moksha wrote:I don't really understand this postmodern apologetics controversy, and when that happens I invariably find I am not alone. Could one of you please explain it in simple terms that are not geared toward a biased point of view? Thank you.
I provided a quote the other day that outlines what postmodernism asserts: namely, that truth and reality, if they exist at all, are ultimately unapproachable by humans. Everything we experience is filtered through society, language, and our own experiential bias, to the point where all "truth" is subjective.
I find this approach hard to reconcile with Mormonism's claims about itself for what I think should be obvious reasons.
Pyrrho dedicated his work as a philosopher to the impossibility of truth in 300 b.c. It's not a new idea. Niether is backpeddling - nothing specifically postmodern about it either. But something closer to the core of postmodernism doesn't really help the modern church. One can't just wake up in the morning and pick a narrative. The narrative "speaks you" as some might say. Individual autonomy is suppressed by the social structures one is born into - individuality is as impossible in postmodernism as absolute truth. Postmodernism buys something for the community only. Which, in the modern church isn't helpful either given it's been swallowed by globalization. Sure, pace Gadamar, we might admit that there are community narratives that, like a language, ultimately don't translate. But one has to have some kind of argument for community isolation. It's believable that we couldn't possibly settle matters of truth with an ancient Egyptian because their narrative is so far removed from ours. But Mormons speak the same language, watch as much TV as anyone else, shop at their local Barnes & Noble/Walmart/Bed Bath and Beyond cul-de-sack, drive SUVs, work the same jobs - they are as structured by suburban white-collar capitalism as the next guy. It's simply not believable that their truth is grounded in something no one else can understand or debate.
grayskull wrote:Pyrrho dedicated his work as a philosopher to the impossibility of truth in 300 b.c. It's not a new idea. Niether is backpeddling - nothing specifically postmodern about it either. But something closer to the core of postmodernism doesn't really help the modern church. One can't just wake up in the morning and pick a narrative. The narrative "speaks you" as some might say. Individual autonomy is suppressed by the social structures one is born into - individuality is as impossible in postmodernism as absolute truth. Postmodernism buys something for the community only. Which, in the modern church isn't helpful either given it's been swallowed by globalization. Sure, pace Gadamar, we might admit that there are community narratives that, like a language, ultimately don't translate. But one has to have some kind of argument for community isolation. It's believable that we couldn't possibly settle matters of truth with an ancient Egyptian because their narrative is so far removed from ours. But Mormons speak the same language, watch as much TV as anyone else, shop at their local Barnes & Noble/Walmart/Bed Bath and Beyond cul-de-sack, drive SUVs, work the same jobs - they are as structured by suburban white-collar capitalism as the next guy. It's simply not believable that their truth is grounded in something no one else can understand or debate.
Well said. It just doesn't work very well with Mormonism does it?
But Mormons speak the same language, watch as much TV as anyone else, shop at their local Barnes & Noble/Walmart/Bed Bath and Beyond cul-de-sack, drive SUVs, work the same jobs - they are as structured by suburban white-collar capitalism as the next guy. It's simply not believable that their truth is grounded in something no one else can understand or debate.
This is what I found frustrating in my dialogue with Ben on the Z board. He is so enamored of the idea of "filter" that he acted like we - that is Ben and me, sevenofniine - couldn't even have a dialogue about Jesus being the Son of God because who knows what that means? Aside from the debate about whether or not actual sex was involved, which was not relevant to my point, it is reasonable to expect that two people who share an LDS background can understand each other adequately to discuss the issue in a somewhat meaningful way.
Colin McGinn made a statement on a PBS interview I heard the other night I wish I had recorded - it had to do something with the connection between postmodernism and insulation from criticism. Something like: well, we can't really know the truth, so no one can criticize my own particular community's truths. I can see how this would be the end result of some people's postmodern reasoning, and I have long suspected that this is the attraction for some LDS.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.
moksha wrote:I don't really understand this postmodern apologetics controversy, and when that happens I invariably find I am not alone. Could one of you please explain it in simple terms that are not geared toward a biased point of view? Thank you.
I provided a quote the other day that outlines what postmodernism asserts: namely, that truth and reality, if they exist at all, are ultimately unapproachable by humans. Everything we experience is filtered through society, language, and our own experiential bias, to the point where all "truth" is subjective.
I find this approach hard to reconcile with Mormonism's claims about itself for what I think should be obvious reasons.
But out of that subjective truth are we not allowed to create meaning individual in an unknowable, chaotic, and seemingly empty universe? And although Grayskull says that we just can't wake up in the morning and pick a narrative, isn't that what we do? Thus it is up to us rather than the Church to reconcile its claims either yea or nay or somewhere inbetween.
But out of that subjective truth are we not allowed to create meaning individual in an unknowable, chaotic, and seemingly empty universe? And although Grayskull says that we just can't wake up in the morning and pick a narrative, isn't that what we do? Thus it is up to us rather than the Church to reconcile its claims either yea or nay or somewhere inbetween.
You're allowed to do whatever you want to create meaning in life. What we're pointing out is the inconsistency between postmodernism and making authoritative, categoric "truth claims".
Mormonism does not present itself as simply one community trying to figure it all out, like any other, does it? It presents itself as the "one true church", the restoration of something created by Jesus and subsequently lost to the world.
If individual Mormons like Ben make sense out of it by embracing postmodernism, more power to them. The problem arises when folks like this then insist that what they've done is consistent with how the Mormon church, through its leaders, presents itself to the world.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.
moksha wrote:But out of that subjective truth are we not allowed to create meaning individual in an unknowable, chaotic, and seemingly empty universe? And although Grayskull says that we just can't wake up in the morning and pick a narrative, isn't that what we do? Thus it is up to us rather than the Church to reconcile its claims either yea or nay or somewhere inbetween.
I'm saying in what is generally regarded as "postmodern theory" you can't just wake up and pick a narrative. If someone is looking for a way to make truth 'subjective' and retain vasts amounts of individual autonomy then they need to become an existentialist, not a postmodernist. Though many would think the two are the same, they are radically opposed. Existentialism is in a way the pinnacle of modernism where individual brains are godlike, the production centers of truth - which falls out from modern philosophy's focus on what happens in individual minds. The idea of a scientist ruling the universe through the power of his own mind - making discoveries and finding out truth in its purity - or the Mormon doing the same by touching deity and gaining testimony would be equally untenable and undesirable to postmodernists. The usual idea in postmodernism is that if you look carefully, what people think passes for 'truth' and their own creativity is swallowed up by some larger discourse they were unaware of, but inexorably bound to - and one that has a dependency relationship to other discourses, no discourse being top dog.