A Confessional and Narrative Vision for Philosophy of Education: Justification and Basic Presuppositions of a Postmodern Approach

Abstract

In this article, we attempt to justify and present the basic presuppositions of a (Christian) confessional and narrative vision for philosophy of education in a postmodern context. We argue that although the nihilistic strand of postmodernity challenges the viability of religious discourse, postmodernity also re-opens the world toward its pre-rational foundations by means of the rediscovery of the primacy of narrative. In a postmodern age, any philosophy of education implies a basic understanding of, at least, the (historical) present and the past, in order to establish its place in the scholarly community of educators and educationists. We discern between two different versions of postmodernity and then proceed to explore what constitutes the postmodern narrative identity. Because the rise of postmodernity is intrinsically linked both to modernity and to the pre-modern Christian vision of the world, we explore the justification of a (Christian) confessional and narrative vision for philosophy of education in this respect by means of three fundamental questions. By elaborating on a postmodern Christian vision and by attempting to answer these questions in a narrative manner, we propose that a confessional and narrative vision for philosophy of education may be justified for the contemporary age. Toward this end, we deepen the postmodern rediscovery of narrative further by exploring the work of narrative. We then present a brief confessional account of the nature and scope of philosophy of education. Finally, we propose some of the central tenets of the Christian faith as presuppositions of our vision for philosophy of education.

Notes

1 In the available scholarly literature, the terms “grand narratives,” “master narratives,” and “meta-narratives” are often used interchangeably. In this article, we use the term “master narrative” for the sake of semantic consistency.

2 This trend remains vivid among postmodern philosophers, even for those in favor of “spirituality,” who believe that to dispense with master narratives corresponds to the true human condition: “Now my point in all this is not to make trouble for the sake of making trouble but to tell the truth, the postmodern truth, to put some teeth into the idea of a spiritual journey, and to get a realistic, nay a more hyper-realistic portrait of our common condition” (Caputo, 2014, p. 54).

3 Notably, most of the Christian thinkers cited in this article, such as Vanhoozer, Strauss, Stoker, and Taylor approached the opportunities offered in postmodernity’s relation to Christianity differently. Consequently, they arrived at different conclusions (positive and negative) and they also elaborated on different strategies to address postmodernity. This article attempts to engage in a positive approach. One of the main criticisms directed at a positive approach toward postmodernity, specifically Smith’s (2006), was expressed by Sweetman (2005), who argued that Smith’s usage of the term faith could be easily dismissed by opponents of religion as irrational, as a secular practice that excludes religion from politics on the grounds of reason. When viewed in consideration of the different sources in use, the trajectory to be pursued does not, however, assume any dualism between irrationality and rationality; rather, it attempts to overcome the primacy of reason via narrative.

4 Loughlin belongs to the Radical Orthodoxy (RO) movement. RO’s critique does not aim at addressing all kinds of postmodernism. If so, RO would have addressed the postmodern phenomenon of the rise of a multiplicity of forms of spirituality, which Taylor coined the “Nova effect” (Taylor, 2007). What RO does, in fact, is to confront postmodern nihilism with a Christian alternative, and this approach is how the “two versions of postmodernity” should be understood.

On the one hand, RO is a theological movement that speaks in the idiom of contemporary continental thought, engaging in theological reflection in the language of French phenomenology and critical theory. On the other hand, it has taken such thought in a polemical sense, seeking to demonstrate the paucity of postmodern nihilism and then to recover an alternative, Christian vision by returning to decidedly premodern sources (without wanting simply to recover pre-modernity). Although RO speaks the language of postmodernism—at times to the point of obscurantism, some have charged—it is at root a critique of postmodernism or at least particular incarnations of such. The conceptual tools of RO, then, owe much to the rubrics of contemporary continental philosophy, largely because of the legacy of Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, and others who, though subjected to sustained critique by RO, are nevertheless seen to be grappling with the internal breakdown of the Enlightenment project (Smith, 2004, p. 43).

5 The Augustinian theological model is, essentially, a narrative of a fallen earth that is contaminated with the consequences of the Fall (of man) and tells the story that all human beings are conceived and subsequently born in(to) sin. They are, therefore, obliged to live under God’s wrath and subjected to the reality of death, because death is God’s punishment for the primordial sin of Adam and Eve (the Fall). For this reason, human beings must be saved from Hades and eternal death by being reconditioned to the original state of eternal life (Spangenberg & Oosthuizen, 2017).

6 “The Void is just movement, change. Semiosis, signification, is a temporal moving process. Just reading a sentence, we should be able to feel on our pulses the way life and meaning continually come out of the Void and return into it. That is the new religious object. That is what we have to learn to say yes to … life’s urgent transience…. The sign is our only metaphysics, our little bit of transcendence” (Cupitt, 1992, pp. 61 & 95).

7 The fact that postmodern identity encompasses an understanding of everything prior to it in order to situate itself in the world is important because postmodernity’s suspicion toward master narratives presupposes not only an understanding and evaluation of such narratives, but also that postmodernity itself creates an alternative master narrative, thereby contradicting itself. As the reformational philosopher DFM Strauss (2009) explained, “The reaction of postmodernity against such totality perspectives evinces a lack of understanding of the conditions of human thinking” (p. 57)

8 Recently, the importance of narrative for Christian thought in a postmodern context continues to be promoted as a means of transition beyond postmodern relativism and toward a type of Christianity which prioritizes truthful narration over truthful reason (Watson, 2014).

9 This incompatibility is expressed in areas such as modern state constitutions and the well-defined and differentiated scientific areas and institutions. Because postmodernity is suspicious of master narratives, it has difficulties dealing with historically defined and developing institutions.

10 The “Nova” is an effect of the modern subjective turn. This multiplication of faiths, according to Taylor, has led to the fragilization of all belief systems, because the variety of arising religious possibilities undermines the authority of traditional religions in the contemporary lifeworld.

11 The assumption that God-man is a paradox rests on modern prejudices of categorization. There is an uneasy, yet nevertheless general agreement among contemporary biblical scholars that the mystery of the God-man (i.e., a man born of a virgin; never honored during his own lifetime for who he really was; forced to die scandalously on a wooden cross just to rise again from the grave; a man who eventually redeems his closest and most loyal followers from Hades and thus eternal death) is not restricted to Christianity alone. There is compelling scientific evidence that suggests that the God-man paradox was a universal (religious) narrative all the way from the Pillars of Heracles (Gibraltar), across the continent to Babylon. Although this God-man was known by various names, including Adonis, Attis, Bacchus, Dionysus, Mithras, and Osiris, virtually everyone in the ancient civilized world experienced the myth of the God-man as an active reality in their own spiritual lives. Everybody furthermore honored the God-man on the same days and also celebrated his birthday on the same days: either on 25 December or on 7 January (the oldest “birthday”), as well as his passion and resurrection during the time of Passover.

12 By concentrating mainly on Smith’s (2006) work on postmodernism, one might mistakenly believe that his view on the primacy of narrative knowledge and worldview over theoretical thought and reason is primarily based on insights gained from postmodern philosophy. Smith (2006) is, however, also known for his commitment to the reformed tradition, as well as for the influence that the Dutch reformed philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd had upon his own scholarly development. With respect to the link between theology, narrative, and Christian philosophy, Smith (2006) had already argued in a Dooyeweerdian line, in his work entitled “Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, Mapping a Post-secular Theology” (Smith, 2004). This argument is relevant for our article, because in this work, Smith (2004) affirmed that the thinker’s theoretical investigation of the world depends on his (pre-theoretical) religious ground motive. One should therefore understand Smith’s (2004) positive engagement with the postmodern applications of concepts such as narrative and worldview as presupposing the Dooyeweerdian understanding of religious ground motive as the central (pre-theoretical) driving force of the religious self.

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