Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

order of things that reason had established in
the heyday of modernity. On the
epistemological front, postmodern incursions
are subverting not only the foundations of
truth, but also the possibility of ever
establishing any truth claims (Khan, 2000).
Where previous worldview constructs had a specific objective foundation --
Christianity-God; Marxism-Economics; Humanism-Rationalism and scientific method --
the postmodern stream rejects them all, seeking to deconstruct them -- yet, offers to
replace them with nothing! Further, postmoderns do not believe in worldviews at all, that
there is any grand schema giving singular meaning to all things. For them, the only
meaning life has is what we attach to it, especially according to our own experiences.
Reality is a matter of individual perception, and the only absolutes are those derived from
personal, subjective experience. “Eternal and ultimate truths are unknowable, and any
claim to know them is simply an assertion of the will to power” (Nietzsche, in Newbigin,
1996:77).
Modernity is generally perceived as positivistic, technocentric and rationalistic,
identified with belief in linear progress, absolute truths and the rational planning of ideal
social orders (e.g., Fascism, Marxism), as well as the standardization of knowledge and
production. The highly rational Newtonian Cosmology can identify modernity as well.
By contrast, postmodernism is fragmentary and indeterminate, with an intense distrust of
things universal and totalizing (Veith, 1994:42). Postmodernism is loosely, and
disrespectfully taken from Einstein’s Theories of Relativity and Quantum Physics, that
went beyond Newtonian physics to reveal the relative nature of matter, time, and space.
Postmoderns reject metanarratives and totalizing agendas, but at the same time reject
the notion that they create and promote an agenda of their own -- thinking deeply rooted
in relativism, pluralism and nihilism. They argue that people must be suspicious of
totalizing discourses that seek to name, define, and legitimate social institutions, roles,
identities and practices. Language, for the postmodern, is a labyrinth of meanings. Jean-
Francois Lyotard in discussing postmodernism defined it as “incredulity toward
metanarratives” (Lyotard, 1979:xxiv). Communities may apply these metanarrative
constructs to themselves, but certainly may not impose these views upon others.
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University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa