Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

without essential foundations (Khan, 2000).
In formal logic there is right and wrong, true and false: A is not non-A.
Postmodernism undermines even this basic, long-held assumption. Prof. J. Bottum of
Boston College said the progression into postmodernity can be summarized this way: “It
is premodern to seek beyond rational knowledge for God; it is modern to desire to hold
knowledge in the structures of human rationality, with or without God; it is postmodern
to see the impossibility of any such knowledge” (Bottum, 1994:28). Muqtedar Khan
adds:
If the cultural assault of postmodernism is
devastating, than its epistemological assault
cannot be described as anything but as
“writing the epitaph of modernity.” While
modernity de-centred God and in its place
crowned reason as the sovereign authority
that alone determined the legitimacy of truth
claims, postmodernity has chosen to dethrone
not only Reason but the very notion of
authority and the very idea of truth (Khan,
2000).
To further give you a sense of how postmodernism is affecting Western peoples
epistemologically; consider this brief story from renowned Christian philosopher Ravi
Zacharias, who recalls a lecture he once delivered at a university, where a student stormed
up to the microphone:
I recall, for example lecturing at a university
when a student stormed up to the microphone
and bellowed, “Who told you culture is a
search for coherence Where do you get that
idea from This idea of coherence is a
Western idea.”
Rather surprised, I replied by reminding her
that all I had done was to present a
sociologist’s definition. “Ah! Words! Just
words!” she shouted back. “Let me ask you
this then,” I pleaded with her. “Do you want
my answer to be coherent” At that moment,
laughter rippled through the auditorium. She
herself was stymied for a few moments.
“But that’s language, isn’t it” she retorted.
So I asked her if language had anything to do
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University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa