Jonathan Clarke wrote:
> There is always one :-)
> I am not expert on post modernism (is anyone?) so offer the following
thoughts very tentatively.
> The modernists and post modernists raise different problems and have
different congruencies
> with Christian philosophies. I agree that the commitment to
objective truth is in favour of the
> modernists, however the doctrinaire reductionism and materialism
stands against the.
> Conversely, while the
> post moderns are sceptical about objective truth they are not
reductionists and recognize that
> meaning can occur at many levels. In this regard they seem superior
to the moderns. Again I am
> no expert on post modernism (the very term sets my teeth on edge!),
but there seem to be
> strands within
> it which are quite amenable to Christian thought. Nancey Murphy
seems quite positive about
> post modernism, something I am working though.
Modernism (M) limits the kinds of claims that may be true, while
post-modernism (PM) is
open to all kinds of truth claims. (Of course I'm painting with a very
broad brush.) Thus PM is
open to the possibility that Christianity is true & may freely admit
that it's true - for Christians. But
the same can be said for all kinds of other belief systems. For PM
Christianity can't be true in the
sense that it has historically claimed to be, as a meta-narrative,
because for PM there are no
meta-narratives. OTOH the M view of the world (the emphasis is
important) can be seen as a true
though incomplete understanding of creation within the context of the
Christian meta-narrative.
But it's not only for religious belief that this issue is
important. Although some scientists may
identify themselves as PMs, I don't see how any serious scientist can
concede that the views of the
flat earth society or animism, e.g., give as good an understanding of
the world as does science. As
John Barrow said, "Almost all scientists are realists - at least during
working hours."
Having said that, we should recognize that religious beliefs and
scientific theories are to some
extent conditioned by culture - economics, gender, &c. But to recognize
that & try to correct for
cultural biases is quite different from saying that religions &
scientific theories can be reduced
exhaustively to cultural factors.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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