grounded in math, physics, and chemistry) as inherently oppressive. More broadly, claims to universally knowable objective knowledge of any type, much less about the metaphysical and God, are dismissed.

In the area of special revelation, the Bible is seen as just another text whose traditional reading and understanding simply reflects another place and time. Therefore, traditional understandings should be, a priori, rejected as attempts to impose the perspectives and values (a relatively new term) of another place and time on a current place and time. Traditional liberal Protestantism rejected miracles; postmodern Protestantism rejects doctrines (assertions of universal Truth) and is generally suspicious of any text that does not align with an amorphous definition of "tolerance." Regardless, it seems that modern and postmodern approaches to Christianity are reaching roughly the same conclusions about required/desired individual and corporate behavior.

If modernism is sometimes encourages in the broader culture an "easy believism" (17,400 hits in Google), post-modernism would seem to encourage what might be called "easy skepticism" (352 hits in Google). Most of us have been indoctrinated about such dangers as appeals to authority and the limits of reason. On the other hand, most of us have thought little (if any) about the dangers of acting on uninformed emotion since "everyone knows that knowledge is subjective and relative"(and is therefore not worth pursuing).

Since the culture we live in is mostly post-modern, it would seem that the primary danger Christians face from it is a tendency to either (a) not pursue a knowledge of the Bible's text, or (b) to apply a sophisticated linguistic theory that distorts the plain meaning of the text (e.g., by emphasizing what is different between a current context and the context of the original text, instead of discerning the meaning conveyed by the text that is universal across all contexts).

Epistemology II - Modernism

Western modernism is grounded in a distinctive mix of rationalism and empiricism that we see most clearly in the scientific method’s knowledge-generating loop of observe, hypothesize, experiment.

Modernism's epistemological foundation of reason and empirical data would obviously make it resist any inference of causes that are not both rational and empirically measurable.

As a result, modernism has several centuries of persistent skepticism of (a) inferences from general revelation that imply there is design or purpose in the universe, and (b) statements in special revelation that assert that God intervened in the universe in an undeniable and observable way that violates its normal cause-effect structure (i.e., miracles).

In the 19th century, this was seen in Darwin's alternate explanation for the origin of species (though we have yet to see anything comparable proposed for the origin of the universe or the origin of life...both areas are seen as highly speculative by even the most radical atheist/agnostic), and in the denial of miracles (other than a generic creation act) that characterized Deism, higher criticism, and what came to be called liberal Protestantism.

In both areas (general and special revelation), one primary motive was to harmonize traditional Christian understandings with (a) what was being discovered by the scientific method, and (b) assertions about epistemology being made by such philosophers as Kant and Hume(both expressed skepticism about knowing anything about the metaphysical). Hegel's notions about Progress also formalized a notion that remains to this day...that the sort of scientific progress we see in the technical arena will spread to the moral and social domains.

Needless to say, various 20th century experiments and thinkers largely destroyed the idea that modernism would provide a base in which all knowledge could be grounded.

In the domain of philosophy, logical positivism came and went, and Godel's Incompleteness Theorem destroyed the idea that all statements in any formal system are knowable (his mathematical treatment of a statement roughly analogous to "this statement is false" foreshadowed what has become a standard critique of any system that asserts it provides a sure foundation for knowledge).

In the popular mind, the limits of modernism are probably not appreciated...the march of technology largely obscures the fact that in such areas of cosmology, quantum-level physics, the structure and makeup of the universe, the origin of life, and macro-evolution (i.e., specific known mechanisms that demonstrate the spontaneous generation of novel biological structures/functions), science seems to have hit major speed-bumps, if not actual walls, while traditional appeals to such ideas as design (intelligent design) and the existence of God (in the field of philosophy) have seen a significant resurgence.

In the domains of morality and society, modernism's failures are much more obvious. The 20th century saw an unprecedented slaughter driven by such modern ideas as fascism and communism. And, western societies abandoned Biblical morality and disintegrated into a moral chaos so pervasive as to be virtually invisible to those born after 1970. Whether traditional western democracy, private property, freedom of speech, and freedom of religion can survive such a shift remains unclear.

Epistemology I - How Do We Know?

Before getting into specifics about authority as seen by the individual, family, church, and government, I'm going to take a short detour into epistemology. Although this topic is complex and deserves a longer treatment, I probably need to cover a few basics before I can clearly discuss some aspects of the created order. So, a few brief comments on the topic of epistemology, or, how we know what we know.

The question of "how we know what we know" has a long history. In the Western world, it has tended to focus on such issues as how knowable a specific area is, how reliable our senses are, and how we structure and use knowledge. Although I may discuss those issues later, my purpose is focus on what seems to me to be a plausible Biblical understanding.

Bottom line up front: My impression from the Bible is that there is far more admonition about our attitude and our actions than about what we think of as knowledge…"study to show yourself approved…" is a relatively rare command. I don’t think that’s because it’s unimportant. It’s obviously important, but the inference I draw is that the basic facts are hidden not so much by our lack of factual information or our inability to grasp the plain meaning of a text, but our unwillingness to see what those facts (or the text) means to our life...because we don't want to live in accordance with those facts (I Cor. 1-2). We want to be our own god.

So, what is the traditional Christian understanding of how we know? Two sources are generally defined:

• Special revelation, and
• General revelation.

Special revelation is that which is directly from God (generally understood to be the Bible), and general revelation is everything else (specifically, nature, and our conscience).

Here's my current understanding (from both general and special revelation) about how we know what we know:

1. Since God is social (a triune being), we, being created in his image, are social. We interact with each other and with God.
2. God created the universe, humans, and language.
3. Language is the primary vehicle by which we know.
4. The purpose of knowledge is primarily to inform both action and disposition ("emotions"). This implies that a core aspect of knowledge is an understanding of cause-effect structures (i.e., "how do I create a cause such that the desired effect is achieved?"), and an understanding of how knowledge shapes emotions.
5. Action has its origins more in the emotions than in reason...emotion is "what to do", reason is "how to do it".
6. Our ability to know is fallen. Specifically, our ability to map language to meaning is partial and flawed, as is our ability to discern whether our desires are consistent with God's will, as is our ability to fully grasp cause-effect structures in all domains (i.e., physical, social, moral, emotional, etc.).
7. God knew all of this before we were created. Therefore, his communication with us takes all this into account.
8. If God is who he says he is (in both general and special revelation), it seems that we can be sure that we can gain an understanding of both general and special revelation that, while partial and flawed, is capable of generating emotions and actions that are both sensible and pleasing to God. I'm going to deliberately ignore a discussion of how Calvinism or how the Spirit or etc. might shape this understanding.
9. As I said previously, the Bible seems to spend much more time talking about shaping the emotions than it does shaping our ability to reason (i.e.,"study to show yourself approved..."). The two obviously cannot be untangled, but it seems to me that those overly influenced by modernism place too much emphasis on the power of reason and the pitfalls of emotions, and those overly influenced by post-modernism place too much emphasis on the power of emotions and the pitfalls of reason.

Which leads to two primary lines of attack on general and special revelation. The first has its roots in modernism, and the second in post-modernism.