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.
Yes, David, I too often feel a bit like John the Baptist, wondering when Jesus is going to actually smash down the oppressors and lift up the oppressed. Why does God wait so long to bring the world right? But I guess part of faith is holding on (even in the face of today's massive problems) to something of an Origenian vision in which God will finally be all in all.
I certainly believe that, as David (Hart) and I spoke on together in our interview earlier in the summer, the ultimate horizon of eschatology is universalist in character; it's all these damned contingent horizons of fulfillment (or, I suppose, non-fulfillment) that have me bummed. It would be great if something changed; in my more despairing moments, I suspect things may never do so.
(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?
But yes, many view metaphysics as necessarily exclusive and Eurocentric, which is odd given that classical metaphysical tradition is practically global in extent, and was even further advanced in parts of Asia than in the West for most of history. Others see all metaphysics as authoritarian, which is a meaningless claim.
I would need a clearer definition of “leftist” in order to answer that, since the curious political sensibilities of much academic culture are not classically leftist but more like a strain of classical liberal or libertarian ideology.
Then I would say no. Not for the most part. The real hostility to metaphysics as "imperious" in the academy tends to come from a certain sort of classical liberal--woke or semi-woke or otherwise--in my experience, of the sort who assume that the whole world is waiting to be transformed into a post-tribal paradise of what Isaiah Berlin called "negative freedom." Marxists of the classical stripe tend to be indifferent to metaphysics, admittedly, as sheer nonsense that distracts from the reality of the economic basis of culture; and they might tacitly assume that it is part of the discourse of power. But Marxists and Socialists in my experience (the real ones, at least) are too concerned about real violence and real poverty and so on to become overly hysterical about the abstract "violence" of metaphysics. Mind you, this is all a matter of private impressions.
The best brief note I've ever read about the existence of "postmodern economists" from classical liberalism and the touch (counter-)point between Foucault and Marxists/Socialists.
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.
From your lips (or fingertips or thumbs) to God’s ears.
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.
Yes, David, I too often feel a bit like John the Baptist, wondering when Jesus is going to actually smash down the oppressors and lift up the oppressed. Why does God wait so long to bring the world right? But I guess part of faith is holding on (even in the face of today's massive problems) to something of an Origenian vision in which God will finally be all in all.
I certainly believe that, as David (Hart) and I spoke on together in our interview earlier in the summer, the ultimate horizon of eschatology is universalist in character; it's all these damned contingent horizons of fulfillment (or, I suppose, non-fulfillment) that have me bummed. It would be great if something changed; in my more despairing moments, I suspect things may never do so.
PS, you, me, and DBH need just one more David to form a barbershop quartet. Everyone start brainstorming name ideas.
(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?
But yes, many view metaphysics as necessarily exclusive and Eurocentric, which is odd given that classical metaphysical tradition is practically global in extent, and was even further advanced in parts of Asia than in the West for most of history. Others see all metaphysics as authoritarian, which is a meaningless claim.
I would need a clearer definition of “leftist” in order to answer that, since the curious political sensibilities of much academic culture are not classically leftist but more like a strain of classical liberal or libertarian ideology.
mainly I'm thinking of Marxists and some socialists that are probably materialists and subscribe to historical materialism etc.
Then I would say no. Not for the most part. The real hostility to metaphysics as "imperious" in the academy tends to come from a certain sort of classical liberal--woke or semi-woke or otherwise--in my experience, of the sort who assume that the whole world is waiting to be transformed into a post-tribal paradise of what Isaiah Berlin called "negative freedom." Marxists of the classical stripe tend to be indifferent to metaphysics, admittedly, as sheer nonsense that distracts from the reality of the economic basis of culture; and they might tacitly assume that it is part of the discourse of power. But Marxists and Socialists in my experience (the real ones, at least) are too concerned about real violence and real poverty and so on to become overly hysterical about the abstract "violence" of metaphysics. Mind you, this is all a matter of private impressions.
The best brief note I've ever read about the existence of "postmodern economists" from classical liberalism and the touch (counter-)point between Foucault and Marxists/Socialists.
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.
When you actually do pound the table and make your speech with a mouthful of beef and potatoes, will you please post a video of it?
quick question: Is there any difference between the article as it appears here and as it appears in TT?
I don’t recall, actually.