Mile Marker Paper
Clarity Vs. Ambiguity in Postmodern Theology
James Smith, in his book on Postmodernism, seeks to find clarity in the issues that postmodernist thinkers bring to the fore of philosophy and culture but must do so by proving that the writings of postmodern thinkers are ambiguous.
To accomplish this task Smith takes on a famous phrase attributed to each author: “There is nothing outside the text” (Derrida), “Incredulity to metanarratives” (Lyotard), and “Power is knowledge” (Foucault) and attempts to establish how each is misunderstood and actually supports his theological worldview. He states in clear terms “I will demonstrate that, in fact, all these (postmodern) claims have a deep affinity with central Christian claims”. (1)
Smith is admittedly a Christian and like many Christians in the 21st century, feels that postmodernist writers pose a threat to their faith and tradition. Smith admits that Christian apologists have been hard at work trying to dismantle the claims of postmodernism. He writes “To some, postmodernity is the bane of Christian faith”. (2) Smith’s goal, unlike many apologists of his time, is not to prove the postmodernists wrong but to find ways in which their theories actually support his theology. He further writes “My goal is to demythologize postmodernism by showing that what we commonly think so-called postmodernists are saying is usually not the case”. (3) To do this he must argue that the ideas presented by the postmodern writers Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and Michel Foucault are ambiguous. That is to say that they are open to multiple interpretations while arguing that his faith tradition is unambiguous in its claim to be a true interpretation of the world.
What is it that Smith and others fear? For one thing, they claim that doing away with strong foundations of truth leaves us afloat on a stormy sea. Like a boat without a rudder, society will be left to flounder about until it is left adrift on some deserted island. Rev. Bryn MacPhail says as much when he writes “The postmodern abandonment of the belief in universal truth and the advocacy of a myriad of truths necessarily entails a loss of a ‘final’ criteria with which to evaluate various interpretations of reality”. (4) In a culture that is used to having clear boundaries and markers as defined in the assured modern world, people become confused and frightened by the seemingly uncertain world of relativism. In an article defending this postmodern uncertainty or, better yet, lack of clarity, Israeli-American artist, writer, and lawyer Ephrat Livni writes, “Postmodernism is messy. The notion that there is no reality per se, and no truth that can’t be relativized, makes us all anxious and uncomfortable. We want, instead, to cling to older notions—concepts about shared values, humanity’s perpetual onward and upward progress, the power of knowledge to free us and improve our lot.” (5)
What may be even more threatening to those who want to hang on to their foundational texts or metanarratives is that the postmodernists claim that no narrative can be proven to be universally true. That is because, they would argue, that all text is based on context. More specifically, communication is based within a particular culture or social formation and the language used in that communication is full of words that symbolize particular meanings and carry significant force within that population. The hook is that those meanings and significances may not necessarily extend to other cultures or formations. Consequently, there can be no single narrative that is applicable to all people at all times. This, of course, goes against the teachings of some religions. Christianity, and several other religions that claim universal foundational truth, has had to come to terms with “postfoundationalism and what it means to claim that God’s truth is revealed when the concept of truth is no longer absolute but very much local.” (6)
Foundationalists also fear the process employed by postmodernism to get at the truth which has been labeled deconstructionism. This process seeks to demonstrate how any text or metanarrative has deep roots in cultural contexts and then seeks to expose those roots for all to see. This is a process of searching for clarity within the stories that postmodernists say are naturally ambiguous. It is a method of finding the underlying seeds of any narrative and seeing how those seeds are meant to grow structures of power within a community. This is not a destructive rout but an ultimately constructive process. “To deconstruct is not to negate or to dismiss, but to call into question and, perhaps most importantly, to open up a term, like the subject, to a reusage or redeployment that previously has not been authorized.” (7)
Thus, what modernists–especially religious modernists–most fear is the messiness that postmodern thought creates. They worry that it will encourage individuals to seek their own truth and create a world of relativistic chaos. The concern for literal Christians is that the prediction made in the second book of Thomas will come to pass. “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (8)
Smith is clear about his objective to retain the values of his Christian heritage against the onslaught of postmodernist deconstructionism. However, he uses the weapons of the writers of postmodernist thought against themselves by saying that their words are also ambiguous and can be re-interpreted to support Christian claims. Through this ambiguity, he hopes to prove that their words are so unclear that he is able to redefine them to prove his point and defend his faith tradition. In his efforts to do so he resorts to a familiar modernist argument: that Christianity is based on a necessarily true narrative. He claims that the narrative is authentic and legitimate because it was given to the world not through human insight but through a divine process of presentation he calls revelation. He writes “We can properly confess that we know God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, but such knowledge rests on the gift of (particular, special) revelation”. (9) This stance of certainty regarding his faith makes him a clear modernist thinker regardless of his efforts to find a more enlightened way of dealing with postmodern philosophy. He becomes a victim of the trap that is clearly delineated by Andy Crouch in the journal Christianity Today. When discussing (mostly Christian) writers who choose to take arms against postmodernity, he says that they take details they claim to support their theories and dismiss those that do not. “Whatever they're most afraid of, that's what postmodernism is. On the other hand, whatever they most secretly desire, postmodernism promises.” (10)
By establishing clear boundaries, Smith creates poles of opposites between Christian faith and postmodern deconstructionism. It is these very binary types of distinctions that postmodernism seeks to dismiss or, at least, clarify because these poles invariably demand that one side is of greater importance or is more correct than the other. “Distinctions have often been used to build the metaphysical edifices of Western philosophy. This happens by treating one of the pair as the positive one, and then, through a method of differentiation by logical exclusion and implication, creating a system of meaning.” (11) Jacques Derrida illustrated this idea himself by declaring that one side always seeks to control and subjugate the other. “Very schematically: an opposition of metaphysical concepts (e.g., speech! writing, presence/absence, etc.) is never the confrontation of two terms, but a hierarchy and the order of a subordination”. (12)
Furthermore, Smith seeks not to dismiss the opposite boundary of his stance but to find a point between them where Christianity and postmodernism meet. After all, one might say to muddy the waters, if all text is ambiguous then the words of the postmodernists must be unclear as well. Smith does this when he takes the three historic phrases that are the subject of his book and reinterprets and then aligns them with Christian theology. As MacPhail exclaims “The answer lies not in throwing out the metanarrative but in getting the metanarrative ‘right’”. (13)
It is my opinion that Smith did not succeed in his mission to obfuscate the intentions of the postmodernists he discusses. Although the theories espoused by Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault may together compose a narrative about truth and power, their claims seem to me to be clear and objective. Allen and Springsted lay out the terms for determining the clarity and objectivity of an idea. “Certainty has to be objective; it needs to speak to a fact in and of itself that does not depend on any qualities of the thinker. It needs to show the marks of being universal, true everywhere and at all times. It consequently demands a thinker who takes the standpoint of being a neutral observer.” (14) The propositions of postmodernist thinkers are universal; they can be applied to any story, myth, narrative, or text. They do not derive from nor depend upon any community, culture, or tradition to frame them. They are clear in their purpose and they are written from the standpoint of neutral observers.
The postmodernists were not trying to create yet another metanarrative that described the world and how to live in it. Instead, they provided it with a new set of tools to take apart the machinations of modern society and, in the process, give disenfranchised people new material on which to build their own platforms. As Livni describes it “They recognized the changes happening in the late 20th century—the erosion of authority, the ascendance of individual perspective—and developed the vocabulary to describe it.” (15)
What the modernists and the critics of postmodern thought fail to see is the beauty that is within the very messiness they fear. “Instead of blaming postmodernists for the messiness of our time, we should be trying to find a new kind of language—one that allows us to speak across divides, rather than rejecting opposing perspectives as inherently false. We have to learn to acknowledge the validity of a multiplicity of views and from this craft some kind of working truth. That may too be an illusion, but it will be more functional than living in denial. Otherwise, all that we’re left with is this impossible mess, and our perpetual rejection of life’s many inconvenient complexities.” (16)
Relativism may, indeed, be messy but that does not make it a breeding ground for disruption and destruction because relativity is itself relative. Smaller frameworks exist within larger frameworks that are part of even greater frameworks. Consistency and clarity may be possible for people within a particular framework but it must always be remembered that other frameworks–both large and small–will always exist. We may look at the horizon and see a straight line but that is only because we cannot fly above it and see how that segment of our reality is part of a greater reality. We see a small fragment of yet a greater fragment (which, of course, is part of yet another greater fragment). The reality revealed by the postmodernists was there before they wrote a single word. They simply parted the curtains to reveal the wizard working behind it. “Postmodernists didn’t create the new fractured reality; they merely described it.” (17)
Their revelations do not mean the end of any tradition nor do they call for the burning of any sacred texts. Instead, postmodernism calls us to recognize that truth exists within the context of a community and what that community might embrace as true is true for itself. Conversely, no faith can be proclaimed as the one truth for all people and for all times. Accepting these possibilities may help to create a world where sets and subsets of people do not collide and destroy each other like soap bubbles but will be more like a kaleidoscope of colors that create a dazzling array of transformative patterns as people continue on in the dance of life.
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, Diogenes and Eric O. Springsted. Philosophy for Understanding Theology. London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007.
Butler, Judith. Contingent Foundations: Feminism and the Question of “Postmodernism”.
Andy Crouch, “What Exactly Is Postmodernism?” Christianity Today, (November 13, 2000), https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/november13/8.76.html.
Derrida, Jacques, “Signature Event Context.” Limited Inc., 1–23. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988 [1972].
Livni, Ephrat Livni, “Everyone Hates Postmodernism–But That Doesn’t Make It Wrong,” Quartz, (September 16, 2018), https://qz.com/1388555/everyone-hates-postmodernism-but-that-doesnt-make-it-false/.
MacPhail, Bryn. In Search of the Truth: A Christian Response to Postmodernity.
Smith, James K.A., Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism? Grand Rapids MI, Baker Academic, 2006.
The Bible, English Standard Version, 2 Timothy 4:3-4, Crossway Publishing, 2001.