Part one is here
Part Three is here
Reality
In the past the idea of relativity
has been mocked. Yet if we are honest, we filter through finite minds and taint
truth to our own flavor. Even if we try, we fall victim to unfortunate
interpretations and beliefs either out of laziness or it feels most
comfortable. The Christian in a Postmodern world needs to understand in whom
they have reality. The understanding that I am not God and God is God should be
ingrained in every Christian. Humility should be the staple food for helping
come to the Reality that is Christ Jesus. So often we get caught up in the
“things” of God or doing the things we believe God wants us to do, people often
begin to force others into that very things without thought to what God’s will
is for him or her. This is what Paul spoke against in Colossians 2:16-17 warned
against when he wrote:
“Therefore do not let anyone judge
you by what you eat or drink, or in regard to a religious festival, a New Moon
celebration or a Sabbath Day. These are a shadow of the things that were to
come, the reality, however is found in Christ.”
To take this idea one more step
Jesus spoke of himself as “real” food and “real” drink (John 6:55 NIV) and
shows us He is Reality that we feed from.
The true believer in Jesus is called
to love and not be doctrine junkies or as N.T. Wright explains it the believer
needs to be “living a true Christian praxis”. [1]
The Postmodern world goes far to help true believers see the system, doctrines,
teachings, and teachers that just do not work. Postmodernism exposes the lies,
and though it may bring us to our own road to Emmaus, [2]
it can also expose us to the truth we need to know to grow into authentic and truly
“loving as we have been first loved” Christians.[3]
We can look at Postmodernism as a tide that overcomes us, thus making us run
back into the arms of Modernism (which has its own dangers) or push ahead in
faith knowing God is already there.
Religious plurality or greater
opportunity
In Postmodernism we have a movement
from the premodern “I think therefore I am”, to the idea of “since I am, there
for I construct reality”, to the Postmodern “But is the reality I constructed reality
for others or the Prime Reality?” [4]
The issue though is that Descartes
fell into Platonist dualism. Descartes’s view of “matter and mind” as proof
there is no God, overlooks that many theologians do not believe in “ex nihilo” but rather God is “creatio ex deo” (creation out of being
God). The idea being express by some theologians like Thomas Jay Oord, is that
God did not create out of nothing but rather from pre-existing matter. In a
sense this matter is also eternal as God is the “eternal creator” who is and
has been and never changes. [5] A simple reading of
Genesis shows that there was “something” and not “nothing” with God:
1 In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty,
darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering
over the waters.
Note that there are at
least two other things with God here: “the deep” or in the King James, “the
abyss” and the “waters”. These two things qualify as matter in a very real
sense. Thomas Jay Oord points out that creation ex nihilo is not even
biblical as he states:
Following the
reference to the Spirit hovering over the primordial chaos, Genesis speaks of
darkness covering the “face of the deep.” The “deep” in this last phrase, tehom
in Hebrew refers to something nondivine and primordially present when God
began to create. Biblical scholar Brevard Childs says, “the tehom
signifies here the primeval waters which were also uncreated.” [6]
Thomas Jay Oord also
points out “2 Peter 3:5 supports this interpretation”: [7]
5 But they
deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and
the earth was formed out of water and by water.
So the idea that
matter is eternal does not harm the argument for the existence of God, but in
fact may support the truth of the existence of God. If we view creation as more
multidimensional than the Platonist dualism, we then see truth is expanded as
our knowing expands. Doubting does not have to be an end, but rather an
opportunity to step further in faith. The self-realization that we are NOT God
and God is God and that we are His creation (as imperfect as we are), nullifies
the arrogance of modernism. Postmodernism then opens doors to see a bigger
picture of God instead of bringing a Nietzsche style death.
[1] (Wright 1998)
[2] Ibid
[3] (1 John 4:19, NIV)
[4] (Sire 2004, p. 216-219)
[6] Ibid
[7] Ibid
Bibliography
Brainy Quotes. Brainy Quotes. 2001 - 2012 BrainyQuote.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dietrich_bonhoeffer.html (accessed
6 19, 2012).
Luther, Martin. Martin Luther's Basic Theological
Writings. Second. Augsburg Fortress: Fortress Press, 2005.
Oord, Thomas Jay. The Nature of Love: a theology.
Danvers: Chalice Press, 2010.
Palmer, M.D. Elements of a Christian Worldview. 2nd.
Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 2002.
Sire, J.W. The Universe Next Door. Madison, WI: Inter
Varsity Press, 2004.
Wright, N.T. The Resurrection and the Postmodern Dilemma.
1998. http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Resurrection_Postmodern.htm (accessed
June 19, 2012).
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