September 2008 Archives

Directed Writing #2

                Many people find grasping postmodernism difficult because of its defiance of definition and demand for subjectivity. In this way, the sentence "This sentence serves no logical purpose" may illustrate postmodernism purely because it is difficult to understand; attempting to make sense of this sentence sends the mind in circles. To clarify, postmodernism formed as a response to modernism. Modernism centered on scientific knowledge, stability, progress, and functionality. In response, postmodernism looks past the façade of progress and sense that modernism built up, attempting to question whether or not things need to make sense at all. Postmodern ideas thus take modern ideas and turn them upside-down. The sentence "This sentence serves no logical purpose" demonstrates several of those postmodern ideas including personal reflection, deconstruction of modern rationality and functionality, and subjective truth.

                Postmodernism thrives on exploring the unknown and the undefined. Often, the unknown in question is the personal identity, and those who embrace a postmodern worldview constantly reflect on themselves. The sentence illustrates this postmodern characteristic of personal reflection. It refers to itself, giving it a sense of self-awareness; it knows that it is a sentence. Knowing itself allows it to make judgments about its identity, and it does so. At the same time, when it refers to itself as a sentence, it connects itself to the typical idea of what a sentence should be. However, what it does about that definition illustrates another characteristic of postmodernism.

                The sentence takes that definition and deconstructs it, which shows the postmodern rejection of modern functionality and rationality. A sentence is typically thought of as a grouping of words that makes sense and altogether has some purpose or meaning. In modern thought, the functionality and rationality of language was an especially important idea. Logically speaking, if a group of words was a sentence, then it had a purpose. To start, this sentence defines itself as a sentence, and one can see that it is in fact a grouping of words that make sense when read. However, the sentence then uses its self-awareness and consequent power to make judgments about itself and declares that it has no purpose. This is a contradiction of the modern definition of functional, rational language. That contradiction leads to two different postmodern branches of thought. First of all, one might say that because it is a sentence yet does not match the typical definition of a sentence, then the typical definition is not absolutely true; postmodernism always questions absolute truth and works to find exceptions to rules. On the other hand, one could say that because the sentence does not fit the typical definition of a sentence, then it is actually not a sentence at all. A branch of thought like this follows the postmodern love of the undefined. It leaves one needing to explore to find a possible definition. Furthermore, if it is not actually a sentence, then that means the sentence told a lie.

                Exploring whether or not the sentence is deceitful or truthful leads to the postmodern idea of subjective truth. As mentioned previously, one can doubt whether or not the sentence actually is a sentence. In addition, one can question the truth of its content--whether or not the sentence has no logical purpose as it says. The sentence itself says that it has no logical purpose, and that may be true. It stands alone, and therefore it lacks a context that would give it a clear purpose. Overall, its only purpose is for some to examine it, so for those who are not examining it, the sentence serves no logical purpose and has no reason to exist. However, for those reading and thinking about it, the sentence is the center of thought and therefore does have a purpose. This creates a subjective truth: what it says is true for some but not true for others. Because the sentence creates a relative truth, it undermines the possibility of absolute truth, which is precisely what postmodernism attempts to do. Lastly, the truth of the sentence cannot be tested scientifically. No experiment could show that the sentence's content is true, since its truth is subjective. Therefore, the sentence does not conform to modernism's scientific method of determining truth.

                Overall, the sentence "This sentence serves no logical purpose" demonstrates several key ideas of postmodernism. Most importantly, it takes something that should be straightforward, the idea of a sentence, and makes it unclear and unresolved. In doing so, it opens up several new avenues of thought and alternative ways of viewing something that formerly did not even require a second glance. Postmodernism leads to new ways of thinking, which can be quite exciting. Still, the exhaustive array of thoughts it produces may leave one mildly nostalgic for the relatively clear thinking of modernity.

In the past, many cultures worshipped the sun as a supreme god. This is understandable, as the sun provided what they needed to live but was still mysterious in its power. Even as people now know much more about the true nature of the sun, the comparison of the sun's life-giving power with God's life-giving power is still apparent. Writer N.T. Wright takes this comparison a step further in his book Simply Christian, saying that attempting to study God by doing theology is similar to staring at the sun. By this, he means that people do not need to focus on a far-off point to get to know God, but rather they can see the evidence of God all around them on earth (Wright 56). This metaphor is helpful because it parallels Wright's ideas that no one person can fully understand God, that people need certain "equipment" to do theology, and that the spheres of heaven and earth overlap. However, this metaphor is problematic because it places God in a physical space and also presents doing theology as harmful.

                First of all, the metaphor of staring at the sun helps Wright win over his post-modern audience, since it alludes that no one has the ability to fully understand God. No one can stare at the sun, so no single person's image of God is objective. As Wright describes, "no human argument could ever...force [God] to submit to human inspection" (57). For a post-modern audience accustomed to subjectivity, this is a welcome idea. Still, this idea does not cave into post-modernism and diminish the power of God, saying that everyone's subjective image of God is true for him or her, but rather it contends that God will always have a degree of mystery that humbles individual views.

                However, certain equipment can aid in understanding that mystery. Scientists have learned to examine the sun with powerful telescopes, and sunglasses can allow people to look at the sun every day. For Wright, the equipment used to stare at the sun by doing theology is knowledge of the history of Christianity. He describes how understanding Jesus' story in its historical and culture context is essential to understanding who Jesus was (Wright 71-72). If people do not look at history, then their image of Jesus "slides away into fantasy" (Wright 95). Also, knowledge of the Bible in its entirety aids in doing theology. Not only does help with setting a historical context, but it contains numerous recurring themes and images. Wright says that these themes and images are like lenses that allow people to understand Jesus' story in greater depth (108). Ultimately, growing in understanding of Jesus leads to a better understanding of God. Thus, because of Jesus' presence on earth, people have equipment to use for doing theology. 

                Jesus' presence on earth is also pivotal in Wright's idea of the overlap of heaven and earth. However, thinking of heaven as God's domain and not as a far-off place may be a new idea to many readers, which is where the sun metaphor helps once again. If doing theology is likened to staring at the sun, then God can accordingly be compared to the sun. The sun is in a physical domain other than earth's, yet the earth feels the sun's presence with warm rays and bright light. To some degree, those two domains overlap. Similarly, God is in heaven, a domain (or state of being) other than the earth's. Then, when Jesus came to earth, people saw evidence of God's presence and power. As Wright says, God was "present on earth without having to leave heaven" (65). Jesus provided the definitive overlap of heaven and earth, and because of that, people do not need to stare at the sun to see the light already around them.

                Unfortunately, the metaphor of "staring at the sun" runs into trouble if people take the metaphor of God in connection with the sun too seriously. True, the comparison gives a sense of the power of God, but it also places God in a specific place distant from the earth. This is precisely what Wright argues against. He says specifically that when he says heaven, he is "not referring to a place or location within our world of space, time and matter" (Wright 59). Then again, because Wright does take care to explain this shortcoming of the metaphor, it is only mildly problematic.

                A larger problem arises because, when compared to staring at the sun, doing theology is presented as harmful. It does not allow people to make a lifestyle of understanding and getting to know God, but rather seems to say that trying to understand God is alright only in extremely brief, superficial interactions. Furthermore, if staring at the sun is alright with special, expensive telescopes, then this metaphor hints that only a very select few can work to understand God personally. From the common Christian viewpoint that a personal relationship with God is important, this metaphor is difficult to accept.

                Despite these glitches in Wright's metaphor, his book does invite this writer to consider Christian theology more deeply. In particular, his idea of the overlap of heaven and earth opened a new, creative view of Christianity that was quite exciting to read. As this writer read Wright's book, she was in Israel on the Sea of Galilee, where she could nearly sense the remaining holiness of that past overlap of heaven and earth. Then, Wright presented an even more exciting idea: that "the whole world is now God's holy land" (125-126). This simple statement brought that overlap of the past into the present for this writer, which was a wonderful new way of looking at Jesus' life and work on earth. Thus, because of both Wright's new angles on familiar ideas and personal experiences, this writer does wish to explore Christian theology in greater detail.

Works Cited

Wright, N.T. Simply Christian. New York: HarperOne, 2006.