Not all postmodern thinkers embrace monistic or naive realism
in the realm of epistemology. That is to say some will adhere to forms of
representative realism akin to Cartesian or Substance Dualism. Do we directly
experience things or are they filtered through our mind and ideas? If the
latter is true, then our perceptions and experiences of reality are to some
degree mind dependent. It has rightly been argued this track leads both to
Idealism and subjectivism. Nevertheless for Cartesians they believe this view
accurately reflects the reality of things as they are. One can still be a
Realist and hold to Dualism. The question for such philosophers is how to
bridge the gap and bring perceived knowledge in line with reality.
I would argue this view leads to Scepticism as does the
Empiricism with which it was so often juxtaposed. Kant's synthesis while noble
in intent and profound in no way solves the problem. For many it has accentuated
the divide leading to Idealism and the contemporary Analytical-Continental
split.
Like many of the Cartesian and Jansenist thinkers of the 17th
century, I will happily embrace a form of Scepticism as it negates and destroys
all of man's attempts at explanation and quantification of reality. It reduces
man's knowledge to forms of arbitrary and contextualised dogma or scepticism
and in the end destroys the whole of the philosophical project. I consider this
to be a positive. Scepticism is not an end but a means to break man's philosophical
and idolatrous project. It leads man to a despair which apart from Christ is
only right and proper. Or it can lead that man to consider the proclamation
that Jesus Christ is Lord.
As I've mentioned before I believe the only two viable and
honest options for man status post lapsum
are Nihilism or the embrace of Revelation. All philosophical roads will lead (in
the end) to Scepticism and the implications of that dark mindset, that
inescapable trap, can only mean an embrace of Nihilistic thought. Materialists
live in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance and self-deception in trying
to tease out and apply universals and meaning to a world that is (to them) little
more than a chaos of molecules. Materialism in the end (just as much as its
supposed opposite Idealism) leads to solipsistic isolation and delusion. All philosophical
systems are forms of Idealism, are reductionist and do not accurately reflect
reality.
The world of course rejects Christ and tries to find meaning
in a universe apart from Him. Scientism even with its inherent scepticism tries
to find meaning in 'becoming', in discovery, in the promise of inductive
knowledge. It's a pipe dream. Any Existentialist will tell them that. Even the
Existentialist quest for meaning in authentic experience proved to be little
more than trying to extract meaning from a Nihilistic reality.
What is very strange is that many people seem to embrace both
Scientism and Postmodernism at the same time. Our culture's ascendant Transgenderism
has removed gender from physicality, which in itself is strange because
Scientism being Materialist in its worldview understands reality as
physicality. Thus it's hard to understand that gender can be detached from the
physical and can become a mind-dependent ideal. Materialism rejects mind-body
dualism viewing the mind as epiphenomenal at best.
They have tried (in vain) to escape this dilemma by defining
gender as a mere social construct, something contextual and wholly subjective.
So then why do those adhering to Scientism tend to grant
validity to that which isn't reflecting the real, in the sense of being empirically
verifiable and falsifiable? If gender is purely social, the concept itself from
a Materialist and Evolutionary standpoint ought to be rejected as outlandish as
religion or some kind of fairy tale. One would think that androgyny would be an
ideal and perhaps for some of them it is. But that's certainly not what's
happening with transgenderism. While they take on characteristics that may seem
(to us) as androgynous, they are in fact clearly and deliberately identifying
as a specific gender.
I'm not saying I accept their criteria but by their own
standard I find it impossible that a Scientific Realist/Materialist could
accept transgenderism. Why don't they denounce it as pure illusion, a fantasy
or delusional pathology embraced by the person who refuses to accept the real?
If Science is willing to accommodate the creation of one's
own reality, if it validates a type of delusion and solipsism, i.e. I create my
own reality in defiance of all evidence to the contrary, and no one but me can
validate it, then they have abandoned their own epistemology both in terms of
attainable knowledge and the means to verify it.
If gender is a purely social construct divorced from sexual
physicality, then why (assuming their position) does every species develop two
sexes, both being necessary for reproduction? While we all will grant there is
pleasure in the act of coitus, it is primarily linked to reproduction. Even an
Evolutionist must grant that a species' primary telos is the propagation of its
own species. If there is a materialist moral imperative that can be defined as
universal or categorical it is this.
Will Scientism grant that if I 'feel' like I'm of another
race then that should be accepted as such? Of course we might become entangled
in the question of what is race and who defines it. But what if I 'feel' like
my arm doesn't belong? Should medical doctors be compelled to remove it for me?
These questions as insane as they might be, are now on the table. We have
entered a realm of madness and incoherence.
Gender while in part defined socially is most certainly bound
to one's physicality. We can like de Beauvoir speak of 'woman' meaning
something more than physicality (being a mature female) and yet apart from that
physicality even her broader sociological definition and the type of consciousness
attached to it are meaningless. Does the concept of 'woman' even make sense
apart from the physical reality of being female?
Transgenderism says 'yes' but has no basis to say so unless
both commonly acknowledged, verifiable and even transcendental definitions of
reality are abandoned.
I think it can be argued Scientism is at best a reductionist
grid by which to see the world. It cannot account for the complexity of human
nature, let alone metaphysical basis necessary to explain existence or ethics.
A brief recapitulation is in order. Postmodernism travels
parallel to Scientism in our culture and both express forms of Scepticism. From
the standpoint of the Gospel and its claims this doomed epistemology is not all
bad but apart from the embrace of Revelation it can only lead to incoherence
and Nihilism. While Postmodernism shares a sceptical epistemology, instead of
embracing concepts like progress and 'becoming' it actually undermines
Science's ability to form certain conclusions. When it does embrace Scientism
as a means of verification (i.e. Science 'proves' that gender is sociological, perhaps
environmentally conditioned in the brain and not tied to one's physicality),
then once again, there cannot be any certainty, but at best a form of
subjectified probability.
And if Materialism views us as more or less machines,
mechanistic structures that only falsely retain some notion of individuality
and meaning, and if morality is viewed as that which relates to species
propagation and advancement, then how can transgenderism be viewed as something
moral, of utility or conducive to the advancement of the species?
If it's an evolutionary mechanism for population control how
is that morally justified? Isn't the manifestation of homosexuality and
transgenderism a case of mutation and aberration even under that premise or
paradigm? Isn't it a condition only developed under species duress or threat?
Isn't it indicative of degeneration, a sort of necessary evil even in the
evolutionary paradigm?
If some form of duality is embraced, and transgenderism seems
to necessitate it, then the argument is also lost. Idealism whether
individualistic or some form of corporate historicism still provides a basis to
reject their claims.
Individualistic rejections of transgenderism would
philosophically have as much credence and validation as those who make positive
claims. If reality is subjective then my rejection of your transgenderism is
every bit as valid as your claims to it. The question either cannot be resolved
or must be answered in another way.
In terms of social or dialectical historicism, our
contemporary transgendered people may claim they are on the 'right side of
history' and that culture, the process of becoming and thus reality point in
their favour.
Well, as unpleasant as it is to argue this way, there's no
reason to accept their idealistic claims as exclusive. Another might come along
with a different meta-narrative and thus in order to see his version fulfilled
he might build a nation, army and culture to exterminate transgendered people
and all others that particular ideal claims as threatening or somehow
incompatible. The 'right side of history' argument is subjective and
sociologically speaking political. Does might make right? We've tried Social
Darwinism and though today our modern Evolutionists try to ignore it, they cannot
escape neither its inherent presence in their system nor its implications.
The internal contradictions of Western culture have already
marked it for doom and collapse. Scientism is being undermined in some cases by
its social allies, and it is noteworthy that both literally and metaphorically
it is making the New Atheists insane. They cannot understand the pervasive
embrace, even the increase of what they deem as irrationality. At the same time
postmodern hermeneutics and epistemology are undermining Scientism, exposing
its untenability and inability to form a comprehensive or even functionally
adequate view of reality. Both systems, like all of man's systems will
ultimately self-destruct.
Nihilism is coming. Some may have thought we saw the end of
it with World War II, Atheistic Existentialism or Punk Rock. Hitler brought us
the industrialised violent
consequence, the Idealistic antithesis to Weimar's Nihilism. The technological consequences lie before us
in the next great collapse and cataclysm. Nihilism is at the door. It is the
beyond that we must fear if fear we must. The Third Reich was not Nihilism but
an Idealistic counter to it. That's why it was so readily embraced. There's a
profound lesson in that point, one missed by many.
The Christian project to construct 'worldviews'- coherent
comprehensive philosophical systems is in the end doomed to fail. They end up
being little more than dogma and even when they attempt to build them on
Scripture they epistemologically and hermeneutically undermine its authority.
That which is posited as Biblical is often little more than speculative and
holistic idealism rooted in philosophical as opposed to revelational
assumptions.
Poverty in spirit demands a complete brokenness, even in
one's epistemology. We are trapped in a world of Idealism and involuntary
solipsism and yet we know it doesn't reflect the real. The real eludes us
because it transcends empirical epistemologies rooted in temporal experience
and finite concepts. Worldviews, even Christian ones, attempt to form
metaphysical systems. The world is spiritual and thus metaphysical. We know
this except when we suppress it. And yet we cannot form coherent let alone
authoritative metaphysics. Man's attempt to do so is the story of false
religion and idolatry.
We are left with a choice... Scepticism or the embrace of
revelation.
Christ is before us proclaiming Truth. Embracing Christ is
the only viable option, the only 'rational' act and yet terms like viable and
rational in the end when applied to faith transcend the criteria that must be
applied to them for them to have any meaning in our finite and temporal
existence.
Faith is not irrational but supra-rational and rooted in transcendence.
We can form a basic coherence that allows us to consider and embrace the claims
of Christ but even this is Spirit enabled. Only through the workings of the
Spirit can we hope to epistemologically embrace revelation. And yet as we
embrace it, we do not stand on it and build, we do not scrutinize and dissect...
we accept it and live contentedly in a state of informed ignorance and thus
dependence. This is at the heart of what faith is. We rejoice in what is made
known to us and yet we apprehend the knowledge that comprehension will always
elude us.
Our faith does not rest in reducing God's Words let alone His
concepts to grammatical and symbolical expressions that we can comprehend and
thus utilize as the basis for further predication.
Our faith rests in our poverty of spirit, our knowledge that
we cannot hope to properly grasp or understand the nature of divine knowledge,
especially in This Age. This is why Biblicism is not only the solution to the
necessitated scepticism generated by life in fallen reality but it is also the
sole viable position to embrace in order to avoid the pitfall of syncretism and
the type of philosophical speculation that leads to idolatry and ultimately to apostasy.
History while not authoritative has borne this out.
Biblicism presents its problems to be sure but the beauty of
the position is that in the embrace of perspicuity and the spirit of submission
we find the Apostolic witness of the New Testament contains within itself the
very building blocks and methodology of a Christocentric hermeneutic by which
we can have confidence with regard to the apprehension of Spiritual knowledge
and yet at the same time retain a certain fluidity that allows the Scripture to
speak and function in every historical and cultural context.
The Scholastic method always wedded to Sacralism's requirement
for holistic political and cultural systems seeks to use Scripture as a mere
foundation stone for a larger philosophical endeavour. Yet interestingly it
places the Church in a cultural dilemma in which it strains to function apart
from political struggle.
Thus when we come to dealing with the lost and a hostile
culture, Sacralist Scholastic theology out of necessity must abandon the
faith-rooted spiritual ethics of Apostolic Christianity and instead must turn
to political hostility and thus violence in the end as the means by which the
Kingdom is built and is manifested.
As our culture degenerates and turns toward Nihilist
thinking, the Church of our day will likely witness to Christ through wielding
the sword of pseudo-glory rather than embracing the Cross.
Only Biblicism can provide an answer to the ailments of our
culture through the proclamation of the Gospel. By this 'answer' we do not in
any way mean that 'the Gospel' will replace or repair the existing system with
another that in the end is just like it save some sort of Christian veneer
which in itself rests upon extra-Biblical elaborations of that very term and
concept.
The Gospel brings the
lost into a Spirit-life, one of righteousness, peace and joy, one of
participation in the Kingdom, access to the Holy Throne and a blessed hope
regarding the Age to Come. Life in the Spirit means being granted a new type of
epistemology one that affords a vision of the Kingdom and its inexhaustible
contemplative and experiential wonders.