Introduction: "It Seems To Me": Why Our Claims to Knowing Have Become So Wimpy

Many people are aware that German philosopher Immanuel Kant's first major work, Critique of Pure Reason (1781), has had a revolutionary impact upon the humanities in the Western world.  The distinction he makes between what appears to us (what he calls the "phenomenal") and what actually is (the "noumenal") has a considerable following among scholars today. Hence, when postmodernists today deny that reality is directly knowable or accessible to the mind, they do so as debtors to Kant.               

The influence of Kant's epistemology has gone beyond the world of academia and infiltrated much of Western culture in general. For one thing, it is observable in how we present anything and everything we know and to whatever extent we know it. We are so accustomed to prefacing our statements with qualifiers such as "it appears to me," "to my mind," "in my view," or "it seems to me." We express ourselves tentatively, using words like "maybe" or "possibly" or "perhaps," as if any other way of expressing ourselves would be overreaching what is appropriate to knowledge claims. Our internal sensors are conditioned to tell us that confident assertions of knowing, especially if made among the educated, would only undermine what we are saying.  Conversely, we have learned that the more diffident we are about knowledge claims, the more respectfully we will be heard. Uncertainty gains respect, while certainty turns people away.

Undoubtedly, there are times when our claims to know must be qualified. The lack of such may indicate arrogance, dishonesty, or ignorance. We all know the discomfort we feel when others are overly dogmatic, especially when it is obvious that they either don't know what they're talking about or we are aware of problems which would seem to undermine their confident claims to know. 

I wonder, however, if we are sufficiently aware of just how much influence Kant's theory of knowing has had in creating a world of knowing in which there is such an exaggerated sensitivity to the need for disclaiming any assumption that our claim to know something may actually describe reality as it actually is? And, as a once firm and resolute confidence about knowing has given way to what is considered a more enlightened, appropriate state of qualified knowing, have we considered what we might be losing in all this uncertainty? (And, please note how wimpy I've worded my question here.)

 

Most of the Time No One (Including 

Postmodernists) Is Postmodern

For example, what if we were to pause for a moment and bring our contemporary lack of confidence about knowing to the biblical text? What might it sound like? Imagine, for example, Jesus saying something like,

It seems to me that I am the way, the truth, and the life.

Or John the Baptist:

In my view, you may want to think through the possibilities of repentance; for it appears to me (and this may just be me but) many people in our culture seem to feel that there is a high degree of probability that the kingdom of heaven is — all things being equal — at hand.

Or Peter on the Day of Pentecost:

One possible and, to my mind, really interesting story is that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified — and please understand that I don't mean "you" in any totalizing or marginalizing sense — both Lord and Christ. 

Needless to say, the biblical prophets and apostles did not talk this way.

Nor do we talk that way, that is, when we're outside the walls of academia and involved with everyday matters of knowing. What happens, for example, at the dentist's office is not a matter of what "seems true" or relative to this or that person's perspective — with the diagnosis and procedure undetermined or undeterminable.  Also, NASA does not send people into space based on fictions, guesswork, or tentative knowledge. Moreover, we aren't comfortable with a pharmacist imposing their own creative reading on a prescription. And, too, unless there is some confidence that both the professor and student can know what Shakespeare meant, does it really make sense for a professor to deduct points on an essay because the student has misunderstood Shakespeare? Or, when we observe from our third floor office window our car broken into by a thief with brown hair and beard, dark sun tan, and wearing a navy ball cap, red parka, blue jeans, and white tennis shoes, we aren't skeptical about whether the mind knows the real world as it actually is. Afterward, we don't tell the police of how distorted and unsure all knowledge claims are, as we confidently testify to what we saw as the theft occurred. Or, when we cook something (biscuits, let's say), it takes a confident knowledge of certain ingredients and procedures to do that. Flour without milk (or suitable milk substitute) will not make biscuits. Biscuits placed in an oven heated to 300 degrees Fahrenheit for three minutes will not result in acceptably baked biscuits. We know things like that.  They don’t just seem to be true, they are true.

We could supply numerous examples in our everyday experience of knowledge that needs to be certain and is so. All these examples apply to everyone, again, even postmodern professors and their starry-eyed students. Surely this confidence in the successfulness of much of our ordinary knowing is warranted. We would have to be living in a self-imposed fantasy world to believe otherwise.

The difference between what only appears to be reality and what actually is reality, as explored in films like The Matrix, may be great for philosophical discussion in the classroom or at a booth in a restaurant.  But does it represent what most of our real world experience of knowing is actually like? No doubt professors like to play the philosophers' games, perhaps with an understandable motive to inspire their students to think. But are they serving us well when they do so seemingly with little concern for the critical role that the knowledge of reality has in life?  

What Kant's Theory of Knowing Has Come to Mean

Put briefly, Kant's theory of knowing means that knowledge is radically perspectival and cannot be checked against the way things actually are.  To clarify, by "radically perspectival," I mean, first, that all a knower can have is a perspective about reality and never an actual grasp of reality itself.  That is, one's perspective can never be verified by a direct knowledge of reality itself.  Second, by "radically perspectival," I mean that a knower's perspective on reality is "radical" in the sense that it not only guides, shapes, or influences the way we process knowledge but also constitutes or determines knowledge. That is, for all practical purposes of knowing, there is no direct access to reality or objective truth. Heidegger puts it this way: "There is no immediate beholding."

Moreover, this view of knowledge regards one's perspectival glasses as prescribed by our history, language, or culture — i.e., the place and time in which we live.  And, as some have said, our perspectival glasses are cemented to our faces.  Or, another way to put this is: every knower is imprisoned or enclosed behind their presuppositions and necessarily views the world indirectly through such.

Sometimes presuppositions are construed as one's "conceptual framework," which means, one's way of thinking about, framing, or conceptualizing external reality.  These ways of looking at the world also are compared to a filter or grid through which we see reality, and again, we cannot get around or rid of such. Nothing is known without such presuppositions. Nothing has access to the mind except through them. In Heidegger's terms, there is only "mediate beholding" (mediated knowledge).

What this implies then (among other things) is that all knowledge claims ultimately say more about the relative conditions that determine our knowing than about any objective truth concerning what we claim to know.  Again, this is because things like our particular place and time as a people, our culture or our language are regarded as playing a more radically constructive role for knowing than the things themselves that actually exist outside the mind and are really there in the world.

Kantian Christian Schools

Kant's influence is perhaps nowhere as strong as when his theory of knowing is mixed with the Christian faith. When a philosophical insight and religious belief are syncretized, a trade off occurs in which philosophy gets religion's dogmatism and religion, philosophy's skepticism. Put differently, philosophy starts to preach and religion, to question.  In fact, some of Kant's biggest (and even fiercest) supporters today are professors in Christian colleges, universities, and seminaries.

No doubt one of the reasons that this syncretism has occurred is that among Christian academics one is not considered in any serious sense "educated" apart from the recognition that Kant's epistemology is basically right.  Typically, those who are now teaching in Christian colleges and universities gained their academic qualifications in an environment where the humanities were significantly influenced by Kant. This is true even to the extent that getting good grades as a student, being accepted at a graduate school, having one's master's thesis or dissertation project approved, or ultimately receiving degrees in higher education are to some extent or other dependent on agreeing with postmodern tendencies significantly inspired by Kant.

And, of course, it doesn't stop there. With a higher degree in hand, finding a teaching job and then getting tenure as a professor are very real matters of concern.  In most of the humanities departments of schools (Christian or not) across the land, not to be postmodern or to pay one's dues to Kant as a professor is to invite the perception of not fitting in with the vision of the school or department. The loss of a teaching job, especially in today's job market for professors, is never very pleasant. Also, both students and professors may rightly question: Who am I to disagree with the experts, especially heavyweights like Immanuel Kant?

But a syncretism of Kant and Christianity may occur for another reason — as a carefully crafted and well thought out philosophy of Christian education. I address this in chapter eight and so I will only touch on it here.  In some Reformed Christian colleges there is the idea (found seminally in Abraham Kuyper and full blown in Herman Dooyeweerd) that in and for the sake of Christ God is sovereignly favoring the world of learning (something like Santa Claus spreading good cheer on Christmas) by bestowing on it what are called "common grace insights." The view is that apart from personal obedience to the gospel of Christ, God is restraining evil and graciously bringing light to the world (curiously, this appears to apply mainly to Western culture) of both believers and unbelievers for the sake of Christ.  From this standpoint, Kant's theory of knowing (along with other secular theories), then, is God's general revelation to us. If we fail to honor and receive such "insights," we are at best ungrateful and at worst rebellious.

Kant's Influence in the Church Today

In any event, however this syncretism of philosophy or secular learning and Christianity occurs in Christian schools, Kant's influence on the church has been felt in the last two decades as graduates from these schools increasingly populate the church. This is especially so as men in preparation for pastoral ministry receive their education under such a synthesis. What is known as the Emerging Church or "post-evangelicalism" is just one indication of this, although this movement may be, for various reasons, merely the tip of the iceberg. A more formidable example of this syncretism in our time is known as Reformed Epistemology.       

Interestingly, seminaries generally do not have philosophy professors on their faculty.  I mention this  because, in my opinion, if there ever was a time in the church's history when it needed capable and loyal servants of Jesus Christ who are philosophy professors, it is now.  Moreover, optimally what we need are philosophy professors who are also faithful pastors — men who are capable undershepherds of Christ for overseeing the proper relationship between knowledge and spirituality so essential to a truly sound Christian faith.  If that is hoping for too much, I would suggest that we at least need pastors who are sufficiently intelligent, well read, and capable of defending the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ from the deceitful snares of philosophy.

To elaborate a bit, postmodernism in the church today creates a scenario for which generally both pastors and flock are not adequately prepared. The old twentieth century battles between fundamentalism and theological liberalism were fought for the most part under the same understanding of truth — viz., a correspondence account of truth (the view that our concepts can correspond to reality), which assumed that there is a real world and it is directly or reliably knowable.  Truth and error were shared concerns about what actually happened in and was verifiable as history.  That is, whether or not the miracles recorded in the Bible actually happened or whether or not the Bible had errors was a matter to be decided based on a directly knowable world, history, or reality.  Truth as what is directly knowable could serve, then, as a standard for testing historical claims.   

Consequently, what differentiated a myth from the truth for both conservatives and liberals was a belief that a myth is a fiction (something contrary to or out of touch with reality), and truth, whether presented in the Bible or our every day world, is what actually happened or happens in the world.  That postmodernists today so glibly declare, "all our truths are fictions," at once makes clear how radically the terms pertaining to truth and knowledge have changed.  The Christian postmodernist happily assigns to the Holy Spirit the job of assuring that the fiction — not the truth — of the gospel gets sealed to the heart as reality.  Moreover, they do so with seemingly little interest in verifying from Scripture whether the Holy Spirit ever promised to bridge the gap of fiction and reality in such a manner.   

In addition, that conservatives and liberals were engaged in a battle under the same theory of knowing tended to make the battle itself more of a religious one, not philosophical. With the present influx of postmodernism, though, the onslaught in its source is philosophical and can only, in my opinion, be adequately dealt with by coming to terms with its assumptions or challenges on that basis. The job of dealing with this kind of error will never be as effective as it needs to be until the philosophical problems that gave birth to postmodernism are understood and dealt with. More pointedly, Christian critics of postmodernism, for lack of understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the same, tend to lob their grenades at its roof, instead of strategically dynamiting its foundation. And if not that, in the name of apologetics they are attempting to do no more than sell the Christian roof to replace whatever roof unbelievers are relying on.  Sadly, this happens while they join those unbelievers in denying that beneath any roof or belief system there can actually be a verifiable foundation in reality or walls raised thereon to support it.

As a good example of this syncretism in Reformed Epistemology, consider Tim Keller's otherwise excellent, apologetic work, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. What might be easy to overlook (perhaps because of its more complex, philosophical nature) is Keller's discussion in the middle of the book entitled, "Intermission." In this section, he speaks of the underlying epistemology for everything he is writing in his book.  He says that there is an important distinction between, on the one hand, providing sufficient reasons for why the Christian belief system cannot and should not be dismissed as a belief system, and on the other, providing sufficient reasons for why the Christian belief system should or must be accepted as a belief system. That is, there is a difference between arguing that Christianity can hold its own as a coherent, credible system with all other beliefs (religious or otherwise) and arguing that Christianity is the truth which, regardless of one's belief, reason and evidence clearly support. Keller sees himself as engaging in the former, not the latter. As I deal with this in chapter four, I will not linger here but just remark that the apostles of Christ (see, for example, the sermons in the book of Acts) and early Christians (like Justin Martyr) spread the good news of Christ in a manner that shows they believed that reason and evidence established the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is God's Messiah. In the early centuries of its existence, Christianity scored its successes against paganism by strong arguments for truth. One might consider, for example, Augustine's The City of God. There is a clear implication in these early examples of apologetics that a reasonable person would accept the conclusion supported by the reasons and evidence presented. This is not to claim that they were unaware of how the flesh, the world, and the devil can blind the mind from seeing the truth.  

What is perhaps most troubling about Keller's "Intermission" is the deference he pays to the philosophers: "Despite all the books calling Christians to provide proofs for their beliefs, you won't see philosophers doing so" (p. 118).  Since when did Christians  start looking to the philosophers instead of the Bible to determine either what their epistemology should be or what they should say to unbelievers about the Gospel?

Whether or not Dinesh D'Souza adopts his pro-Kantian views from Reformed Epistemology, he has a chapter in his (again, otherwise excellent) What's So Great About Christianity, which is entitled, "The World Beyond Our Senses: Kant and the Limits of Reason." In this chapter, D'Souza argues that neither science nor religion have access to a knowledge of reality. His point seems to be that with all he is arguing in favor of Christianity, he is not claiming to be presenting a verifiable knowledge of reality simply because no one can do that. Like Keller, in his book D'Souza is defending the coherence of Christian belief not its correspondence to reality. In postmodern terms, D'Souza is saying, "Yes, Christianity is telling a story but so is science. We are all telling stories and no one can verify their particular story against reality itself."

Just as Christian existentialism in the twentieth century argued against classical theological liberalism by claiming that the Christian faith was an upper level story (not grounded in empirical reality) and hence immune from science or historical criticism, Christian postmodernism goes one better and claims that both Christianity and science are upper level stories. Put differently, in the former case, Christian existentialists are saying, "Ours is a different story, on a upper level which requires no foundations in reason or empirical evidence"; in the latter case, postmodernists are saying, "We are all telling upper level stories — Christians and scientists alike — so let's just agree not to be antagonistic toward one another's stories. No one can check their version of reality against reality itself."

    

Kant Once Again Leads to Barth — Only This Time There Is No Francis Schaeffer on the Scene

Speaking of the Christian faith as an upper level story brings me to my next point, which perhaps is best introduced by noting that for both evangelicals and Reformed folk: Karl Barth is back. (Barth is pronounced "bart.") Christian leaders back in the 1960's and 70's capably dealt with Barthianism, but there is now on the contemporary scene a remarkable resurgence of interest in this neo-orthodox and existentialist theologian. If one understands Barth's relationship to Kant, this should come as no surprise — again, particularly given Kant's influence in the church today.

What I mean is that Barth left the old theological liberalism of his time and sought orthodoxy, even a kind of  Reformed orthodoxy of his own making.  One could even say, though I'm getting ahead of myself, one part Calvin added to one part Kant equals Barth.  Anyway, here was, Karl Barth, this brilliant theologian who would later write his impressive Church Dogmatics, now sounding in certain ways just like conservative, Bible-believing Christians, alienating "the liberals," and getting a lot of Christian academics, especially in theology, all excited about having someone so intelligent, famous, and accomplished in the Christian fold.     

But the problem was with the way Barth got there.  He took a leap of faith.  A really big leap.  To Barth's way of thinking, this was necessary, in the first place, because of Kant's theory of knowing.  As I noted earlier, Kant includes God in the reality which is ultimately unknowable. In deference to Kant, Barth puts it this way:  God is "indissolubly Subject."  Barth then adopts the subjective existentialism of Kierkegaard to negotiate the leap from classical theological liberalism to a more conservative position.  It was Barth's method of getting to orthodoxy through philosophers like Kant and Kierekgaard that produces what comes to be known as "neo-orthodoxy" (or the new orthodoxy).  The problem, though, is this:  If Barth was embracing biblical orthodoxy at some level, while at the same time claiming (as theological liberalism always had) that there are errors in the Bible or denying scientific or historical objectivity to the biblical miracles — or events like the resurrection of Jesus Christ — had he really come home to Christian orthodoxy?

No doubt he took a leap, but where had he landed? Did he ever land? Was his Christian faith (and what he taught as such) grounded in truth, in objective, empirical reality? Had he made the leap from liberalism to conservatism by jettisoning the correspondence theory of truth which had been common ground for conservatives and liberals? Was his return and deep commitment to Scripture foundationally compromised by his adoption of a hybrid Kantian and Kierkegaardian theory of truth which is alien to the Bible's own — viz., a correspondence theory of truth?

In addition, what I find really remarkable (and somewhat disturbing — again, I'm being wimpy here) about this enthusiasm over Barth today among evangelicals and those in Reformed circles is the naive and uncritical reception being given to him.  It seems that a generation has arisen which does not know Francis A. Schaeffer.  If they do, perhaps they have been taught or have somehow come to believe, that Schaeffer is not sufficiently academic. As an esteemed professor of a Reformed Christian college once confidently declared to me: "Schaeffer is not a thinker." Whatever the reasons for Schaeffer's dismissal, all the helpful phrases and analogies Schaeffer used so adeptly to illustrate the problems with neo-orthodoxy and its existentialist underpinnings — phrases like "the line of despair," "upper and lower story," and "true truth" — are mostly unknown to this present generation. Moreover, the troubling change in the concept of truth which Schaeffer identified as what had made a chasm between the generations in his time (we'll say the early 1970's) is now mostly complete. The chasm is almost gone. But it has disappeared, unfortunately,  in favor of the new concept of truth which Schaeffer warned about.  

In my opinion, Schaeffer had a prophetic insight as to what was happening in Western culture both before and during his own lifetime, particularly with respect to how we think about truth.  He also saw where things in our world today are headed. That Schaeffer may not have always been right in the particulars misses the point altogether:  His reading of the big picture was dead on. Schaeffer wasn't an academic giving us his two cents worth. He was a voice crying in the wilderness about a coming world in which, through metaphysical and epistemological assumptions, thinking and reasoning count for very little because that to which they are applied counts for very little. The content of the truth, Schaeffer never tired of saying, is emptied by a concept of truth which denies a verifiable, directly knowable reality.  

In addition, part of Schaeffer's reading of the big picture also included the need for what he called "antithesis": the need for opposing secular ideas with Biblical truth.  Schaeffer  both stressed and exemplified this "antithesis" in so much of his writing.  Most importantly, it was inseparable from his view of the older concept of truth. The latter is what he called "absolute truth" or "true truth" (i.e., reality itself or what is true for everyone regardless of their perspective). That is, a sound concept of truth supports a healthy critical, defensive, and even (when necessary) combative attitude for the sake of the truth itself.  On the other hand, the new Kantian and postmodern concept of truth which is by nature more inclusive and takes truth itself to be relative or perspectival in nature, simply does not have the frame of reference, heart, or energy to be critical or antithetical because such is foreign to its entire theoretical being.  Its "truth" is that there is no "Truth" with a capital "T," and therefore, all "truths" represented by various beliefs and groups must be equally respected.

This is why it isn't just that the rising generation of our time hasn't read their Schaeffer, in their best moments they cannot relate to the concept of truth which makes someone like Schaeffer meaningful in the first place, not to say, compelling.  For them, Schaeffer and his concept of truth are a thing of the past, like a boat so far out to sea that its occupant can't be heard by people on the shore, even though he is shouting.

Is the Christian Faith a Holy Spirit-Assured

Version of Kantian Illusion?

From the next generation of philosophers after Kant, arose a devoted follower of Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer. His own important work, The World as Will and Representation, rightly recognizes that Kant's portrayal of knowledge as "phenomenal" means that human knowledge is "the veil of Maya," i.e., it is illusory in nature. The logic is simple and straightforward: What cannot be checked against reality is or may well be (for all we know) an illusion.

Of course (as Schaeffer stresses), Eastern religion or thought (e.g., Hinduism) had been saying this all along; now the West, taking the long way through its most sophisticated thinkers from Descartes to Kant, was finally catching up.  This idea was the fruit, the supposedly great and final outcome, of Enlightenment thinking — viz., that, for all we know, what we know — particularly in the form in which we know it — isn't real. That means, among other things, that there has come to be a Western capitulation to an ancient Eastern wisdom which didn't require the tedious, long march from Plato to Kant (or all the cat and dog fights between modernists and postmodernists) to arrive at that particular "insight."

It is at this point that the aforementioned equation, Calvin + Kant = Barth, means (in Barth's own words): "true faith will not build its house upon the quicksands of ordinary history." One could add here, by implication and consistent with Barth's thinking: "Or upon the quicksands of ordinary knowing." The reason behind Barth's making a distinction, in this way, between "religious truth" and "historical truth" (or by again by implication:"religious truth" and "scientific truth") — or his declaration of Christianity's immunity from proof or attacks from modern science or the higher critical approach of theological liberalism — derives from the implications of Kant's insight on the phenomenal or illusory nature of all knowing — whether Christian, historical, scientific, or ordinary. For Barth, the Christian faith was an upper story experience. In Barth's thinking, faith's groundlessness (or the absence of a "lower story") is an essential part of what makes faith truly "faith."

But it also means, contrary to the rationale one finds in Scripture for miracles and fulfilled prophecy, that there cannot be real world, historical proofs for the Christian faith.  The latter therefore necessarily becomes a kind of Kantian illusion, only with this important difference; according to Barth, the Christian faith — groundless though it may be — is authenticated to the heart by God's Spirit. That is, we don't know if the Christian faith is the objective truth based on evidence from this world but Barth is telling us, "That doesn't matter; since Christianity is not grounded in an objectively knowable, external reality." 

Hence, not only is "God indissolubly Subject" in Barth's scheme of things but also faith itself is indissolubly subjective. Its groundlessness, the absence of this-worldly proofs or evidence for the Christian faith, is its virtue.  Modern science's attack on things like belief in miracles or Jesus' resurrection, things biblically and traditionally understood to be foundational to Christianity, become altogether walled off by Barth's theology with the help of Kant's epistemology.  The only problem is that what Barth (in step with Kant) may have thought was a failsafe measure for defending Christianity once and for all from modern science actually becomes Christianity's undoing:  A groundless religion holds no more weight for faith or truth than a groundless claim in general. Schaeffer's famous quote from Bezzant still rings true: "When I am told that it is precisely its immunity from proof which secures the Christian proclamation from the charge of being mythological, I reply that immunity from proof can 'secure' nothing whatever except immunity from proof, and call nonsense by its name."

Hence, Barth redefines faith along the lines of Kant's denial that either God or reality are directly knowable and thus disregards faith's biblical warrant through evidence. In doing so, Barth seems to legitimize Christian faith based on the fallacy of Appeal to Ignorance.  The latter recognizes that one cannot make a good argument for a belief based on the absence of evidence or what is ultimately unknown or unknowable.

However, the biblical account the Christian faith is not an appeal to ignorance shored up by some kind of subjective, Spirit-imparted faith which is only "knowledge" in some special, empirically groundless  sense.  There is an extensive amount of material in Scripture devoted to concrete, this-worldly testimony, fulfilled prophecies, evidences, and witnesses to the truth that Jesus Christ is Lord. The Bible itself may be described as a case fifteen hundred years in the making to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the manifestation of God's great love for the world. There is real world knowledge or evidence given in the Bible which supports or reasonably grounds faith in Jesus Christ. What Scripture teaches about the Holy Spirit in terms of imparting and supporting faith in the heart should not, for the sake of Kant and philosophy in general, be used to minimize or detract from the Bible as presenting "true truth" — actual, directly knowable and concrete proofs for the Christian faith. The Holy Spirit was not given to pick up the tab for damage done to knowing by philosophers like Kant and others in the Western philosophical tradition.

The Problem with Postmodernism as an

Ally Against Modernism

          In addition, there is a tendency even among conservative, Bible-believing Christians to believe that postmodernism in its indebtedness to Kant is a friend to Christianity in its challenge to modernism's assault on Christianity.  Because modernism as science has often opposed the accounts of miracles in the Bible based on their belief in an objective truth derived through evidence and reason, it is thought that postmodernism's rejection of truth on such terms is a boon for the defense of the Christian faith.  Moreover, there is no doubt but that postmodernism's denial of a single rationality for all — a Story of stories or Truth with a capital "T" — indeed puts modernism's version of truth out of commission.  As already mentioned, some Christian leaders today believe that this levels the playing field between science and religion.  In these denials postmodernism brings science down from its lofty and exclusive claim on a superior, universal, and absolute truth.  Under such humbling, science becomes only one story, one truth, or one rationality among others with none enjoying the status of being the Story, the Truth, or the Rationality.

But, again, does this represent a victory for Christianity?  More precisely, is this the kind of victory over modernism Christians should be excited about? I mean that if on the one hand, postmodernism declares that there is no absolute truth, and on the other, that there are only ungrounded stories, truths, or rationalities, whether for religion or science, is their approach truly friendly to Christianity? Is postmodernism in this sense an ally to Christianity in the war against modernism? I would suggest that it is not. On such terms, postmodernism does more damage to Christianity than modernism. For example, that postmodernism demonstrates both the scientist and Christian to be believers in their own way, though true, fails to support a biblical view of belief as something grounded in truth, evidences, or reality. Postmodernism is all about the groundlessness of all stories; it is the claim that the stories are all "phenomenal" (how things appear to us) and cannot claim to be "noumenal" (the way things actually are).  

In addition, it is important to note that modernism never had a corner on grounded belief in the first place; nor is the failure of modernism to discover reality in its moral and spiritual dimensions proof that the latter cannot be discovered under metaphysical assumptions different from those adopted by modernism.  That modernism used reason in an autonomous, God-rejecting manner, does not mean that reason itself is essentially God-rejecting.  Moreover, the fear of the Lord is not merely the beginning of a rationality that dwells among other rationalities, one truth among other truths, or one story among other stories — all of which, theoretically, can be defended rationally.  Rather, the fear of the Lord (respect for the Creator) is the beginning of knowledge — what is true, what is rationally defensible as truth and against what is false.  In addition, modernism does not represent the only paradigm for reason, as if such a paradigm were so exhaustive and comprehensive that the demise of modernity equals the demise of reason.  Instead, modernism merely represents a particular misuse of reason — not reason itself.  

          Finally, I fear that due to Kant and postmodernism not only our claims to knowing have become wimpy but also our Christian apologetics in general.  If the early church had believed that its gospel was just one rationality, one truth, one story among others, would Christianity have been able to wield the truth so powerfully that it rid the Western world of its gods in the manner that it did?  Is the church today abandoning the concept of truth which in the early centuries of its existence made it so effective in destroying paganism?  If the early church had adopted the popular postmodern view that all views are rationally defensible or that all truth is radically perspectival in nature, would it have even gotten off the ground as a movement? 

No friend to Christianity, even Nietzsche recognized that Christianity's zeal for truth not only destroyed idolatry in the Western world but also gave birth to modern science.   Nietzsche also claims, though, that the daughter turned and devoured the mother.  To whatever extent that is true, the church in our time and insofar as it is in alliance with postmodernism seems to be seeking with its dying breath to devour the daughter by renouncing the very concept of truth which gave them both life.  Whatever one may think on that score, the wimpy apologetics of the church today which has allied itself with postmodernism certainly isn't turning the world upside down the way the way the apostles and the early church did in the first century.  To the contrary, our Western world — though it is falling apart — appears to be securely and prevailingly downside up.