Philosophy – Restored

Introduction

From the moment of their birth, humankind faces a world fraught with evil and suffering. The lessons of humanity’s collective history reframe a person’s innocence when viewed through the lens of suffering. Events shape the mind from the recollection of the Jewish Holocaust to the modern-day repression of women in a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The many faces of evil confront the emotional state of the contemporary, who then hides in the momentary distraction of sensory pleasure to escape reality. The answer to the emotional problem of evil and suffering rests in a person, the incarnational Christ, who walked among the created and died a horrific death immersed in the suffering of humanity.

The Evil that Men Do

The first step to a proper emotional response to evil and suffering begins with recognizing the evil that men commit and experience in this life. Perhaps the most poignant example in modern history is exampled by the atrocities committed by the National Socialist during the Jewish extermination program during World War II. Elie Wiesel details the horrifying and personal loss he experienced during his time at the Auschwitz and Buchenwald death camps in 1944 in his ethereal work Night. Wiesel writes, “Deep down, the witness knew then, as he does now, that his testimony would not be received. After all, it deals with an event that sprang from the darkest zone of man. Only those who experienced Auschwitz know what it was. Others will never know.”[1] The Jewish Holocaust, the epitome of evil perpetrated by a regime intent on exterminating millions of innocent people, expresses the unimaginable and seemingly unanswerable questions concerning evil. The question persists where is God? Evil and suffering exist at a systemic corporeal level, but the impact is personal, creating emotional dissonance in individuals. According to Van Inwagen, experiential evil results in a position of questioning, “What shall I believe about God, can I continue to love and trust God, how shall I act in relation to God, in the face of this thing that has happened?”[2] At times, people choose to look away because looking requires eyes that see and a willingness to confront the evil within us.

Personal suffering creates a void and leaves the person groping in the night to answer questions that find expression in tears. Why does evil exist in this world? Why does God allow such to exist? This tumultuous existence cannot be solved with temporal, meaningless endeavors, no matter how exhilarating at the moment. No amount of hedonism or nihilism can provide meaning and answers to these questions that haunt humanity. The teacher in the ancient text describes it well, “I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind” (Eccl. 1:14, NRSV).[3] Evil and suffering exist, and the philosophies of humankind provide no meaningful answers and leave the individual emotions distraught or deadened without purpose. Gould posits only two responses to evil and suffering, “rest and trust in God or revolt and reject God; a turning toward or a turning away; an opening of self or a closing of self.”[4] Whatever choice a person makes determines the implications of that choice realized within the context of that one life. To open oneself up to the Creator allows the answer to materialize in the Person and work of the incarnational, suffering Christ reconciling humanity to God.

The Crucified God

The incarnation of Christ immersed in the mundane of life and the intensity of human suffering provides a hope that rises to fill the hearts of hurting humanity. The prophetic voice of Isaiah declares of the suffering servant to come, “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see light” (Isa. 53:10-11). The prophetic revealed itself through the life of Christ lived out from His humble beginnings in a stable in Bethlehem until His death by crucifixion on a Roman cross.

Jesus came close so that humanity would know His heart. Luke, in his gospel, writes, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing” (Lk. 13:34)! The compassionate heart of God revealed through Christ provides a hope that the incarnate God draws close to humankind in suffering. Moltmann writes concerning the plight of African slaves in North America and their identification with the Crucified God, “Jesus was their identity with God in the world a world which had taken all hope from them and destroyed their human identity until it was unrecognizable.”[5] The incarnate Christ identifies with human suffering to provide identity for those who suffer. The suffering Christ reflects empathic reality for those who identify with Him in their suffering, whether from systemic oppression or personal tragedy. The analogy of Christ as the empathic Shepherd resonates with those in pain. Matthew shares insight into the Shepherd’s heart in his gospel, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (Matt. 9:36). This incarnational reality walked out in everyday life relational with Christ as in the caring Shepherd role as David eloquently described in his psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake” (Ps. 23:1-3).

Resonating through the halls of history stands a wooden cross of Roman torture, delineating the essence of time into two epochs, a before and after singularity. The Crucifixion of Christ reflects the pinnacle of restorative suffering. Through His suffering, humankind finds meaning in their reflective moments of suffering and felt-evil.

How can a person answer the questions that resist trite answers? How can relief rush into a heart regarding questions that hurt so profoundly? Moltmann posits that the resulting answers are mysterious, a “mysticism of the cross on the part of the oppressed is in fact an ‘expression of misery’, and is already implicitly a ‘protest against misery.’”[6] As Christ raised the final protest to His Father, “And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matt. 27:46) Jesus’ cry is the same cry of all those oppressed and facing evil, the question on the lips of those staring into the face of destruction.

The answer to this complicated question finds relevance in the crucified God. In John’s gospel, Jesus expresses the answer in words, “When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (Jn. 19:30). The question for humanity remains what did Jesus finish? He finished the diabolical suffering and evil perpetrated on the cosmos by sin and human depravity.

It is a finishing that plays out in the coming eschaton when all tears cease. The apocalyptic writing of John states, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Rev. 21:3-4). The “first things” denoting the painful ethereal experiences that humankind suffered under the curse of evil removed forever by their Creator.

Conclusion

The questions faced in the moments of unspeakable suffering at the insistence of evil remain the most difficult to answer. Many chose to reject the Divine and cast their lots with the hedonism or nihilism that engulfs the godless cosmos. Nevertheless, the ancient Scriptures provide a pathway to find answers to these diabolical questions resonating in the heart of humankind. The answer does not elucidate from a philosophical understanding but faith in the work of a Person. The suffering of an incarnational God-man at the hands of evil men accomplishes that final reconciliation by His death on the cross by humanity finds hope. A hope that resonates in the hearts of individuals as they face the forces of evil.

Bibliography

Gould, Paul M., Travis Dickinson, and R Keith Loftin. Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018.

Moltmann, Jürgen. The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology. U.S. ed. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1974.

Van Inwagen, Peter. The Problem of Evil. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008. Accessed October 5, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 2006.

[1] Elie Wiesel, Night (New York, NY: Hill and Want, 2006), ix.

[2] Peter Van Inwagen, The Problem of Evil (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008), 5, ProQuest Ebook Central.

[3] Unless otherwise noted, all Biblical passages referenced are in the New Revised Standard Version.

[4] Paul M. Gould, Travis Dickinson, and R Keith Loftin, Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel (Nashville, TN.: B&H Academic, 2018), 159.

[5] Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology, U.S. ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 48.

[6] Ibid, 49-50.

Introduction

The modern traveler through the cosmos faces a world fraught with uncertainty. They confront imminent ecological disaster, unbridled racial tensions, dramatic sociological change, and increasing political turmoil. In collusion with the primary spheres of culture, the postmodern framework feeds the deconstructive change experienced daily by humankind. In contrast, Christianity provides a framework for stability and peace in the world. This paper posits that the postmodern philosophical normative consisting of the rejection of a meta-narrative, the rejection of negation, and the randomness of human interaction as a concept, fails to provide meaning and a definitive foundation of truth that is contra to the story of God within which humankind finds its purpose and identity.

Analysis of Postmodernism

The postmodern mind operates from a perspective of deconstruction set against the belief that the meta-narratives that promulgate in the modern and religious cognitive realm do not represent the reality of lived experiences within the individual’s sphere of existence. The aggressive approach to undermining the mores established by societal and religious mores creates an environment of rapid change and an increasing individualism within the culture. Malpas writes in his analysis of the supposed founder of postmodernism that “The underlying premise of the destruction of the grand narrative by Jean-Francois Lyotard undermines the validity of religious identification by individuals resulting in conflicting moral codes fragmenting familial and societal bonds.”^[1] Postmodernism’s overarching characteristic is individualism and the dogmatic defense of an individual’s access to personal meaning outside of an overbearing life purpose schema. Grenz writes of this idea as the postmodern’s rejection of the meta-narrative reducing to local narratives derived from the individuals’ experiences devoid of overarching societal influence.^[2]

Another vital component of postmodern thought is a rejection of Truth as an attainable construct instead of focusing on a particular meaning to drive a personal reality. Gellner writes, “Postmodernism would seem to be rather clearly in favour of relativism, in as far as it is capable of clarity, and hostile to the idea of unique, exclusive, objective, external or transcendent truth.”^[3] This focus on a personal hermeneutic guides interactions in all of life’s spheres, with the person, focused on their interpretation of context uncoupled from the impingement of societal or religious mores. This uncoupling leads to divergent belief structures within congruent social groups, allowing personal narratives to form without guidance. The person’s individualization results in a rejection of negation, with each person deriving significance from their individual story without societal constraints. This individualization leads to a desire to allow for a plethora of beliefs to flourish within a society. What is determined suitable for the individual supersedes all imposition of patriarchal, normative, or historically derived narratives.

Coupled with a rejection of the meta-narrative, a construct of postmodern thought involves the loss of belief in the moral progression of humanity and the emancipation of “speculative philosophy from the norms of a singular religion.”^[4] The confluence of postmodernism as a western philosophical idea naturally conflicts with the dominant religious narrative of Christianity within the culture. It seeks to undermine the religious guidelines that Christianity places on individuals to free them for creative expression not bound to moral constraints, a modern “playground of ideas” without restraint.

The summation of the ideology of postmodernism reduces a singular critical analysis according to Gellner, “In the end, the operational meaning of postmodernism in anthropology seems to be something like this: a refusal (in practice, rather selective) to countenance any objective facts, any independent social structures, and their replacement by a pursuit of ‘meanings,’ both those of the objects of inquiry and the inquirer.”^[5] As a result of the localization of meaning, the postmodern theorist rejects meta-narrative understanding and the idea of negation. Grenz surmises that the postmodern ideologies’ rejection of meta-narrative and negation results in a deconstruction of religious systems and societal myths.^[6] Postmodern ideology creates a free expression environment where the individual reigns supreme without any definitive boundaries or pathway, frolicking in the playground of life, leaping from one random experience to another void of purposeful movement.

Critique of Postmodernism

Once a general observation of the underlying tenets of postmodernism emerges, the observer begins to see cracks in the foundations of the philosophical construct. The postmodernist seeks to deconstruct the societal and religious structures without a clear mandate for what stands in its place. In a sense, the morass that this undermining creates produces a convulsion in societal stability. Chaotic and random interactions with the past relationships of the postmodern thinker resisted calm within familial bonds resulting in a breakdown of bonds, with anxiety flowing into the void. Many challenges face the proponent of the postmodern philosophical mindset presented below in the following critique. Pamela Sue Anderson characterizes “postmodernism in terms of a loss of modern belief in: (i) the moral progress of humankind in history, (ii) a conception of reason as ushering in universal agreement, or certainty, and (iii) a grand narrative account of being created human (assuming human sameness, not differences).”^[7]

The first significant disconnect for the postmodern is that the rejection of a meta-narrative concept, although increasing individualistic expression, does not provide meaning through an overarching connection with a greater societal good. “The demise of the grand narrative means that we no longer search for the one system of myths that can unite human beings into one people or the globe into one “world.”[8] This resulting disconnect from purpose leads individuals into a “for the moment” approach to life. This momentary reliance on relativism guides postmodern thinkers’ moral decisions concerning their interaction with those in corporate settings and personal relationships. With moral ambiguity driving human interactions, the postmodern mind falls prey to the slippery slope of “moral relativism,” where even the extreme atrocities such as the Jewish Holocaust exist under faulty personal interpretation without a consistent moral code. With the destruction of the grand narratives, there is no longer any unifying identity for the subject or society. Instead individuals are the sites where ranges of conflicting moral and political codes intersect, and the social bond is fragmented.[9]

A critical philosophical figure in postmodern thought, Martin Heidegger posits concerning Truth, “Heidegger argues that “truth,” understood in its original Greek sense as aletheia, has a direct connection to things, and hence to Being.”[10] The personalization of Truth by Heidegger to the essence of the individual’s Being relegates absolute Truth as a non-entity. The rejection of absolute Truth and the ideas of negation or the fact that one Truth negates the opposite anti-truth creates in the postmodern worldview ambiguity and nuance though imparting an ocean of creativity leaves a person without a life-anchor counter to the claims of religion. Without the idea of negation, the postmodern philosophy reduces Truth to a local narrative-driven endeavor leaving the individual, in essence, directionless in life. French philosopher Jacques Derrida posits, “The metaphysics of presence has always been linked to one or more varieties of deconstruction, Derrida tells us. A movement of endless difference and deferral, la differance, inhabits and disturbs any claim to presence.”[11] Derrida’s “endless difference” denies the fundamentals of certainty found in Christianity. According to Pamela Sue Anderson, “With the advent of Christianity, God was seen as providing … a fixed point of meaning, Truth, and value in an unstable world. Postmodernism denies that there are any such rocks of certainty. It calls to human beings in the raging sea to abandon the search for rocks, to ‘go with the flow’ and simply to seek to understand where they are.”^[12] The postmodern deconstruction model primarily aimed at religious systems and societal myths creates a turbulent, non-conformist structure leading to a breakdown in the cohesion of society. The postmodern deconstruction of Truth and its resulting rejection of absolutes expresses well in Nietzsche’s version of “the death of man,” the ancestor of many postmodernist variants, is not so different from that we have discerned in Tennyson, and it goes something like this: the death of God does not mean merely the end of theism but is, in a sense, the death of any claim to absolute value, the death of any transcendental grounding of values, and the death of man as a privileged knower whose knowledge is underwritten by God.^[13]

This absolute rejection of knowing Truth undermines the foundations of all of society, including religious, moral instruction creating a culture of decadence and over-reaching infringement by personal expression. According to Anderson, the roots spring forth as “An original task was to reject the rational justification of a core of commonly held beliefs, especially those beliefs which had bound religious persons together.”^[14] The result of deconstruction involves a morass of decadence and self-inflicted pain due to lack of purpose and moral guidance impacting society by promoting chaotic, convulsive societal progression without steady rooting within historical understandings.

Defense of Christianity

Christianity stands in stark contrast to the worldview of postmodern thought, focusing on the meta-narrative of the story of God and humankind’s interplay with the Divine, a commitment to absolute Truth as a construct found in the person of Jesus Christ resulting in a life immersed with purpose. The essence of what it means to follow Christ the believer places themselves in the care of their Creator, living out His original design. The prophet Jeremiah speaking of the Jewish nation, delineates a clear, purposeful God whose plans are valid, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope” (Jer. 29:11, NRSV).^[15] Yahweh precisely planned the future outcome for his chosen people under the Old Covenant, and the same continues for those engrafted through the New Covenant. Jesus further illustrated this Divine order that permeates the cosmos and individually guides the lives of humanity by praying to His Father in the garden before His crucifixion, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:44). Jesus understood His place in the cosmic plan and submitted to the ordering of His earthly steps. The follower of Christ places his trust in the efficacy and clarity of God’s plan and advances each action in the fulfillment of that greater purpose.

Another vital counterpoint to postmodernism found in the Christian faith is the belief in absolute Truth. Postmodernism rejects the idea that objective truth exists. In his book Warranted Christian Belief, Alvin Plantinga writes, “One of our most fundamental and basic ideas is that there is such a thing as the way things are. Things could have been very different from the way they are; there are many ways things could have been, but among them is the way they actually are.”^[16] Plantinga’s idea is that there is a way that things are. The tenets of the Christian faith counterpose that indeed the ancient Scriptures attest to “the way things are” refuting the rejection by the postmodern mind. Christianity’s core belief focuses on God’s existence and that God orchestrates the cosmic order. In John’s Gospel, the Christian finds a direct correlation between the Truth and Jesus; John writes, “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the Truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). The Christian faith declares, the Truth existed from the foundation of the world, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being” (John 1:1-3). The entire cosmic order flows from the Truth and is held together by that Truth. Paul writes to the church in Colosse, “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). In contrast to postmodernism, the Christian worldview promotes a view of Truth that provides the adherent a solid foundation to build their lives.

Understanding their place in the “story of God” and that the absolute Truth exists in the person of Jesus Christ allows the Christian to live out a moral and purposeful life consistent with the teachings of the Scriptures. James writes that every good thing produced by humankind comes from the Divine Creator, “Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). For the Christian purpose comes from God and flows through them to those around them. Their meaning does not derive from their interpretation of meaning as the postmodern mind but comes from their Creator’s design and initiation. Through the interplay of Creator and created a beautiful tapestry of life displays the knowledge of Divinity and His purpose for the social constructs of humankind. This interplay guides the Christian in their interactions with strangers and friends alike. Jesus shows the beauty through His words in Matthew’s Gospel, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matt. 24:40). Can the person who adheres to a postmodern worldview do good? The answer is yes; however, without a higher purpose behind the good, it is a self-induced means of meeting the ego’s desire for adulation. Christians produce “good works” not from a personal reservoir of goodness but the Divine resources working in them.

Conclusion

In the end, the postmodern philosophical construct fails to provide lasting purpose and meaning for the individual. Disconnected from an overarching story, the postmodern person meanders through life without significant meaning or a moral compass. Contrasting this postmodern malaise is the Christian view that life under Christ provides an artistic expression of a life played out on the tapestry of God’s design not only in the individual life but extrapolate holistic in the cosmic order of the world. A life that brings positive change within the person and in those in which the Christian life intersects.

Bibliography

Gellner, Ernest. Postmodernism, Reason and Religion. London: Taylor & Francis Group, 1992. Accessed September 6, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Grenz, Stanley J.. A Primer on Postmodernism. Chicago: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996. Accessed September 6, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Malpas, Simon. Jean-François Lyotard. London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2002. Accessed September 6, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Plantinga, Alvin. Warranted Christian Belief. New York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2000. Accessed September 12, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Reynolds, Jack, and Roffe, Jonathan, eds. Understanding Derrida. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2004. Accessed September 6, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Sim, Stuart, ed. The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism. London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2011. Accessed September 6, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Ward, Graham, ed. The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology. Chicester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2007. Accessed September 19, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central.

Wisnewski, J. Jeremy, and Wisnewski, J Jeremy. Heidegger: An Introduction. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012. Accessed September 6, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central.

[1] Simon Malpas, Jean-François Lyotard (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2002), 29, ProQuest Ebook Central.

[2] Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer On Postmodernism (Chicago: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1996), 44, ProQuest Ebook Central.

[3] Ernest Gellner, Postmodernism, Reason and Religion (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 1992), 22, ProQuest Ebook Central.

[4] Stuart Sim, ed., The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism (London: Taylor & Francis Group, 2011), 76, ProQuest Ebook Central.

[5] Gellner, Postmodernism, Reason and Religion, 29.

[6] Grenz, A Primer On Postmodernism , 42.

[7] Sim, ed., The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism, 77.

[8] Grenz, A Primer On Postmodernism , 44.

[9] Malpas, Jean-François Lyotard, 29

[10] Jeremy L. Wisnewski, Heidegger: An Introduction (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012), 119, ProQuest Ebook Central.

[11] Jack Reynolds and Jonathan Roffe, eds., Understanding Derrida (London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2004), 55, ProQuest Ebook Central.

[12] Grenz, A Primer On Postmodernism , 78.

[13] Graham Ward, ed., The Blackwell Companion to Postmodern Theology (Chicester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2007), 73, ProQuest Ebook Central.

[14] Sim, ed., The Routledge Companion to Postmodernism, 77.

[15] Unless otherwise noted, all Biblical passages referenced are in the New Revised Standard Version.

[16] Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (New York: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2000), 425, ProQuest Ebook Central.