A Christian Perspective of Postmodern Existentialism

The New Humanism of Western Culture

John D. Carter

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781725292659
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The Western Humanism originating in classical Greek philosophy--where the capacity of human reason became the dominant means for perceiving a worldview based in reality--reigned in Western philosophy until the onset of Postmodern Existentialism in the mid-twentieth century. Plato's Theory of Forms prepared the Western gentile mind to accept the rationality of a transcendent ultimate reality, and in so doing steered the gentile mind from its bent to pantheistic deities. The apostle Paul boldly proclaimed to the Athenians that their "unknown god" was indeed the transcendent God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Christianity prevailed in Western philosophy until the Enlightenment--which was the result of the unprecedented success of the scientific method--began to turn the Western mind to the existentialistic idea of the relativity of moral truth.

Part I

Historical

1

What is Existentialism?

My introduction to Existentialism came by way of Wesley Barnes’s introductory book entitled The Philosophy and Literature of Existentialism. I purchased the volume at the US Army post exchange while serving as a young soldier in Fulda, Germany. During that time, I was a thoroughly lost young man, and I was reading various authors trying to understand the turmoil of the times. Western culture was then undergoing an unprecedented upheaval because of various issues involving socialism, communism, racial injustice and what many people, particularly those of my generation, believed to be an unjustified American involvement in Vietnam. That war was still in progress, although it had by then begun to wind down from its peak.1 Professor Barnes’s book was one of the Barron’s Education Series publications, and it was a good introductory work to the subject of Existentialism. My own thoughts were being pulled in an existentialistic direction, away from the Christianity of my childhood, and I was struggling to reconcile those early Christian influences with the facts of life that I was then observing daily. Upon the careful examination of Barnes’s book, I began to understand Existentialism and its implications in the social unrest of that era. Barnes stated in the preface to his primer, “Our contemporary films, plays and newspapers carry the movement [Existentialism] and are carried by the thesis of the existing individual who strives for identity and meaning solely in and through his own terms.”2 It is important to note that the common thread of any humanistic worldview (be it Modern Humanism, the subject of my prior book, or Postmodern Humanism, the subject of the present book) is man’s quest for meaning and purpose “through his own terms,” i.e., through human terms.

The Dane Søren Kierkegaard, a professed Christian,3 turned the philosophic focus away from society to that of the individual. He was the first to interpret phenomenal reality within the relativity of each existing individual. Thus, in Existentialism, the significance of existence becomes primarily what any given existing individual interprets it to be. In Existentialism, all reality is relative to the individual who perceives, simply because of his existence, and this essentially translates into morality becoming relative to individual conscience. Therefore, Kierkegaard bears great responsibility for the contemporary idea of the relativity of ultimate truth. It is in Existentialism that the concept of “what is true for you is truth for you, but what is true for me is truth to me” becomes a falsely perceived reality.

Therefore, in Existentialism, the concept of absolute truth goes out the window, and reason becomes jeopardized as it becomes suppressed in existentialistic thinking. Although the goal of existential Humanism is consistent with the goal of Enlightenment Humanism, the former Humanism strives for that goal primarily through human volition while the latter Humanism strives for that goal through the guidance of reason. Both forms of Humanism strive for meaning and purpose through human terms, whether or not the existence of God is acknowledged. Furthermore, the rise of evangelical Christianity in Western culture, with its emphasis on individual salvation through one’s own choice, has possibly contributed to the onset of an existential religious Humanism that seems to be in competition with an understanding (i.e., an understanding which is consistent with Scripture) of the truth of Christianity. Existentialistic thought, in general then, is characterized by the suppression of the rational aspect of human personality in favor of an acclaim to the sovereignty of the volitional aspect. Some practical and easy-to-understand examples of this principle in action should be instructive to the reader, as they will show firsthand how existentialistic thinking has led to false concepts of reality in our Postmodern culture.

Some Practical Illustrations of Existentialism
in Postmodern Western Culture

Recall how many times you have heard parents and educators tell their young subjects something like, “You can become anything you want to be if you are willing to work hard enough.” But this often-quoted maxim is simply not true. I was recently watching a national news program which featured for their closing story a segment that told of a blind high school football player who had scored a touchdown on a goal-line-stand in a regulation contest. When interviewed the young blind student stated proudly that his goal was to play in the NFL. Of course, such courage and drive can be admired, but realistically any person who understands the game of football knows that young man is striving towards an unrealistic goal. Some responsible person in that young man’s life should help him direct his noteworthy drive towards a goal that is more reasonable. Many blind people have made admirable contributions to society but certainly not as NFL running backs. The existentialistic idea that the exercise of one’s choice can accomplish anything that he or she might desire is certainly perpetuating a false reality.

As another practical example from my own life experiences, I once attempted to tutor a student who was taking a course in college algebra with the goal of being admitted to nursing school. No matter what method I used in my attempt to help that student understand the concepts of algebra, there was simply nothing that worked. No matter the amount of effort the student exerted, the intellectual capacity to understand the essential elements of algebra was simply not present. The false idea that one can achieve a goal simply from the desire to do so is a result of the Postmodern philosophy of Existentialism. While an existentialistic society may find a way to award an individual with an IQ of 100 an MD degree, I certainly would hope that if I were to be admitted to an emergency room—clinging to my life because an errant driver had turned into the path of my antique R69S, a machine that has inferior stopping power compared to that of contemporary motorcycles—that ER would not be staffed by a group of like physicians and nurses! Of course, I am saying this with tongue-in-cheek, but nonetheless there is a genuine reality mirrored in that sentiment.

A final practical contemporary example is given from the world of American politics that demonstrates the acquiescence of reason for the sake of placating an irrational demand that was made by an existential observation. Earlier in her political career, the thoroughly humanistic Hillary Clinton made a statement that came back to haunt her when she was seeking the Democratic party’s presidential nomination in 2016. In 1996, when campaigning for her husband Bill Clinton’s presidential re-election, she attempted to defend her husband’s 1994 crime bill. That bill was introduced to allow for the use of enhanced policing to control the increasing violence of gang related criminal activity occurring in America’s most populated cities. In so doing she made the statement:

We need to take these people on. They are often connected to big drug cartels. They are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super predators,’ then-first lady Hillary Clinton said, according to a C-SPAN video. “No conscience, no empathy. [sic] We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.4

This rhetoric, while not particularly egregious, was simply a strong way of saying that society needs to be diligent at enforcing the law to get control of the crime problem in question. The inducement and enforcement of law is, of course, a most effective tool that the humanist has at her disposal to affect control of human behavior. But because of the preponderance of existentialistic thinking in Western culture, Ms. Clinton was forced to back away from her original statement, even though it was based in a rational and factual position. The implementation of President Clinton’s enhanced policing policy resulted in an increase in the arrests of black Americans. When that enhanced policing policy resulted in occasional incidents of excessive use of police force against the criminal element, black Americans began the movement called “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) to protest increasing incidents of police misconduct.

When Hillary Clinton was leading a fund-raiser to support her bid for the Democratic Presidential nominee in 2016, a protester, representing the “BLM” movement, rudely interrupted the proceedings, and requested that Ms. Clinton apologize for “mass incarceration.” The protester stated, “I’m not a ‘super predator,’ Hillary Clinton.” But Clinton, instead of addressing the situation in a rational manner by insisting that she had not called her (the protester) a super predator, was quick to acknowledge that she had originally misspoken. So here we see the situation of a skewed reality brought about by an existentialistic mindset. Ms. Clinton was not guilty of calling the “BLM” protester a super predator as the protester was implying. But instead of pointing out that reality to the protester and standing her ground, Clinton gave way to the protester’s irrational position most likely because it was the path to the least resistance for maintaining peace in that situation, and causing minimal damage to her political goal. The importance of keeping peace in that problematic situation, brought on by the irrational position of the protestor, outweighed the need to address the situation in a rational manner.

Of course, Existential...