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Postmodernists’ Irrational Dilemma: They Can’t Have It Both Ways!

In last week’s blog, we saw postmodernism is a self-contradicting worldview because how postmodernists reason and behave contradicts what they preach. Closely related to this is postmodernisms’ dismissal of the fundamental laws of logic

The first principle of logic is the law of non-contradiction, which is formally stated, ” ‘A’ cannot be both ‘A’ and ‘non-A’ at the same time and in the same relationship.” For example, I’m married, or I’m not married. I can’t be married and unmarried at the same time. Likewise, two contradicting religions or moral claims cannot both be correct. It is logically impossible that “all religions are paths to God.” Either Christianity is true, or another religion is true. They may both be false, but both can’t be true.

Similarly, a fetus cannot be an unborn child in some cases and a soulless piece of tissue in another. Lawsuits have been won when an unborn child is killed in a criminal act. Yet 60,000,000 unborn American children have been murdered in abortions—and it’s perfectly legal!

Without the laws logic, it would be impossible to reason and behave consistently. Sadly, this doesn’t seem to bother many postmodernists. If one ignores the laws of logic, it becomes easy not to be influenced by arguments based on logic. Irrationality doesn’t bother many postmodernists.

Don’t let postmodernists’ dismissal of logic confuse you. They are merely voicing the same old relativistic nonsense I gave examples of in last week’s blog post. And our response should be the same as I explained then: Ask questions that challenge postmodernists to justify their illogical views. If they see for themselves they can’t justify their views, they may be willing to consider the Christian perspective.

Denial of logic is nonsensical and unlivable—people who attempt to do this endorse the very laws of logic they deny. Indeed, whatever getting beyond logic entails would require logical thinking to accomplish!  As philosopher Thomas Nagel pointed out, “Any challenge mounted against reasoning would have to involve reasoning of its own, and this can only be evaluated rationally” (The Last Word, 25).

The fact is, no postmodernists live consistently with this kind of illogical relativism. Since all humans are created in the image of God, the laws of logic are intuitive within all of us.

So, how do postmodernists function in their schizophrenic world? They don’t. Except when moral or religious fancy prompts them to pretend otherwise, they too live according to the laws of logic. In the real world of daily living, there is no way postmodern relativists can get around logic and reason, even if they try to dismiss them.©

Next week we’ll look at three ways postmodernism fails to fulfill the necessary requirements for a legitimate and livable world and life view.