A few days ago, I posted a picture which I thought demonstrated the relationship between Modernism, Foundationalism, Fundamentalism, and Christianity. I’d like to clarify what I am talking about there, here. And critique it.
By Modernism, I mean the paradigm(s) of thought which owe their intellectual roots in the Enlightenment. Essential traits of Modernism are as follows:
- The elevation of reason as the ultimate standard.
- The elevation of science as the ultimate measure truth.
- The elevation of the observable as the only source of evidence.
A lot more could be said here, but those are the features I want to highlight.
Foundationalism is a modernistic epistemological framework which attempts to build a solid foundation of undeniable and fully provable (often by the criteria listed above) truth propositions upon which all other forms of knowledge are built.
Many, if not most, evangelical groups subscribe to a Foundationalist framework for building knowledge. They all assert the absolute truth of the Bible, but, because of their unnoticed acceptance of the modernist and foundationalist framework, they feel as though they must prove beyond a shadow of a doubt the foundation that is the Bible. Once this is proved, then and only then can they proceed to demonstrate how the next piece of theology can be added upon the firm foundation that is the Bible. Once added, then they can logically and rationally add the next brick.
And so on.
And so on.
After a while, you can build a nice systematic theology which is rigid and impenetrable.
…
Unless one of the bricks falls out.
Now you have a hole in your wall. The bricks above now come a tumbling. Suddenly, most of your wall has fallen down and you are standing there looking a fool holding a bunch of spiritual propositions (or laws).
You are very invested in making sure not a single brick ever moves.
After all, you have constructed theology. Nay, you have constructed The Theology. The truth. It has set you free (to play within its walls, of course).
…
Unless one of your scientific premises about the Bible, its accuracy (as you conceive it) and historicity (as you want it to be) is proven wrong by science, history, or any other endeavor. Once you have proven the Bible, it and everything you build upon it suffers the same fear as one of the above bricks.
You see, the Bible is not prime in your endeavor, the scientific demonstration of the Bible’s authenticity is prime.
Because Foundationalists have capitulated to Modernism’s demands of knowledge and truth, we find ourselves arguing that the world is really a few thousand years old.
We need to move beyond Foundationalism, beyond Modernism.
We need to grasp the edges of the scientific/historical/literary/modernist/foundationalist tablecloth and yank it out from under the Bible.
When we do, we will find that the Spirit of the Living God does just fine on his own. Instead of needing justified, he justifies. Instead of being an objective (i.e. scientific) description of reality/history/science, we find that the Spirit speaking through the Bible is the most objective thing in the universe because it describes the world as God wills it to be.
The scary thing is that we have to leave modernism behind. Any such task is fought with fear because this necessarily means that we have to be postmodern.
This is not as scary as it seems on the surface or in Christian chain-emails. In fact, though the road is dangerous, steep, and rocky, it allows us so much more.
… and Postmodernism did not give us relativism. Modernism did.
But I’ll get to that in the next post.
Tonight, as I was watching Reed as he woke up in the middle of the night (full happy awake – he has gas), I pulled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions off the shelf and began re-reading it. I came across this insightful quote:
My home church just stunted some of my nephew and nieces intellectual growth. “Dr.” Sharp and his band of anti-history aficionados from the 
