Retelling the Story of God

DESTROYING THE DESPAIR OF 21ST CENTURY MAN

The Christian faith is based on fact, and as Christians, we proclaim it to be truth. It is the kind of truth that Francis Schaeffer called “true truth”, and truth spelled with a capital T. By labeling truth in these ways, Schaeffer meant to communicate that there is objective truth “out there” in reality (or in the “creation” as Christians would state it), and that the true worldview will ultimately correspond with all of reality. The idea that truth corresponds to reality is known in philosophical circles as the correspondence theory of truth. According to correspondence theory, facts are simply those things that agree with, or correspond to reality. The use of logic, reason and empirical evidence is critical in determining truth according to correspondence theory.

Generally speaking, those who adhere to both naturalistic and theistic worldview systems claim to embrace correspondence theory. However, those who embrace a postmodern worldview require an entirely different approach to determining truth. Postmodern philosophers encourage people to attempt to function in life based upon the premise that truth is relative. In their view, reality is not something “out there” to be discovered, but rather something to be created and defined by people. “Truth” in the postmodern conception is something people can determine for themselves by evaluating what is right for them, or (on a larger scale) by evaluating what the majority of those in the culture believe it should be. This is not merely to say that there are times when the truth is hard to know, or that there are sometimes difficult decisions or grey areas, but rather it is to live and think based upon the foundational premise that there is no objective truth that can be known. It is to affirm that there is no absolute truth to which we must conform our beliefs or behavior in order to be correct. This view is called the coherence theory of truth - because whatever is determined to be true “coheres” with a set of localized beliefs that are held by the individual or society. As long as the particular belief coheres with the accepted system, then in that particular belief is considered to be “true.”

Postmodernism (the idea that there is no overarching story to help us make sense of everything) has now taken its place as the leading worldview in the culture of the western world in the 21st century. The seeds of the postmodern shift were sown in the writings of various philosophers dating back to the late 19th century, but the change came in the popular culture of Europe primarily as a result of the World Wars, and in the popular culture of America primarily through cultural changes in the last four decades of the 20th century. In the high Middle Ages, it was said that theology was the queen of the sciences, and philosophy was its handmaiden. In our culture today, we might say that postmodernism is the queen, and coherence theory is its handmaiden. Most people are not aware of just how pervasive postmodernism and coherence theory are in our culture, or how much they have been unconsciously absorbed into our thinking patterns. Coherence theory is now the dominant mode of thinking about matters of philosophy and religion, and attempts are currently underway throughout western culture to apply it to ethics and the hard sciences as well. On the surface, this relatively new theory of truth appears to be liberating to man, since it gives him the freedom to choose the truth for himself. However, as we begin to look beyond the surface, we begin to see that this kind of thinking is intellectually flawed. It is difficult to critique postmodernism, since it is in essence a denial of systematic thinking, and therefore those who believe it cannot be pinned down very easily. However, the insufficiency of this worldview is revealed as we examine the correspondence to reality of the following three statements:

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The hopelessness of trying to live under the worldview of post-modernism was in full swing in Europe in the years following World War 1. By 1938, Jean Paul Sarte had written a novel he entitled Nausea, which demonstrated that all forms of escape that man might create for himself are false delusions. This realization forces man to conclude that the human condition is a sickening state. His fellow Frenchman Albert Camus followed soon after, writing The Myth of Sisyphus in 1943. He wrestled with the question of what man should do in a world without God, and thus devoid of meaning and truth. He concluded that man should not resort to suicide, but should somehow find happiness in the absurdity of life. In the 1950’s other French playwrights built on the work of these men by creating The Theatre of the Absurd, which highlighted what they perceived to be the complete irrationality of our existence. Much of what happened in America in the cultural revolution of the 1960’s was due to the perceived loss of an overarching meta-narrative. This despair has been communicated to the American culture perhaps most effectively through music. One powerful example was by the rock group Queen of the 1970’s, whose lead singer summed up the postmodern frame of mind when he sang, “Nothing really matters. Anyone can see. Nothing really matters…to me.” Today in our culture we can see the affects of this kind of thinking all around us. It is no exaggeration to say that this lack of belief in an over-arching meta-narrative that gives man meaning and purpose is the crisis of 21st century man.

Coherence theory has often been portrayed in our culture as being the more loving theory of truth, since it allows us to think that we can all be right even if we are giving contradictory answers to a particular question. In the long run however, it seems much more accurate to say that affirming people who live based upon a coherence theory of truth is really the opposite of love. It is ultimately not loving to affirm a person in a belief or behavior if they are in fact wrong in what they believe and how they behave. Christians desire to love others, and at our best we are continually seeking ways to genuinely demonstrate that love to others. But the love we give must never be divorced from the truth – otherwise it is not really love.

In light of all of this irrationality and dis-functionality within the postmodern worldview, 21st century man should find great hope in knowing that the worldview that he finds so unfulfilling is also so clearly false. Understanding the irrationality of the worldview that leads to despair should once again ignite the search for a hope that is built upon rational thinking.