Repudiating 'Ism's

Debate has been raging lately on Reformed blogs germane to the question of Postmodernism and how it relates to theology. I think that the discourse has been beneficial (though I hope not too divisive), but there are some issues with the entire parameters of the debate that trouble me, and which I would like to address.

The first thing that struck me is just how much of a novelty Postmodernism is. I don't bristle when someone questions whether traditional Reformed Christians ought to accept Realism or Nominalism, because that question is centuries old. Same goes for infralapsarianism, Pelagianism, and a host of others. However, the sheer juvenility of PoMo, as far as thought-schools go, brought me up short: how on earth could it be that something so brand-spanking-new could actually inform the Christian worldview or Scriptural exegesis? I've heard some funny terms tossed around before, neologisms like "Biblicism," proposed as an alternative; somehow this doesn't sit too well with me either. Let me strip things down for a moment (and a moment only) to see if I can't come up with something a little better, epistemologically speaking. I'm not, thank goodness, trying to propose any novel epistemology; I'm just trying to look at the way a Christian might accept or reject patterns of thought.

We begin, of course, with a Man, because epistemology is (usually) about human knowing. He is surrounded by data, in the form of literally Everything: the stars, the grass, people around him, concepts, triangles, Justice, Pity, the feeling of his socks against his feet. He is homo interpretans, since he really does nothing but relate to and act upon these data. This also implies that he has no reasonable cause to doubt the efficacy of his perception or to suspect that the cosmos is a massive, Matrix-style fabrication.

So far, so good. Being presuppositionalist Christians, we will add the noumenal realm in the form of God the Trinity; this God is of course something that must be interpreted by the fellow -- and here is found the (granted) assertion that this God is knowable, not a sequestered Force. The man finds a copy of the Bible, which is the main way in which this God makes Himself knowable, and there he reads that Scripture "is of no private interpretation." So he joins a good church and begins reading not only the Bible, but the best available interpretations of it.

Now here we come to the point of contention, I think. What does he do now? Faced with hundreds if not thousands of 'ism's, he cannot help but wonder which one to choose. In fact, it might seem that polarization and contention has reached such a degree that he cannot help but actually choose one of them. He has to become a Mennonite, an Arian, an Anglican, a Freewill Baptist, a Clarkian, an Auburn Avenuer, a Catholic, a Shaker, a Propositionalist, a Thomist, or a Postmodern-Radically-Orthodox-Presbyterian, doesn't he? Surely, this is too bleak. I can see at least two alternatives, and I shall give the less interesting one first.

First, he could do what some students manage to do in their high-schools: clique-hop. He's not a jock, a nerd, or a goth, but he has friends who belong to all those groups and takes a bit from each to compile his own personal style. In other words, he's a pursuer of the 'Golden Mean.' He's sure to get closer to the Truth than the partisan types.

Second, though: what is there to prevent him from seeking the truth, period? What if he reads Van Til or Wilson or whomever and decides that no, all truth is not propositional, but then hears someone saying that all truth is vague, or that not even Christians have a monopoly on the truth, and, with the help of some Bible verses and pertinent Patristic quotations, shoots down these oddities? Why on earth should he struggle to fit into some taxonomic category, bend it, stretch it, try to make it fit with his Christian paradigm?

Obviously, even language like 'Christian paradigm' is straying close to 'ism' language. I almost said 'Biblical-Traditionalist.' But 'Traditionalism,' for all its virtues, has led people to invent all sorts of weird doctrines to explain little curios that develop in an almost Darwinian way through the eons of tradition. So, I think it's rather plain that clutching after the vagaries of 'isms' and trying to shape them to what you yourself already believe is going to produce a lot of heat but not much light. What we need to do is focus, in the tradition of lectio divina, upon reading the revealed Word and allowing it to shape our consciousness, unimpeded by the protests of Reason. From there, we read the manifestos of the 'isms,' and while we can read them as entire 'metanarratives,' to use a Postmodern term, we can also take them thought-by-thought and interact with each concept on our own (and hopefully, God's) terms. And of course, this process is communal, and linking up with like-minded people even to the point of forming 'movements' is sometimes beneficial. But for goodness' sake, let's not act as though Posmodernism is the next hermeneutical breakthrough; let's remember that God and the Bible have been around a hell of a lot longer than Jacques Derrida.