While postmodernism is essentially "a system built on subjective modern doubt," (although calling it a 'system' is a bit of a stretch, I think it's a coping mechanism), modernism has become a system built on subjective modern certainty (which is also a coping mechanism).

Confronted by the kind certainty so many see, especially in religious people, doubt is almost the only rational response.

Moderns flee to certainty, to escape the need for faith. Postmoderns flee to doubt, to escape responsibility.

The Gospel confronts both, engages both, endorses neither. As Bravus indicated earlier, an infinite God transcends our categories and systems. Every philosophy can be an avenue to Him, or a shield to keep Him out.

Nicely put!

yeah.











g

Yep to your yeah.

Any discussion of fresh concept such as this requires standard lexical definition.

Compact Oxford refers to postmodernism as style and concept characterized by distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions.Not simply discarding them, but opening dialogue; ie "question everything, particularly that most widely unquestioned.

The term postmodern is described by Merriam-Webster as meaning either "of, relating to, or being an era after a modern one" or "of, relating to, or being any of various movements in reaction to modernism that are typically characterized by a return to traditional materials and forms (as in architecture) or by ironic self-reference and absurdity (as in literature)", or finally of, relating to, or being a theory that involves a radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, history or language, and theology/theodicy.


As one who radically challenged the forensic and empirical reductionist Pharisaical teachings of the existent systematic theology of Israel found in his time...by broadening, teaching the "meta message rather" than formulaic, Jesus definitely questioned and upended the status quo. I'd agree that He was clearly postmodern....but not because He merely challenged. previous thought and teaching had veered drastically, and the effect was that religion condemned, divided, excluded...and damned sinners. He clearly brought the teaching back in line with the intended "gathering" of an ever-seeking father.

Great post

Always enjoy the writings of a wordsmith...

Thank you...

Too often folks think postmoderns are those who are too lazy to study God, that is clearly not true. AND thanks for supporting my statement the Jesus was a PostModern...

"To move with the times means to go where all times go." C.S. Lewis.

Postmodernism itself is almost gone.

Tolstoy and Nietszche at the crossroads.
One eschews everything, holds nothing at all.
The other discards nothing, holds all things.

Neither is correct; how do we resolve the God of quantum physics with the God of astrophysics? God is neither relativist nor concrete. Max Planck and Albert Einstein are as far apart as postmodernism and conservatism. Both describe true diametric spectral positions, but neither are severally (or even jointly) complete. An infinite spectrum, with neither limit, demands it. A finite human mind cannot describe it, except in small oft too-far parsed bits.

Limitations of human science, language, understanding, even simple limitations affording reciprocal opportunity of seeming disparate reasoning precludes the definitive answer.

Was Jesus an absolutist? Indubitably.
Did He question dogmatic authority?
Without doubt, always.
Mans dogma veers far, always; Jesus "postmodern" approach steers to the center, forever.

I don't find my postmodern friends, a term they wouldn't apply to themselves, fleeing responsibility. I find, rather, the opposite. They are deeply involved with social change. Their doubt has opened up new ways of thinking and feeling about the world.

To them certainty is an illusion created to avoid the fear of the unknown. And that is the reason they and I reveal the false security of certainty. Certainty often solidifies toxic culture and doubt is only the first step in breaking those toxic cycles. The next natural step is personal responsibility, rather than giving away responsibility to some set of laws or authority.

I would observe that fundamentalist believers of various traditions are simply modernists with different assumed certainties. The Protestant tradition simply moved authority from a Pope to a book and basically treated the Bible as a science to be unlocked. And we have been wasting time trying to unlock its so called secrets about god, rather than observing the world around us.

Now Jesus time and again appeals to the subjective rather than the objective. His most famous sayings reveal the subjective core to his message. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do unto others as you would have them do to you.

These are not appeals to look at the Bible. They are appeals to look at ourselves and others and how we interact.