Throughout the history of human beings, people who believe in God have been ridiculed, resisted, or persecuted (sometimes by others who claim to be believers). Not only is our time no exception to said historical trends, but, as I will argue, we live in a time that is more than usually hostile towards all that is True, Good, and Beautiful, and thus also towards belief in God.
This ought to concern all earnest monotheist (Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others); i.e., anyone who believes in God. It should also concern all earnest humanists and others who subscribe to secular worldviews, while at the same time professing to believe in science and rational thinking.
An important reason for the current situation, is the phenomenon known as postmodernism; commonly said to have emerged in the 1960s. While the latter is a perfectly reasonable statement, the intellectual currents that led to such a development, go further back in time. Postmodernism is a reaction to modernism (sometimes called modernity, to distinguish it from modernism in art and architecture), which in turn has its roots in the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, and in particular the Enlightenment (and thus also the scientific and industrial revolutions).
A detailed historical account of the just mentioned events and movements would be beyond the scope of this essay. However, interested readers will find many encyclopaedic articles freely available on the Internet.
It is, by the way, worth noting that the Internet (as well as, e.g., air travel, space exploration, computers, and mobile phones) has been made possible by the intellectual labour of generations of scientists that tend to be regarded as misguided by postmodernists.
Postmodernism – a Quick Introduction
My main sources of information about the intellectual and philosophical roots and fruits of postmodernism, are Lawrence Cahoone’s tome “From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology”, as well as Encyclopædia Britannica and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Several other relevant books and articles are listed in the references section.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) is known for his infamous slogan “God is dead”, and he also opined that “truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions”.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP), tells us that “Among philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche is most often associated with nihilism. For Nietzsche, there is no objective order or structure in the world except what we give it.”
In another article, IEP tells us that “the problem that Nietzsche seeks to draw attention to is that his fellow atheists have failed to understand the cultural and spiritual significance of the widespread loss of belief in God, and thus of the associated metaphysical picture of the human being as created for a higher divine purpose.”
According to Cahoone, Nietzsche is “the godfather of postmodernism”. That strikes me as a fitting label, given that the very core of this intellectual movement seems to be precisely skepticism towards the existence of God (or at least His relevance to human affairs), as well as a denial of the existence of (objective) truth.
Encyclopaedia Britannica adds more detail by stating that postmodernism is “a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad skepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power”.
I find it puzzling that Britannica does not mention God (or atheism/agnosticism) in their high-level introduction to what is characteristic of postmodernism, but perhaps the editors felt that this was implicitly included in the just quoted paragraph. If so, that is at least somewhat logical from a monotheistic point of view, given that it follows from the principle of God’s oneness that He is the source of all truth. Thus, rejection of the existence of objective truth, implies – among other things – the rejection of God’s existence.
And, not surprisingly then, many postmodernist thinkers, and some of those who helped spawn postmodernism, display hostility or at least skepticism towards religion in general as well as God and His attributes Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in particular. This includes (in addition to Nietzsche), e.g., Sigmund Freud, Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Antonio Gramsci, Herbert Marcuse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard, Mark C. Taylor, and Richard Rorty.
In all fairness, it should be mentioned that postmodernism comes in multiple flavours, ranging from moderate to strong.
What Happens When the Search for Truth is Abandoned?
When truth is no longer considered to be something that exists, and therefore something that can be discovered, bad things start happening. For when truth is no longer considered as that which corresponds with and describes reality, ‘truth’ is reduced to that which someone defines it to be.
This in turn means that ‘truth’ cannot easily be questioned. That is, if some authority claims that the ‘truth’ is such and such, correcting any mistakes in their worldview becomes more or less impossible. Thus, instead of having (approximate) truths as something that helps us navigate the world in all its complexity, we get ‘truths’ that become weapons in the hands of the ruling elites. In other words, truth is replaced by power.
Let’s look at some examples.
Pride Versus Humility
An area where postmodernism has had a major impact, is everything having to do with sex and gender. What I have in mind here, is not tolerance and acceptance for gay or lesbian people – that should be a given in a pluralistic society. In many religious communities there is room for improvement when it comes to being judgemental; every now and then most of us can benefit from being reminded that judgement belongs to God alone.
However, postmodernists are not content to claim that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, they also hold that everyone is entitled to their own facts. The LGBT movement is not just concerned with everyone’s right to love whoever they want to love; these days the movement is also very much concerned about everyone’s right to be whoever and whatever they want to be.
Claims are being made that sex is a social construct, that men can become women, and so on and so forth. This message is being proclaimed ever more loudly and forcefully, typically under the banner of the rainbow flag. Every man has a right to be a woman if he so chooses. And vice versa. Sex, not just gender, is reduced to a social construct.
An increasing number of (young) people believe that they suffer from gender dysphoria. Many are given hormone blockers and sex contrary hormones. Girls have their breasts removed, and people of both sexes undergo genital surgery, with non-reversible, sometimes devastating, consequences.
At this point it should be emphasised that some people do indeed suffer from gender dysphoria – sometimes due to genetic or chromosomal issues, sometimes due to social issues, sometimes for reasons we do not fully understand (exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC) could in some cases be a possible candidate). Such conditions can be serious, indeed. Let us all make sure we treat people who struggle with these issues in the most kind and understanding way.
In more than 99% of the cases, the biological sex of a human is determined by the sex chromosomes XX (female) or XY (male). This system is identical for most mammal species. Even so, there are some rare cases where a person does not have exactly two sex chromosomes, thus deviating from the simple dichotomy of male and female. Well-known examples include X0, XXX, XXY, and XYY.
The fundamental difference between males and females is not in the physical appearance of their genitalia, but the size and number of gametes (i.e., sex cells). Males have many small gametes (sperm) while females have few and large gametes (eggs).
Through countless generations, this has forced males and females (not necessarily consciously) to adopt different strategies in order to maximise their reproductive success. Anyone currently alive is a descendant of individuals who, on average, had high reproductive success, and thus we have all inherited genes that code for successful behaviour as male or female. This, in short, is the reason why pretty much all sexually reproducing species display sexual dimorphism (i.e., systematic differences between individuals of different sex within the same species). Homo sapiens is no exception.
This means that the idea that sex can be dismissed as merely a ‘social construct’ is unscientific; a prime example of wishful thinking.
These things appear to have come the furthest in North America and northern Europe, but given that this development is demanded by the highly influential Yogyakarta Principles, we are likely to see more of it in the years to come, not only in the geographical areas just mentioned but in others as well. And the LGBT movement is not content to ensure their own rights, they are also determined to indoctrinate coming generations.
In Norway (and presumably other countries as well) this movement now has access to kids in almost all schools and kindergartens. Children are being told (by teachers, textbooks, and visiting LGBT activists) that “some girls have penises, and some boys have vaginas”. In some schools, young pupils are being asked to state what gender they identify as. Not all teachers are comfortable replacing science with ideology, and therefore hesitate to bring their classes along for the annual LGBT Pride Parade. Some politicians have stated that such teachers should be fired.
Last year the Norwegian parliament voted in favour of a new law that made it a criminal act (punishable by up to six years in prison) for anyone (including parents, nurses, doctors, psychologists, and counsellors, as well as imams, priests, rabbis, and other religious leaders) to try to persuade anyone away from adopting an LGBT identity, or make an effort to prevent them from using hormones and surgery to transition away from their biological sex. See “The Norwegian Government’s Action Plan on Gender and Sexual Diversity (2023–2026)” for some official information in English.
Large portions of the West have now declared war on Nature – a war we are bound to lose. Thus, this is yet another confirmation that the West is suicidal. Part of the reason for this sorry state of affairs, is the powerful presence of postmodern paradigms.
There is however more to this issue than just the (possibly serious) challenges facing the individuals who suffer from gender dysphoria. What is at stake here is our intellectual integrity – as individuals, as communities, as nations, and as a civilisation.
Readers who understand Norwegian can find a more in-depth discussion of the Pride ideology in my article “Pride-ideologien – antivitenskap satt i system”.
Trust in Government, Media, and Experts
Postmodernism undermines the general trust that is a vital component of any well-functioning society, and the reason should become clear once one investigates the matter. When government bodies, media outlets, research institutions, experts, and other representatives of power or elites keep telling us Convenient Lies whenever they feel that is called for, more and more people will sense what is going on, and automatically lose trust in said entities. The consequences are serious indeed.
National governments as well as international bodies such as IPCC tell us that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are important (albeit not necessarily the only) contributors to global warming. There is almost certainly some truth in this – the question is how much. In any case, the claims routinely made by ‘green’ activists seem to overstate the issues. Interested readers are encouraged to study the book “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters” by world renowned climate scientist Steven E. Koonin; available in Norwegian translation as “Usikker Vitenskap – hva klimaforskningen sier og ikke sier, og hvorfor det er viktig”.
I am aware that Koonin’s book has received some negative reviews by other scientists in the field, but the suspicion lingers on that they too are overstating their case. Why? Because they are part of a climate movement that several years ago decided that “the science is sufficiently settled”, and that we should stop asking critical questions.
This is a recipe for public distrust; particularly so in a postmodern time and age, when ‘science’ is routinely abused to promote political and ideological goals.
Thus, many consider the warnings from IPCC to be part of an agenda aimed at taking away our liberties, destroying the West, overturning the current world order, or some other radical project. To further complicate matters, these suspicions are not entirely without merit (certain influential groups and organisations do indeed aim for the just mentioned revolutionary goals).
The bottom line is still that it is difficult to reach a broad consensus on what is causing climate change (human activities or natural phenomena such as increased radiation from the sun), thus making it harder to figure out how we ought to react to the challenges of global warming, which, for the record, Koonin and other critics agree is taking place. The bone of contention is the issue of what the main reason behind this warming actually is. There is also the question of what if any effect it would have on global warming if we were to dramatically decrease CO2 emissions. The above-mentioned book by Koonin has a detailed discussion of these topics.
The world is still suffering from consequences of the Covid pandemic. For a while now, we have had access to mRNA-based ‘vaccines’, but they are neither as safe nor as effective as originally claimed or hoped. What is the full truth about these ‘vaccines’ (experimental gene therapy based on mRNA technology)? That, unfortunately, is hard to tell. Even so, I have become very sceptical and regret the fact that I received two shots back in 2021.
The vaccine vendors are busy raking in billions of dollars in profits and cannot be trusted to tell us the whole truth about these things. The WHO and WEF are heavily influenced by the vaccine vendors, and also have their own agendas, indicated by slogans such as e.g., The Great Reset or New World Order, so they appear to be concerned with more than just our health.
Our politicians and the media generally tend to act as WHO, WEF, and others tell them, and truth is not always on top of their priority list anyway, so they cannot fully be trusted either. Many researchers and health professionals are warning against the long-term effects of mass vaccinations, but they appear to be denied a fair hearing. To know for sure who is right and who is wrong is beyond most of us, and will in any case require many hours of careful study of the arguments being used. Things would have been radically different had everyone been committed to speaking the truth all the time, but that – alas – is not the case.
Historically, postmodern modes of thinking and arguing have been the most prevalent on the Left, but the Right has been contaminated as well.
When certain political parties and their top people habitually deceive, exaggerate certain facts and hide others, and in all sorts of ways act without intellectual integrity, competing parties can easily feel tempted – or even entitled – to exploit similar tactics.
Anyone who cares about democracy, freedom, human rights, and other important aspects of healthy societies, should be aware that in practice postmodernism undermines all such values.
This is so, because when truth is replaced by emotions, antipathies, sympathies, and ideological preferences, a society loses its critically important ability to correct even the most serious mistakes.
As Carl Sagan put it in his book “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”: “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
Or as pop-rock group The Eagles put it in their famous song Hotel California, the final verse of which goes as follows:
Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
“Relax, ” said the night man
“We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave”
And so, sadly, “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device” (ibid).
The list of regrettable developments in the West is long indeed. Our schools, colleges, and universities are dominated by political correctness. Some of our democracies are increasingly torn apart by ever rising levels of polarisation (particularly the USA). Our media is not always truthful, to put it mildly. Our politicians are focused on popularity and feelings rather than on science and facts. Lawyers and judges are twisting the law to suit their own agendas. Western elites are waging war on certain religious groups. And so on and so forth. In all these cases, and many others, postmodernism is – directly or indirectly – among the culprits.
Healing our Civilisation
God is the ultimate source of all truth. He is also the ultimate source of all that is beautiful and all that is good (since anything false is in general ugly and no good.
For the record, there are certain situations where a lie is the lesser evil, but those are indeed very special situations, e.g., when you lie to protect a human life from a potential murderer.
This is millennia old wisdom, famously captured in Plato’s exhortation that truth, goodness, and beauty ought to be the essential virtues in our lives, as well as in our communities and societies. This is however, for several reasons, easier said than done.
Western societies are now by and large post-Christian and postmodern, which obviously make up an important part of the explanation why they have also to such an extent embraced the general attitude known as post-truth.
Professor Timothy Winter (a.k.a. Abdal Hakim Murad) writes (2012): “The stiff, fixed heart does not wish to change, or acknowledge error or weakness, and thus it adjusts reality, not itself, by telling a lie.”
Murad also writes (2020): “The pursuit of truth now seems set at the margins, thanks to […], or because of the ambient postmodernising culture in which the pursuit of truth is simply dismissed as a fool’s errand […] Truth, in this world, is an obsolete category; compliance with consensual dogma has replaced it.”
This, alas, is the new norm in our postmodern world.
Postmodernists like to point out that in a given case multiple perspectives might have relevance. Fair enough. But that does not imply that all perspectives are equally valid or equally relevant, or that there is no such thing as objective truth. This is where dishonesty tends to enter the picture, and where some feel justified in telling half-truths or even outright lies.
Thus, it is worth noticing that long before postmodernism achieved its current level of influence in the West, the French intellectual René Guénon realised that we were headed for trouble, aptly calling one of his books “The Crisis of the Modern World”.
An ominous symptom of the general state of affairs in the West is that American society – for multiple reasons – is in ever deeper problems. The world-famous social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has for many years been warning against American democracy becoming dysfunctional. Some experts even warn that the USA may be headed for breakup and/or civil war. Americans have particularly serious problems here, but most other Western countries appear to be in dire straits as well.
Unless the Western world can set its house in order in the not-too-distant future, liberty and other blessings we now take for granted will be but a faint memory for many of us.
Let us not forget that truth and liberty, just like truth and justice, or truth and goodness, are inseparable. That is so because God is the source for all of these virtues – as well as love, beauty, and much more.
This, according to my best judgement, is where the postmodern West has really gone off the rails. As communities, as nations, as a civilisation, we no longer value truth. The results are tragic indeed. And we have only just seen the beginning.
The postmodern West is doomed. Whether it will take more than a century or less than a decade before the West will experience profound changes is hard to tell. But make no mistake; the times they are a-changin. The increasing polarisation and tensions in the USA are among the many symptoms indicating that something is seriously wrong, and thus an omen we should all pay heed to.
Even though I recognise and respect the sincerity and honesty of many secular people, the fundamental problem is still that the West has turned its back on God, causing significant portions of the public to disregard truth, beauty, and goodness, which in turn causes our societies to become unsustainable (I intend to elaborate some of the problems of secularism in my follow-up article). And anything that is not sustainable will – necessarily – sooner or later be replaced by something else. An important reason behind our increasingly desperate situation is the influence of postmodernism, which is destroying the West from within.
What is likely to come after the post-Christian, post-masculine, and postmodern West? That is hard to tell, and different parts of the West could end up going their separate ways. Right-wing, left-wing, or other revolutions could take place here and there. Another possibility would be for fundamentalist versions of Islam to take control. None of these options strike me as attractive, and in the latter case we are looking at the ironic and paradoxical prospect of postmodernism paving the way for premodernism.
Conclusions
As societies and individuals, we need to rediscover the true values in life. I am convinced that God is the ultimate source of all such values. Thus, I believe the West must return to God if we are to survive as a viable civilisation.
What does it mean to return to God or to seek Him? Consider James 4:6 which says that “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (NIV). This is a quote/paraphrase of Proverbs 3:34 (echoed also in 1 Peter 5:5).
In other words, if we are proud and full of ourselves, we are likely to miss the mark. If, on the other hand, we are humble seekers of truth, we are at least heading in the right direction. Humility and willingness to learn are keys.
Catholic philosopher Edith Stein (1891 – 1942) put it thus: “All those who seek truth, seek God, whether this is clear to them or not.”
The Quran refers to the Jewish and Christian Scriptures as “earlier revelations”, and the just quoted verses from Proverbs, James and 1 Peter are in harmony with the main message of the Quran, which is calling all humans to humbly surrender/submit to God (see in particular Quranic verses 3:19 and 3:85; and carefully note my remarks below concerning the key word in those verses). The existence of all sorts of extremists, fanatics, and fundamentalists who insist otherwise (of which I am of course fully aware), does not change my position on this issue.
For a discussion of extremism within Islam, see e.g., “The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists” by Professor Khaled Abou El Fadl.
And for a discussion of the rational and liberal earlier history of Islam that so many – Muslims as well as non-Muslims – appear to be unaware of, I strongly recommend the brilliant and well-researched book “Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance” by Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow at the Cato Institute.
In this context, carefully note that the Arabic word islam as used in the Quran does not refer to the religion established by Muhammad (pbuh), but to man’s “self-surrender” or “submission” unto God in general. Please refer to The Message of the Qur’an and The Study Quran, respectively, for a discussion of these very issues (see in particular verses 3:19 and 3:85).
Writes M. Asad in the foreword to his translation of the Quran: ‘For instance, when [the Prophet’s] contemporaries heard the words islam and muslim, they understood them as denoting man’s “self-surrender to God” and “one who surrenders himself to God”, without limiting these terms to any specific community or denomination’.
The distortion of the original meaning of Quranic verses that contain the words islam or muslim (again, this applies in particular to 3:19 and 3:85) has been a major source of tragedy and disaster in the history of the Islamic religion.
Monotheistic readers – whether you label yourself Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and/or something else – are encouraged to turn away from dishonesty and wishful thinking, live up to the ideals of your religion, and be truth seekers.
Likewise, secular readers – whether you label yourself atheist, agnostic, humanist, and/or something else – are also encouraged to turn away from dishonesty and wishful thinking and be truth seekers. Consider in this context, e.g., world famous atheist Richard Dawkins, who should be applauded for his consistent pursuit of truth over several decades (although I obviously think he is mistaken and misguided on certain philosophical issues).
Let us remind ourselves: All people of good will, whether religious or secular, should be concerned with truth in general – speaking the truth, pursuing the truth, and acknowledging and respecting truth wherever we encounter it – even when it’s challenging or painful.
Let us all strive for the maximum amount of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in our lives. The past 100 years or so of Western history shows that postmodernism is opposed to these sacred values. Every sincere person should therefore approach postmodernism with skepticism, to put it mildly.
In my next article, I intend to pursue a more detailed investigation of the relationship between postmodernism on the one hand, and Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Humanism on the other.
References and Further Reading
Mustafa Akyol, Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance (St. Martin’s Essentials, 2021).
Pope Benedict XVI & Peter Seewald, Dictatorship of Relativism, Catholic Education Resource Center, 2010.
Britannica, Postmodernism.
Lawrence Cahoone (ed), From Modernism to Postmodernism – an anthology (Blackwell Publishing, 2003).
Noam Chomsky, Po-mo and its contribution to activism et al (1995).
Richard Dawkins, Postmodernism disrobed, Nature, 09.07.1998, vol. 394, pages 141 – 143).
Daniel C. Dennett, Dennet on Wieseltier v. Pinker in the New Republic: Let’s Start With A Respect For Truth (Edge, 2013).
Khaled Abou El Fadl, The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (HarperOne, 2007).
René Guénon, The Crisis of the Modern World (Indica Books, 1999, 2007).
Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Allen Lane, 2012).
Jonathan Haidt, Why the past 10 years of American life have been uniquely stupid (The Atlantic, 11.04.2022)
Jacob Hess, Jonathan Haidt: We are on a path to ‘catastrophic failure’ of our democracy if we don’t change (Desert News, 06.06.2022).
Alister McGrath, The Great Mystery: Science, God and the Human Quest for Meaning (Hodder & Stoughton, 2017).
Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History (Scribner, 2016).
Abdal Hakim Murad, Commentary on the Eleventh Contentions (The Quilliam Press, 2012).
Abdal Hakim Murad, Travelling Home: Essays on Islam in Europe (The Quilliam Press, 2020).
Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate – The Modern Denial of Human Nature (Penguin Books, 2002).
Ziauddin Sardar, Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim (Granta Books, 2004, 2005; see in particular page 290).
Roger Scruton, Fools, Frauds and Firebrands – Thinkers of the New Left (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2019). Also available in Norwegian translation.
David Smith, Is the US really heading for a second civil war? (The Observer, 09.01.2022).
Alan Sokal & Jean Bricmont, Intellectual impostures: postmodern philosophers’ abuse of science (Profile Books, 2003).
By Ole Jørgen Anfindsen
This is the first of two articles on postmodernism.
Also available in Norwegian: “Postmodernisme versus vitenskap, fornuft og sannhet”.