As I muse over these remarks by Dr. Hart on a rainy Saturday morning, fueled by a fresh cup of coffee, it occurs to me that post-modernism is really just a repackaging of modernism’s desire for things such as personal self-determination, self-creation, libertarian free-will, and a mechanistic view of nature.
But what is this drive to escape the God-givenness of creation other than the desire to escape the Augustinian “monster-God” of Western Civilization?
The solution is not to become ever more modern - to flee, perhaps, into a post-post-modernity.
The solution, it seems to me, is to realize that back in the pre-modern world there exists already all the insights we need. Once we get a vision of a truly good God, such as we find in Gregory of Nyssa, and others, there is no need, no rationale, to desire self-determination and libertarian free will at all - much less a mechanistic view of the world.
It seems to me that one of the great gifts of philosophy is its ability to question the internal coherence, or incoherence, of systems of thought - particularly its ability to point out just how absurd is the dominant Western Christian vision of a God who is supposedly pure love, yet who has higher priorities than to finally permeate all of creation with this love.
I applaud philosophies which rightly deconstruct this manifest absurdity.
But what we need now is not a philosophy devoid of theophany. What we need now is more of theophilosophy, such as we see in the work of Dr. Hart. We need to create a post-modern way of thinking which is capable of embracing the insights of science and philosophy without devolving into a purely modernistic-mechanistic view of the world. In this way we could have a post-modern metaphysics which accepts the best of the pre-modern and rejects the worst of the modern.
It seems to me that most postmodern theology also robs us of the legitimate pleasure of the parochial and the local in religion, however big the bounds of our particular diocese. Without the reference of ultimate reality, the parochialism of religion is really suffocating--but so is every other finitude. The transcendent ground of Christianity, its utterly cosmic and transcosmic reaches, is what makes the peculiarity and particularity of the history of Jesus' incarnation so delightful; the historical tangibility of Jesus is what makes the ascendant Christ who fills all things with himself so mysterious, to borrow the logic of your essay's coincidentia oppositorum.
Also, for what it's worth, in the face of modernity's horrors which now ravage the world around us, it would be nice if a local god was not merely a mental and cultural construct consignable to oblivion by secular enlightenment, but rather someone who might actually do something about our terrestrial dumpster fire. This is why, for all the intellectual safety I find in an Origenian construction of the parousia, I still find the apocalyptic messianism of the earliest Christians commands my sympathy the way it does: it would be GREAT if God would actually do some of that smashing of the mighty and exaltation of the poor the prophets and the pseudepigraphers and the Evangelists are always going on about.
(Is there a greater master of long sentences in modern philosophy or theology than DBH? Long sentences where intricacy is clarity and even mellifluous? I ask as one who prizes concision. One small example: "For one thing, it seems to me that to assert the absence of any transcendental structure of being, or at least one we can reason about, and so to assert by implication the consequent absence of any analogical grammar by which to negotiate the differences and likenesses -- the particularities and universalities -- that exist among beings, is to make the ultimate measure of difference, inevitably, strife." I resist carrying on. I'm grateful.)
how much of the development of Postmodernism and in particular Postmodern theology is mainly political? I know, correct me if I'm wrong, but i think David mentioned that there is sort of distrust or suspicion of metaphysics and grand metaphysical ideas among certain quarters of leftist/left wing quarters. Is this accurate? is it because they view it as exclusive or Eurocentric or Western-centric, or hierarchical? are there other reasons?
I've never given any weight to the category "postmodern" because my own eyes told me the C20 variety of modernism had just entered a more careless, distractable, hyperactive phase. For this, "hypermodernity" might suit, but then the over-caffeinated graduate student raises a hand and asks, feeling his coming triumph, what comes after that? To be honest, I'm not sure there will be any epoch that merits the term "aftermodernity," but there are and will continue to be alternative movements and conditions.
The word people might lay down terms like paramodernity, ectomodernity, apomodernity, dysmodernity, exomodernity, etc., but it all remains a word game nonetheless, and ultimately tiresome. For example, I've just been reading some new essays related to religion and literature and shake my head at young scholars who "deploy" instead of "use" concepts (instead of admitting to good old-fashioned parrotting, capitulating, etc.), who "posit" things instead of "assume" them, and so on.
I see my future as the old man -- was it Brahms or Browning? -- who stands up at the table with a mouthful of beef and potatoes, pounds the table with his fist, shouting he won't stand for such bloody damned nonsense. But it's a fancy. I'll continue to sit here instead, grinding my teeth and praying for mercy.
"it is of course quite a salubrious practice to attempt—again, critically and within a broader historical perspective—to free ourselves from the majestic mythology of the modem, to subject it to the judgment of the cross"
Would that more people saw it as a judgment.
"And so it is not mere metaphysical nostalgia to call always on that eschatological light—the particular history of God in Christ, seen from the vantage of Easter, a story of abasement and exaltation—continually to make the otherwise invisible irresistibly appear. One cannot do so, however, if one has surrendered a metaphysics of the difference between the transcendent and the immanent, the changeless and the mutable, the eternal and the fleeting."
Masterfully put, and you are certainly right that the fight is exactly there. You mentioned the word "radical," and I think that's right, but it must be radical well beyond socialism, which has its own powerful nostalgias. A new St. Benedict would be good, but right now, I'd settle for an Amos.
As I muse over these remarks by Dr. Hart on a rainy Saturday morning, fueled by a fresh cup of coffee, it occurs to me that post-modernism is really just a repackaging of modernism’s desire for things such as personal self-determination, self-creation, libertarian free-will, and a mechanistic view of nature.
But what is this drive to escape the God-givenness of creation other than the desire to escape the Augustinian “monster-God” of Western Civilization?
The solution is not to become ever more modern - to flee, perhaps, into a post-post-modernity.
The solution, it seems to me, is to realize that back in the pre-modern world there exists already all the insights we need. Once we get a vision of a truly good God, such as we find in Gregory of Nyssa, and others, there is no need, no rationale, to desire self-determination and libertarian free will at all - much less a mechanistic view of the world.
It seems to me that one of the great gifts of philosophy is its ability to question the internal coherence, or incoherence, of systems of thought - particularly its ability to point out just how absurd is the dominant Western Christian vision of a God who is supposedly pure love, yet who has higher priorities than to finally permeate all of creation with this love.
I applaud philosophies which rightly deconstruct this manifest absurdity.
But what we need now is not a philosophy devoid of theophany. What we need now is more of theophilosophy, such as we see in the work of Dr. Hart. We need to create a post-modern way of thinking which is capable of embracing the insights of science and philosophy without devolving into a purely modernistic-mechanistic view of the world. In this way we could have a post-modern metaphysics which accepts the best of the pre-modern and rejects the worst of the modern.
It seems to me that most postmodern theology also robs us of the legitimate pleasure of the parochial and the local in religion, however big the bounds of our particular diocese. Without the reference of ultimate reality, the parochialism of religion is really suffocating--but so is every other finitude. The transcendent ground of Christianity, its utterly cosmic and transcosmic reaches, is what makes the peculiarity and particularity of the history of Jesus' incarnation so delightful; the historical tangibility of Jesus is what makes the ascendant Christ who fills all things with himself so mysterious, to borrow the logic of your essay's coincidentia oppositorum.
Also, for what it's worth, in the face of modernity's horrors which now ravage the world around us, it would be nice if a local god was not merely a mental and cultural construct consignable to oblivion by secular enlightenment, but rather someone who might actually do something about our terrestrial dumpster fire. This is why, for all the intellectual safety I find in an Origenian construction of the parousia, I still find the apocalyptic messianism of the earliest Christians commands my sympathy the way it does: it would be GREAT if God would actually do some of that smashing of the mighty and exaltation of the poor the prophets and the pseudepigraphers and the Evangelists are always going on about.
(Is there a greater master of long sentences in modern philosophy or theology than DBH? Long sentences where intricacy is clarity and even mellifluous? I ask as one who prizes concision. One small example: "For one thing, it seems to me that to assert the absence of any transcendental structure of being, or at least one we can reason about, and so to assert by implication the consequent absence of any analogical grammar by which to negotiate the differences and likenesses -- the particularities and universalities -- that exist among beings, is to make the ultimate measure of difference, inevitably, strife." I resist carrying on. I'm grateful.)
how much of the development of Postmodernism and in particular Postmodern theology is mainly political? I know, correct me if I'm wrong, but i think David mentioned that there is sort of distrust or suspicion of metaphysics and grand metaphysical ideas among certain quarters of leftist/left wing quarters. Is this accurate? is it because they view it as exclusive or Eurocentric or Western-centric, or hierarchical? are there other reasons?
Well, this is a relief.
I've never given any weight to the category "postmodern" because my own eyes told me the C20 variety of modernism had just entered a more careless, distractable, hyperactive phase. For this, "hypermodernity" might suit, but then the over-caffeinated graduate student raises a hand and asks, feeling his coming triumph, what comes after that? To be honest, I'm not sure there will be any epoch that merits the term "aftermodernity," but there are and will continue to be alternative movements and conditions.
The word people might lay down terms like paramodernity, ectomodernity, apomodernity, dysmodernity, exomodernity, etc., but it all remains a word game nonetheless, and ultimately tiresome. For example, I've just been reading some new essays related to religion and literature and shake my head at young scholars who "deploy" instead of "use" concepts (instead of admitting to good old-fashioned parrotting, capitulating, etc.), who "posit" things instead of "assume" them, and so on.
I see my future as the old man -- was it Brahms or Browning? -- who stands up at the table with a mouthful of beef and potatoes, pounds the table with his fist, shouting he won't stand for such bloody damned nonsense. But it's a fancy. I'll continue to sit here instead, grinding my teeth and praying for mercy.
"it is of course quite a salubrious practice to attempt—again, critically and within a broader historical perspective—to free ourselves from the majestic mythology of the modem, to subject it to the judgment of the cross"
Would that more people saw it as a judgment.
"And so it is not mere metaphysical nostalgia to call always on that eschatological light—the particular history of God in Christ, seen from the vantage of Easter, a story of abasement and exaltation—continually to make the otherwise invisible irresistibly appear. One cannot do so, however, if one has surrendered a metaphysics of the difference between the transcendent and the immanent, the changeless and the mutable, the eternal and the fleeting."
Masterfully put, and you are certainly right that the fight is exactly there. You mentioned the word "radical," and I think that's right, but it must be radical well beyond socialism, which has its own powerful nostalgias. A new St. Benedict would be good, but right now, I'd settle for an Amos.
quick question: Is there any difference between the article as it appears here and as it appears in TT?