The Biblical Metanarrative

2008-05-24

Living in a pluralistic world, every mind of every human being is another parallel world, teeming with one’s own way of seeing the world, fashioned by one’s experiences and enculturated by the society the same has known since birth. With the extensive globalization that is sweeping the darkest corners of the world’s frontiers, we have begun to see that there are people that see the world very differently than we do. What may be appropriate in one culture may be an insult in another. The scientific advances of the last century have opened our eyes as to how the world works from the subatomic level to the outermost recesses of the universe. With all this knowledge, we have begun to learn how much we really do not know.

The postmodern world in which we live has given rise to doubt as to how we can know anything. It is a backlash against the epistemology that modernism has introduced. There has been disillusionment with the human faculty of reason because, even though there have been marvelous breakthroughs in the sciences over the last century, much tragedy has accompanied it. Rising crime, tension between international powers, proliferation of nuclear weapons, the angst over a deteriorating environment, broken homes and a myriad of heartbreaking realities plague our world.

Two major questions seem to be on the minds of those in our postmodern culture, both of which are interrelated. First, how and why can one worldview be superior to another? Everyone has his or her own philosophy or religious conviction as to what the prime reality of our world is, even if that conviction is that there is no prime reality. Everyone has his or her own ideas as to what the purpose of life is, even if the idea is that there is no purpose. Modern thought would say that two contradictory thoughts, philosophies, religions, and so on, could not both be true. The postmodernist does not seem to mind these contradictions.

The second question, which is related to the first, is how can we possibly know anything at all? Since the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, the debate between creation and evolution has continued in America. But an objective look renders unavoidable suspicion: no human being was there when the world began (if it had a beginning), so could we ever be certain if either of these two options is viable? Maybe there is a third option of which we never conceived? Talking about primeval history is one thing. But who is alive today that was alive when George Washington was President of the United States? How do we know for certain he is not a part of American folklore designed to bring about nationalistic feelings and legitimize the government? This may sound absurd, but the question still remains unanswered: on what basis do we claim to know anything?

The worldview that states that one cannot know objective truth claims its own objectivity and exclusivity. While this does not seem to concern those who hold this value, it is a problem to hold this as truth without consequences, intellectually speaking. We seem to believe in objective truth when we get financial statements from our banks, credit card companies, and investment firms.

I believe that we can know objective truth despite the limitations of both language and the human psyche. Any one person may not be able to know everything about all sciences. However, we can know something about the world in which we live; we can know something beyond our inner-worlds in which we seem confined.

In Sire’s Naming the Elephant, he pleads the case for ontology preceding epistemology. By this, he means that being precedes knowing. The opening of the Biblical text does not employ any apologetic as to the existence of God; the crucial Creation hymn in Genesis 1 assumes it. In the book, Everlasting Life, I will assume the very same: the foremost way I will demonstrate his existence is by the message of the Bible itself. This requires much explanation, but I assure you that the supernatural nature of the Bible itself will demonstrate God’s existence, sovereignty, and interaction in real life. While I tell its sacred story, this will become apparent. Begin the story here.

Reference

Sire, James W. Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2004.