Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

irrelevant. The postmodernist, like other relativists and pluralists, tends to accept all
religions on an equal footing, and is open to all so-called truth claims. They believe “no
religious worldview is objectively true” (Okholm, 1995:77). While they argue against the
possibility of truth, a voice within them that says that whatever is true, must accord with
what is real. Thus a “statement or proposition is (objectively) true if and only if it
corresponds to reality... if reality is just as the statement says that it is” (ibid. 78). Daniel
Taylor says:
The ruling methodology for reaching truth in
our secular culture reflects the dominance of
the scientific model... one amasses evidence
-- as analyzed, classified, and approved by
reason -- guarding at all times against
methodological lapses (like subjective bias,
logical fallacy, faulty or misinterpreted data),
until one reaches something very like
certainty, until one has proof. Now,
professional philosophers and other
academics will readily admit that absolute
certainty of course is not attainable
(Taylor, 1992:78).
The postmoderns rightly argue against the infallibility of modernist claims to
absolutes. As valuable as science is, it is still often a process of trial and error, where
corrections, changes, and updates are common. Too often theories, like the Theory of
Evolution, are assumed true and infallible, while still far short of attaining the level of
natural law. While anything man sets his hand to is fallible, there are still absolute truths
in creation. Postmodern doubts about absolutely certainty are unwarranted, but their
criticism of scientific certainty is warranted.
Because so much of the Western church has succumbed to modernist thinking, the
church too has at times fallen into the error of viewing Scripture in terms of scientific
absolutes. Evidential apologists are among those that need to guard against such
extremism. As valuable as these biblical defences are, Lesslie Newbigin cautions that
we resist the temptation to absolutize the Bible as some scientific axiom. “The
knowledge of God given to us through the gospel is a matter of faith, not of indubitable
certainty” (Newbigin, 1996:77). For this notion “comes from captivity to the typical
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University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa