One of the biggest and most persistent objections from the Christian community against postmodernism is the so-called ‘denial’ of Truth (with a capital T). Postmodernism, they claim, rejects the idea that we have access to absolute truth, and so it becomes relativism, and then all religions are correct, and then no one is wrong, and then Jesus becomes just a man, and….. well, you get the idea. Eventually, the way that postmodernism is presented by most Christians, everything snowballs into relativism. 

One of the most prominent Christian critics of postmodernism is J.P. Moreland, who has written several articles and books against the ‘dangers’ of postmodernism. For example, you can find a highly one-sided article by Dr. Moreland here (http://www.boundless.org/features/a0000928.html), where he goes to such lengths to define postmodernism as something implicitly heretical, writing that “postmodernism sets itself on a collision course with Jesus Christ himself.” 

Before this enormous claim is made, Dr. Moreland says that an “implication of postmodernism is an institutionalization of indiscriminate anger, and this is facilitated by postmodernism’s rejection of the idea that that one’s intentions determine the meaning of his or her utterances and writings.” Further, he says that, in quite confident fashion, that “ As anybody with international travel experience could attest, America is a country of unduly angry people. Postmodernism is to be blamed for its share in creating this situation.” How these grandiose claims are justified is beyond me.

The truth is, these claims have very little merit. Detractors such as Dr. Moreland rely on ad hoc arguments that ground themselves not in what Christians postmodern thinkers have to say, but what they want them to say. 

One (quite large) problem with ‘Objective Belief’

Not wanting to pen a tome, I’ll focus on just one issue of the debate here and see whether or not Dr. Moreland has got things right when he levels what amounts to the charge of heresy at postmodern believers. One of his biggest concerns is that postmodernism rejects ‘objective truth.’ But what do we mean by this? Let’s be very philosophical for a moment and consider the question.

Would we say that math is objective truth? Let’s suppose for a moment that it is. 2+2=4, we’ll say, is a prime candidate for objectivity. In this manner, we want to establish that belief in God, religion, ethics, or anything else can truly be ‘objective.’ This is, implicitly or explicitly, what Dr. Moreland and those like him want to say. (See his article for his thoughts on this.)

But here’s the problem–why do we need to prove God’s existence? Can it even be done? Further, if God were proven on the same level that we hold 2+2=4 to be proven, would we still need faith to believe? 

Dr. Moreland is after what he calls ‘reasonable’ faith. He wants to show that God can somehow be ‘argued’ or ‘reasoned’ to–that being a Christian is intellectually respectable. But what price does he pay for this? For one, I would argue that faith itself is surely damaged in the process. How can you have faith or even belief in something that has been ‘objectively proven’? After all, when something has the moniker of ‘objectivity’ attached to it, it presumably no longer needs to be believed, because it is simply the way things are. 

For example, it would make no sense to say “I believe that I am Stephen.” For if this is objectively true, then I have wasted air in saying it. It doesn’t even need to be believed–the objective status that my being Stephen has is given as a presupposition rather than a belief. If anyone would like to debate this idea, you are more than welcome. 

Faith and Certainty

Let me ask you: do you have faith that 2+2=4? Do you have faith that the sun will rise in the morning? Do you have faith that there will be 24 hours in tomorrow’s day? Or are all of these examples of things that we know and classify as ‘objective knowledge’? Here, I won’t even go into why the idea of objective knowledge makes no philosophical sense, but for the time being, lets remember that God has never been part of our objective knowledge. Belief in him has always been subjective. See for yourself:

You can prove to your atheist friend that 2+2=4, and you believe that you can do so objectively. It will be a completely different story, however, when you attempt to prove God’s existence to him. The matter–when it comes to belief and faith–is subjective.