Share Your Thoughts: Do We Really Live in a Postmodern Culture?

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Many today contend that we live in a postmodern culture.  For those unfamiliar with the term, postmodernism is the belief that there exists "[no] universal foundation for truth or morality."1

However, in his book Reasonable Faith, Dr. William Lane Craig contends that while the claim we live in a postmodern society may be popular, it is actually a myth.  He writes:

"...a postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable.  Nobody is a postmodernist when it comes to reading the labels on a medicine bottle versus a box of rat poison.  If you've got a headache, you'd better believe that texts have objective meaning!  People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology; rather, they're relativistic and pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics.  But that's not postmodernism; that's modernism!  That's just old-line Positivism and Verificationism, which held that anything you can't prove with your five senses is just a matter of individual taste and emotive expression.  We live in a cultural milieu which remains deeply modernist.  People who think that we live in a postmodern culture have thus seriously misread our cultural situation."2

So, do you agree with Craig?  Do you believe our culture is postmodern or, like Craig, do you believe this to be a myth?  Sound off in the comments below!

Courage and Godspeed,
Chad

Footnotes:
1. Paul Copan, What is Postmodernism?
2. William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith, 3rd. Edition, p. 18.


Comments

Unknown said…
His thoughts are definitely logical and make sense. They are borne out in the practical lives of many. But to call any of it modernism might be a stretch since in my mind the morality of the so called modernist is regressive. Abortion is an example as are free love and sex. Most are okay with the later until their spouse cheats. But these are all found in animiste cultures that we call backwards.
May 4, 2017 at 11:38 AM
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