the personal journal of Brent Stewart
Several lines of thought and reading converged this week in John chapter 1.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14
This phrase, “Word became flesh” doesn’t mean alot in our modern context, in the same way the allusions and references of Stuart Scott wouldn’t have meant anything to Socrates. But people in the Roman empire would have been familiar with Platonic thought and it would have meant something specific to them.
In college philosophy, I learned about Greek idealism. Plato taught that objects exist in the “real world” as pale reflections of an ideal, in the same way that a shadow on a cave wall does not capture the full nature of the object that produces it. Words point to that ideal. “Cup” is a reference to an ideal cup, where actual cups are lesser implementations. This concept of “Word became flesh” then makes a claim that Jesus is the ideal.
Buried in this worldview is the concept that words mean something specific. Postmodernist and deconstructionist thought suggests that all language is premised on a desire to dominate, that is to enforce a claim of truth that disadvantages certain people. In this view, ideals and theories are rejected versus lived experience. Since perception varies, the very basis of language is called into question. Words mean what the individual wants them to mean, and for another person to even try to understand is to “impose” a doministic world-view and invalidate their lived experience.
Clearly, this is absurdist bullshit.
What’s not always as clear is that it’s a priori ani-Christian. In fact, because it’s anti-truth it’s so goofy, it’s also anti-Science! Post-modernism is found all over modern life. It’s found in the movement to deconstruct faith. It’s found in Marxist thought and in critical race theory.
There’s a lot of discussion about surging narcicism but in a world without truth where the only thing that matters is personal experience, self-centeredness is a necessary outcome. Defined truth, by it’s nature, allows us to communicate, to learn about each other, to empathize, and to join. How can one person help another - in a deconstructed world - without that help being perceived as an imposition of values? And if Jesus is conceived as an ideal, then deconstruction denies that ideals (and thus Jesus) have value.