Proverbs 14.8
“The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deceiving.”
Proverbs 14.12
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”
Proverbs 14.15-16
“The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps. One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless.”
In May of 2017, I did a series of devotionals that focused on the danger of postmodernism. Given the topic of discernment and awareness here in Proverbs 14, it’s time to revisit that topic.
Now more than ever we need high levels of awareness and discernment. There are powerful social and political forces at work in our time that seek to deceive and distort. Combating these deceitful forces requires great discernment and discipline.
Postmodernism is a worldview that is shaping much of the thinking and discourse in the public arena in our time. If you listen to any form of media today, you are constantly exposed to postmodern ideas. It is vitally important that you have discernment … that you recognize the distorting influence of postmodernism.
As it says in Proverbs 14, “The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.”
Postmodernism is rapidly becoming the principal philosophy on university campuses, and thus young people in particular are being heavily influenced by this philosophy. If you have children in college, it is virtually guaranteed they are being exposed to and encouraged to embrace a postmodern view of the world.
A university professor recently wrote, “Our campus culture puts more emphasis on voice, narrative, and story than it does on truth. A growing number of professors accept the postmodernist notion that there is no such thing as truth, only narrative. The result is the blurring of distinctions between history and literature, fact and fiction, honesty and dishonesty.”
We live in strange times. Until recently, Christianity was under fire at most universities because it was thought to be unscientific, and consequently, untrue. Today, Christianity is widely rejected precisely because it claims to be objectively true. Increasingly, the cultural elite label as arrogant and intolerant anyone claiming to know objective truth. The cultural elite don’t just claim that Christianity is untrue; they claim that truth itself is not true. This is the direct result of postmodernism.
Postmodernism has its origins in the writing of people like Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Derrida, Thomas Kuhn, Michel Foucault, and Martin Heidegger. Many of you reading this devotional have not read the works of these writers; nevertheless, the influence of their books and essays has been profound.
At the heart of the issue is this question: Does objective truth exist? Objective truth means reality that exists independent of someone’s belief, whether that belief is individual or cultural. When something is objectively true (like the existence of gravity), it’s true for everyone regardless of whether people acknowledge it or not.
Truth Decay
Objectivity understands that the real world exists, even though we may experience it differently or see different aspects of it or even have different beliefs about it. Those who believe in objective truth think that we have a common base from which to discuss what is true and what isn’t, because we all live in a real world where truth can be observed, discovered, evaluated, and known.
Postmodernists deny that there is an objective reality. Instead, they claim that different cultural groups live in different “realities.” To them, a group or individual’s reality is their perception or interpretation of the external world, and is not the objective world itself. Postmodernists claim we do not discover truth; rather, they asset that we “create” truth in the way we interpret and talk about the world as we experience it.
The postmodernist does not define truth in relation to reality; instead, they view truth in relation to a community or culture that shares a narrative. The “true for you but not for me” rhetoric popular on college campuses and in the general culture is the result of a postmodern view of truth. Here is another way to say it: According to postmodernists, I do not believe a thing because it is true; rather, a thing is true because I believe it.
Needless to say, according to postmodernism there is no such thing as an objectively existing God. And there are no moral absolutes; no objective ethical or moral standards by which people or societies should live. In fact, because postmodernism rejects objective reality, it has no objective reference point for anything.
The consequences of this distorted worldview are catastrophic. Without objective truth, there is no reference point; there are no standards. It opens wide the door for self-indulgence and reckless living. It creates an “anything goes” attitude and lifestyle.
It is precisely what Proverbs 14 means when it says: “The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deceiving … There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.”
