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Part Nine:  Why Is Postmodernism Consistently Inconsistent?

There are three essential ingredients necessary before any worldview can be considered legitimate: (1) It must be internally and externally consistent and coherent. (2) It must answer crucial questions about life that correspond to human nature and experience as universally understood and lived out. (3) It must be emotionally and spiritually satisfying. Christianity meets all these standards—but does secular or religious postmodernism? No! The fact is, postmodernism is consistently inconsistent.

As we saw throughout this series, the cardinal doctrine of postmodernism is relativism, in particular moral and religious relativism. However, regardless of how widespread relativism has become in Western culture, it is an unlivable philosophy. In day-to-day life, no one consistently follows the precepts of postmodern relativism. It’s easy to endorse it in the ivory tower of academia or other safe environments, where one does not have to commit to it. But bring this philosophy into the real world where it must be lived out—where it affects one’s personal life—and suddenly, commitment to relativism evaporates.

Here is where our apologetic response should focus: Ask postmodernists questions that demonstrate no one will live consistently with full-fledged postmodern relativism. In other words, we move the discussion out of a postmodernist’s moral comfort zone toward the hard choices a person would have to make to live consistently within such a relativistic worldview. As theologian and philosopher Francis Schaeffer suggested, “We ought not first try to move a man away from what he should deduce from his position but towards it. . . . We try to move him in the natural direction in which his presuppositions would take him. We are then pushing him towards the place where he ought to be, had he not stopped short.” (The God Who Is There). Here are a few examples of the kind of questions we can ask:

• “Do you have any doubt that rape is wrong?”
• “Is sexual relations with children okay?”
• “Is sacrificing babies for religious purposes acceptable?”
• “Should cannibalism and headhunting in the name of religion be acceptable?”
• “Is the degradation of women as promoted in some cultures as good for society as Christianity’s teaching on the equality of women?”

Not one person in ten million will endorse such behaviors, regardless of whether rejecting them violates the fundamental ideological precept of postmodern relativism (i.e., there are no absolute truths in any area of knowledge). There are limits to human conduct that virtually everyone recognizes. People may talk the talk of relativism, but in most areas of life, they live according to absolute standards. In the real world, no sane person will tolerate the ultimate consequences of moral or religious relativism carried to its logical conclusion. There are specific standards of ethical behavior all societies impose and demand that people obey. This is absolutism, not relativism! Bottom line: an inconsistent worldview is an unlivable and therefore false worldview. ©

Next week’s blog will change direction. Instead of focusing on objective apologetics, we’ll begin to explore what I call “subjective apologetics,” that is, appealing to the heart as well as the mind.