{"id":33125,"date":"2023-10-26T17:43:40","date_gmt":"2023-10-27T00:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=33125"},"modified":"2023-10-02T08:04:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-02T15:04:11","slug":"the-shifting-foundation-of-epistemology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/the-shifting-foundation-of-epistemology\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shifting Foundation of Epistemology"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you are in the boarding line behind your new transgender Icelandic witch friend waiting to board the plane, the conversation is far from boring. My wife and I were leaving Iceland after a vacation. As we were in line, we struck up a conversation with the person in front of us. Conversation with them[1]<\/a> was delightful and fascinating. They were coming to Portland, Oregon seeking adventure and belonging in the transgender and spiritual communities. What better place for them than Portland?<\/p>\n

As we arrived in Portland and were parting ways, before we said goodbye, I asked them what was next in their adventure. They responded, \u201cOh, I don\u2019t plan. I am all about freedom. I will do what feels right.\u201d With that, we parted ways.<\/p>\n

This encounter came to mind as I reflected on Stephen R.C. Hicks’ book Explaining Postmodernism<\/em>.[2]<\/a> Here\u2019s why: with the dislodging of institutions as the authority on truth (monarchy and the church) during the Enlightenment, with the subsequent suspicion of the Enlightenment\u2019s truth authority (reason), the epistemological lacuna we have today has multiple philosophical views vying for inhabiting the center of cultural epistemology. Arguably, the major intellectual idea we have today is Postmodernism. In this post, I will provide a brief summary of Hicks\u2019 Explaining Postmodernism<\/em>, followed by a look at the epistemological disembedding of the biblical story, the embedding of the self as the source of truth that Jean-Jacques Rousseau made possible, and conclude with a brief comment on the freedom god that is unconsciously worshiped in our world today due to Postmodernism\u2019s veiling.<\/p>\n

Summary of Explaining Postmodernism<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hicks provides a concise, yet expansive survey of the voices that contributed to our Postmodern environment in which we live. Beginning with the Enlightenment, Hicks follows the intellectual thread that began to doubt the foundation of the Enlightenment. This started with Immanuel Kant who believed reason was cut off from reality.[3]<\/a> According to Hicks, \u201cPostmodernism is the end result of Kantian epistemology.\u201d Kant would hardly have predicted this break with reason opening the door for Postmodernism. But the crack in the door Kant initiated was taken further by the likes of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, and Marcuse all the way to Postmodernism’s most popular voices: Foucault and Derrida. Postmodernism, being an idea that allows for a plurality of ideas based on how the self \u201cfeels\u201d, interestingly attached solely to Marxist socialism. Hicks highlights all this to reveal the following: \u201cthe failure of epistemology made postmodernism possible, and the failure of Socialism made postmodernism necessary.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

The Story of God is Replaced<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Enlightenment\u2019s influence is impossible to overstate. This has led to beneficial advances for humanity \u2013 a case argued by Steven Pinker in Enlightenment Now<\/em>.[5]<\/a> British missiologist Lesslie Newbigin wrestled with the implications of the Enlightenment. Newbigin posits “The Enlightenment … was \u2013 from one point of view \u2013 a shift in the location of reliable truth from the story told in the Bible to the eternal truths of reason, of which the mathematical physics of Newton offered the supreme model.”[6]<\/a> The biblical story was replaced as the foundation of epistemology. I am not going to spend time arguing for or against this being a good thing or whether it was truly the Gospel that was the foundation and not Christendom. What I will say is religion was substituted for reason as the foundation for epistemology. This located the foundation of epistemology in reason. However, even this was being discredited and replaced with the individual. For this, we need to discuss Rousseau\u2019s contribution.<\/p>\n

The Self \u2013 The Source of Truth and Morality<\/strong><\/p>\n

Augustine\u2019s Confessions<\/em> was a literary innovation in its autobiographical psychological examination. Rousseau wrote his own version of Confessions<\/em>. Yet his differed markedly from Augustine\u2019s in this: \u201cFor Augustine, the moral flaw is ultimately intrinsic to him. He is by nature wicked, a sinner…For Rousseau…his natural humanity is fundamentally sound, and the sinful act comes from social pressures and conditioning.\u201d[7]<\/a> Society, not the self, is to blame for one\u2019s immorality. Rousseau posited, Francis Fukuyama writes, \u201cthat the inner moral self was not just capable of binary moral choices, but was filled with a plenitude of feelings and personal experiences that were suppressed by the surrounding society; access to those feelings rather than their suppression became the moral imperative.”[8]<\/a> When the self is the source of truth and morality, an idea Rousseau made possible and popular, this makes way for postmodernism to reign supreme in our minds and the god of freedom to reign supreme in our hearts.<\/p>\n

Where are we now? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Freedom was the moral and existential imperative for my Icelandic friend. The substitution of God from our epistemology and our morality with reason and then \u201cself\u201d has caused us to worship the god of freedom to find our lives rather than laying down our lives for the God in whom is true freedom. The god of personal freedom ultimately enslaves. There is no easy answer for this. As Christian leaders, there is no clear and seamless way forward. Postmodernism is not the answer. The Enlightenment is not the answer. I would argue that the answer is found in laying down our assumed and preferred stories in which we are the center, and instead find ourselves as a part of God\u2019s meta-story centered on Jesus.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> I unfortunately did not get the preferred pronouns, but they were biologically male expressing as female. For the purpose of this post, I will utilize they\/them pronouns for this individual.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Stephen Ronald Craig Hicks, Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault<\/em>, 1. ed, expanded ed (Roscoe, Ill.: Ockham\u2019s Razor, 2011).<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Ibid. 24.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid. i.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress<\/em> (Penguin, 2018).<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship<\/em> (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 73.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution<\/em> (Crossway, 2020), 111.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Francis Fukuyama, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment<\/em>, First edition (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018), 92.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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