Michael Terheyden on 'Why I am Catholic: Confronting Postmodern Culture'

By Michael Terheyden
10/22/2012
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

The Catholic Church is going to lead the way like it led the West out of the Dark Ages around 1000 years ago

The world is an amazing place, and as a young man I was dying to "cut the cord," so I could dive in and explore it on my own. When I left home for college, I finally took the plunge. But the world around me was changing fast, and I surfaced in a strange new world. It was exciting, but there was something unsettling about it.

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KNOXVILLE, TN (Catholic Online) - The world is an amazing place, and as a young man I was dying to "cut the cord," so I could dive in and explore it on my own. When I left home for college, I finally took the plunge. But the world around me was changing fast, and I surfaced in a strange new world. It was exciting, but there was something about it that was unsettling. It wasn't just the newness of it all, something was not right.

This strange new world stripped me of much that I had known. That was not hard to do I am sorry to say. Then it tried to fill my head with strange ideas and beliefs, and I willingly allowed it. But these strange ideas and beliefs did not take root and bear fruit within me. They withered and died. (I now realize this was grace working in my life.) The world I am referring to is Western culture.

Confronting Western culture was one of the most significant experiences of my faith journey. The other was confronting Catholicism, but that part of my story comes much later. My initial experience of Western culture involved searching for truth and meaning in liberal studies and the sciences. It also involved taking a hard look at our secular society and trying to make sense out of it.

This experience caused me to wonder why Western culture is the way it is? I wondered about this for many years, and the best answer I have come up with is Postmodernism. For all practical purposes, one of the key reasons why I am Catholic today is because I came to reject the postmodern view of the world. Therefore, in this article I will discuss our culture in terms of Postmodernism and the role it played in my faith journey.

I believe Postmodernism best describes the culture in which we are living. It is the dominant world view in the academic, cultural, media, legal, and political communities today. It is increasingly what our children are being taught in school, what we hear in popular music, and what we watch on TV. So understanding Postmodernism is not just about my faith journey, it is about everyone's faith journey, including yours.

Much of what I will say about Postmodernism is based on an excellent series of video-taped lectures by Dr. Stephen Hicks. However, my summary on Postmodernism is only a partial overview of the subject, and it reflects my understanding of Dr. Hicks' lectures. Therefore, if I have misstated anything, do not fault the good doctor.

Postmodernism has not been around very long. It came onto the intellectual scene around the 1950's. I watched without comprehension as it began to dominate the culture in the 1980's. Some of its founders are Foucault, Derrida, and Lyotard. Postmodernism is not easily defined. It is a sprawling intellectual and cultural movement. It is unlike anything I have ever known. It does not desire to develop or build on the old (antiquity or tradition). Instead, it views the old with contempt, and completely rejects it.

You could say it is a radical reaction against most of the traditions that many of us have known. One of the most fundamental premises of Postmodernism is that our traditional beliefs in God, religion, truth, reason, science, progress, right and wrong, liberty, democracy, free markets, and the pursuit of happiness are wrong, so wrong that Western civilization itself, especially as it is manifested in the United States, is viewed by postmodernists as pathological, fraudulent and a complete failure. To help us better understand Postmodernism, Dr. Hicks has organized it into five categories: epistemology, metaphysics, human nature, ethics, and politics.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that concerns the nature of knowledge: what it is and how we know. Postmodernism is an extreme form of skepticism called nihilism. Skeptics doubt our ability to acquire true knowledge. Nihilists deny true knowledge exists. Nihilists also doubt the existence of truth, but if it did exist, they tell us, it would not matter because we cannot know it. For postmodernists, then, there is no one truth, only narratives.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of being and the essence of things. According to Dr. Hicks, the metaphysics of Postmodernism claims that there is no such thing as one true account of reality. It seems to reject the belief that reality is based on an objective structure. Thus, there are no objectively ordered principles which govern or restrict human behavior. There is no natural law, no meaning beyond blind physical processes, no spiritual reality, and no God.

The postmodernist view of human nature is based on environmental determinism. This is the belief that human nature is malleable. All that we are, the postmodernist tells us, is derived from our culture or our group. We are literally constructed by our group, and we cannot surpass it. We cannot be objective beyond our group. Thus, there is no one moral truth. Right and ...

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1 - 3 of 3 Comments

Paul-Emile Leray
6 months ago
Thank you for this article. It is excellent. Your observations and comments about acquisition of political power, on the 2nd page, are interesting. Socialist state, postmodern atheism, marxists or socialists; all interesting commentary, once again, on the 2nd page of the article. Could this be, in part, why so many billionaires in America, after having made fortunes, turn around and vote for, support and fund, left leaning policies and parties? Could this be why all seems quite well with some of these folks if they can embrace free markets and capitalism so long as it benefits them; to then socialize the losses as they did in 2008 when it also benefits them to do so? And then? I remind myself of the beauty of the coffin and urn, realizing that many of these baffoons who insult the word "philosophy" by considering themselves philosophers are what? Not far away from becoming analysts of the root structures of dandelions from the 6' under perspective. Then? I realize, in great joy and faith, hope and confidence, trusting in Jesus, that The Father knew exactly what he was doing when he put an expiry date on the milk carton! We'd be over-run by these nutbells if they lived forever. Life and death, BOTH, are absolutely beautiful; which is likely why God himself designed us with an entry point and exit point....even better that we don't know when it will be. Humans? Collectively, we aren't anywhere as wise and intelligent as we'd like to think we are. I am happy Jesus is Jesus, "God saves" in Hebrew, and that he expressed his identity and mission flawlessly. Notice how Christ's human will submits to his divine and almighty will. Now, notice how postmodernism operates. It is evident to all of the truly wise who has won, is winning, and will win; forever. Ideologies? They sound intelligent in academic circles and at cocktail parties, in the beginning. Given enough time, on longer timelines, I fear many wished they would have never written certain books and that they would have never promoted their stupid ideologies. Why? Their names are associated with those IDIOT ideologies, for how long? Forever. Another reason as to why people ought to measure twice (or dozens of times) and cut once, to use a carpenter analogy; apply this to all sorts of schemes and plans. There is one ship not headed for the edge of Niagara Falls; The Catholic Church. Between desperation and a lack of critical thinking and poor reasoning, many are following all sorts of cults and dangerous systems usually led by a highly charismatic fleecing (of his flock) hot air balloon guru-pilot with storage houses filled with wool and leather; as his sheep and cattle below are what? Planted in mud knee deep in gopher holes, shivering with neither wool nor hide, still trusting in the balloon pilot floating above the pastures as he schemes his next move. And what is that? How to BBQ them all alive while they stand in 2 separate pastures! Meanwhile, there is likely a meat processing plant being built next to the 2 pastures; with another plant on the drawing board for the business of sweaters and leather jackets soon to be erected by the storage houses filled with wool and leather. No wonder the guru flying above in his sophist balloon is wearing a woolen interior lined leather jacket while sporting wholesale cut lamb sideburns! NEVER trust politicians and scrutinize all ideologies. The gurus are usually in the business of what? Liberating themselves with what? Your time and money, since it is needed for them to keep their balloons floating. Take the air out of the balloon and the guru ends up where the sheep and cattle are: jammed in mud while being in the cross hairs of the wolves.
Paul-Emile Leray
gabriel
6 months ago
You express a reductive, oversimplistic definition of postmodernism.

Postmodernism rejects everything the secular, scentific world decrees. This includes dichotomies such as secular/religious, conservative/liberal, and traditional/modern.

If you look for a philosophy that negates theological values, you found it in postmodernism. If you look for a philosophy that counters the rise of scientism, you will find an ally in postmodernism.
jeff brig
6 months ago
this article is so true, never hear it summed up quite like that,,i understand the pope when he speaks of the dictatorship ot relativism but this really builds off that as it is a part of that,,also if it wasnt for my catholic faith,,this article would be very scary,,,ok it still is because i see it too,,,as i read this i got to thinking , wow this is really a good summing up of what im seeing, but Christ reigns!

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