Deconstructing an Anti-modern

One of the most important classes I took in my Master's degree dealt with modernity and postmodernity as meta-mindsets. The instructor, my advisor, demonstrated a brilliant understanding of postmodernism's root in modern rationalism.

As I went through that class, he presented a V-shaped chart to explain the progress. Across the top were five "mindsets." First was the naive premodern, second the premodern (or willful premodern), third the modern, fourth the anti-modern, and fifth, the postmodern. Moving down from the top left of the chart, a line shows the progression of philosophical thought through these columns as those who began as naive premoderns came to embrace the enlightenment experiment and modernity as a philosophy. However, as modern philosophies (such as logical positivism) took their toll, postmodernism was the end result. The line moves to the bottom of the page, past the point of despair to complete postmodernism. This line downward remains under the label of the modern mindset.

From there, he posits that many people reconstruct a metaphysic and move from the position of postmodernism under the modern mindset to a postmodern mindset which no longer holds to that complete subjectivity. The postmodern mindset still recognizes the questions and issues of modernity, but no longer trusts modernity to solve the problems it claims to solve. The class was brilliant!


However, I think one of the most interesting concepts I encountered in the class was the mindset of the "antimodern." To my instructor, the antimodern was the Christian who, because he had dealt with the questions posited by modernity, could no longer be a premodern. But in many ways, the anti-modern should be seen as someone who embraces the mindest of modernity in order to break down its foundation. The study of apologetics is an anti-modern endeavor, it attempts to call into question modern philosophy on its own basis and prove Christianity according to modern standards.


When I first went to Bible college, apologetics was one of my most passionate interests. Without really knowing what it meant, I had embraced the mindset of the anti-modern. My goal was to provide rational and empirical evidence which would be undeniable and would compell reasonable people to believe. I really intended to construct a modern argument proving why the gospel message was absolutely compelling and impossible to deny. As anyone who has read my blog can see, I abandoned that endeavor some time between my junior year of college and my first year of graduate school. At some point I acknowledged that it isn't possible to work in the realm of "knowledge." That being said, I really consider my change in this area to be growth.


One of the apologists who I have listened to and appreciated for years is Ravi Zacharias. In fact, for a few years I had pipe-dreams of doing something similar to what he does, as much of his work is an anti-modern critique of postmodernism as a philosophy. There is no question that he understands postmodernism and sees its faults. However, I no longer feel that the apologetic approach is the way to get at postmodernism. Here is why: the whole notion of apologetics, to me, is an attempt to prove that scripture measures up to modern thought when, in truth, modern thought ought to be measured against scripture. The anti-modern mindset really is rooted in modern rationalism more so than in scripture, in that it takes seriously enough the claims of modernity to force scripture to measure up to it.

A two-part message on Ravi's podcast, which was actually delivered several years ago, was called Cultural Relativism and the Emasculation of Truth . In it, Ravi began unpacking the issue of truth in our time. He delivered three reasons why the world has been led into falsehood in our time. The most wonderful was the first: that reason has replaced revelation. He, correctly, traces the beginning of the enlightenment experiment to Kant, who set in motion the wheels of modernity in his claim that all that can be known is phenomena. Of course, Kant still believed in the noumena. But as modernity went on, those who followed gradually removed the supernatural from the discussion altogether. At the end of the 19th century, it was Nietzsche who came out and blatantly said that it was now up to mankind to deliver an ethic apart from any supernatural influence. God was dead, we had killed him. Now it was time for the superman to come forward and create a new world.

Ravi, also, correctly pinpointed the real issue in that point. It is that Kant really isn't the forerunner of that line of thinking. In fact, it goes all the way back to Genesis 3. The fundamental mistake was to look inward for a sense of right and wrong rather than to trust what God had said was true. This is why the serpent asks, "Did God really say you would die if you ate from this tree?"

Ravi's first point in this lecture was, I think, brilliant. The goal is to move to scripture, to begin with scripture as a starting point in theology. From there, it is possible to build a system which is, really, self-authenticating. In this way, I thought Ravi was consistent with a most post-modern of all theological movements, Radical Orthodoxy.

However, his second point disappointed me because it displayed a massive anti-modern influence. The first problem was that reason had replaced revelation. The second was that truth has been subverted by agnosticism. Here is why I find this interesting. In a sense, Ravi's first point is an attempt to abandon Kantian thinking and begin with scripture as a foundation rather than rationalism. It doesn't really try to address Kant as much as to leave him behind. To my mind, however, the second point is really an abandonment of the first point.

His goal in the second is to prove that we CAN have knowledge. Of course, the Kantian definition is that knowledge is "justified, true belief." In this definition, especially in metaphysics, knowledge is really impossible. This is why agnosticism has become so popular. In this, I don't think Ravi is far off. The Kantian idea about knowledge has caused problems. But, is the solution to insist on our ability to "know?"

Scripture, of course, uses the word "knowledge" a lot, even in reference to our knowing God. However, I think the line is blurry between the relational and rational notions of knowledge in scripture. Is the Bible referring to our ability to know God or know of him? The first is relational, the second rational. To my mind, the Bible concentrates on the first, the relational knowledge. The second, the rational, I think is exemplified in the cry one man made to Jesus, "I believe...help my unbelief!" It really isn't possible, in a modern sense, to come to knowledge about God. This is what faith is: belief even in the admission that "I don't know with certainty."

What I thought was strange about Ravi's second point was how often he equivocated rational knowledge with belief. His point was that when we rule out rational knowing, we have ruled out the ability to believe in anything. But I think he's wrong! Postmoderns, those moving from modernity (especially from postmodernism), are re-embracing faith but still affected by modern ideas about knowledge. In other words, just because I claim it isn't possible to KNOW something, doesn't mean I can't BELIEVE it! In fact, I think faith is only possible in the absence of knowledge!

Oh, anyway...I'm not sure that came across. I guess my point is that I can see that the anti-modern may never really click with postmodern culture. While Ravi, in his genius, will continue to be a favorite of mine, I have to admit I don't think he and I would ever be on the same page. Interestingly, where I now live is about 40 minutes from his headquarters! If ever the opportunity came to meet him, I now have it. But, interestingly, I feel further now from his thinking than I ever did.

Later.