3. Mystical. Eliphaz
appeals to his experiences to prove his point. He had a dream and his hair stood
on end. A spirit appeared. This was proof enough. He sees God as one who
"performs wonders that cannot be fathomed". He sees truth as something
elusive, beyond the reach of mortal men who are bound in the material world,
limited by the senses and the boundaries of existence. Truth to Eliphaz, and to
millions around the world, is available only in short glimpses and at special
times when the dimensions meet, in the time between times, in the gap moments of
revelation and enlightenment.
A funny thing about the Book of Job is that
each guy, with such radically differing thought processes, comes to the same
conclusion - Job has sinned and is therefore suffering. Even funnier is the
fact that all three men are wrong. The truth in this case is something more
complicated and mysterious. But watching them think is worth the exercise
since they represent how people think in general.
Back to Eliphaz.
I believe that Elipahaz represents the
worldview that is becoming predominant around the world and will one day
become the leading global metaphysic. Eliphaz is somewhat of a Mystic and
represents a mindset that is more common in eastern thinking than in
western, although our world is becoming post-western by the minute. He is
occupied with the power encounters of God (4:9), God's activity in the
natural world (4:10) and the need of justice for the poor (4:15-16)
Understanding Eliphaz is a key to understanding how people in Western world
are beginning to think. The new mindset represents a sea change in the way
we approach knowledge, truth, and how we explain things to people with a
differing value system.
Is Eliphaz postmodern? I say no. He represents
something of where we are going rather than where we are now. I will explain
in a few minutes but I need to flesh out the three worldviews first.
3 And No More
These three worldviews were first brought to
my attention by Dr. J. Carl Laney of Western Conservative Baptist Seminary,
during my time there as a student in the 1980's. Laney suggested that Bildad
was a traditionalist, Zophar a rationalist. Eliphaz, he called a Mystic. He
did not present them as global mindsets. Perhaps I took his teaching more
seriously than he did. But I have been roadtesting them now for 12 years and
still see them as the three primary metaphysics active in today's world. I
have also found them in various forms in the teachings of other people I
have encountered since Dr. laney.
For example:
Jim Peterson, who had just written "Life
Style Evangelism", spent a weekend with us at a retreat in Oregon. He
suggested that a major worldview shift was taking place. We have already
moved, he claimed, from a "God centered" worldview (pre-modern) to
a "man-centered" worldview. We are now moving to an
"environment" centered worldview. This would fit with Traditional,
Rational and Mystical.
Brother Thomas Wolf, missiologist and teacher,
sees Paul ministering to three mindsets in the Book of Acts: The Hebrews
[Traditionalists] in Acts 13, whom he addresses in Aramaic and starts with
the story of "our" fathers. The Athenians [Rationalists] in Acts
17 who receive from Paul a rational defense of the gospel and appropriate
steps to take (repentance). And the Mystical Lystrans Acts 14, to whom Paul
has to explain the healing/power-encounter so that they do not worship him.
He tells them it is the same God who has already been speaking to them in
the past by sending them rain. These would be the Mystics.
Paul Ray, from the Institute of Noetic
Studies, came up with three groupings of American people in the mid
Nineties. The Traditionals (29%) who are usually older in age, The Moderns
(47%), who make up the mainstream and Cultural Creatives (24%) who represent
the emerging culture and are the only group that is growing. His studies
show that the Traditionals have much in common with the Cultural Creatives.
Ray divides the Cultural Creatives into two groups:
The Greens (13% of US adult population) who
focus on social and environmental issues, and The Core Cultural Creatives
(11%) who value spiritual integration. This Core group are the leading edge
thinkers, says Ray, and twice as many of them are women than men.
The late Willis Harman, in his book
"Global Mind Change" was able to simplify metaphysics to three
basic ways of seeing reality.
M1 - Materialistic Monism. In this metaphysic,
Matter gives rise to mind. The stuff of the universe teaches us about
reality.
M2 - Dualism (matter plus mind). Matter-energy
stuff and mind-spirit stuff are two complementary knowlege sources.
M3 - Transcendental Monism (mind gives rise to
matter). It is this mindset that sees deep intuition and consciousness as
preceding any material evolution and products.
Harman's observation is that we are moving
from a M-1 mindset to M-3. In the M3 mindset, preference is given to the
unconscious and dreams. "Everything you see is the result of your
thoughts. " (from "A Course on Miracles")
Again, this fits with the Traditional,
Rational and Mystical.
But What About The Postmodern?
OK. This is what I believe. Cultures do not
shift immediately from one major paradigm to the next. There is a
transitional period that includes a rethinking of the previous paradigm, an
acknowledgement of its limitations, a deconstruction, an exploration of new
thinking to explain a new reality, an adoption of new ideas, a re:mixing of
multiple viewpoints, and eventually a radically different group consensus.
This transition period could last a hundred years before the majority of
people hold it to be the new dominant paradigm.
I believe we are in such a time as this.
Possibly half way through, if this change started in the 1960's. Paul Ray
believes that in the early 1960's, only 4% held to the value system of the
Cultural Creatives. Today a quarter of Americans would hold to that paradigm
and no doubt the number would be much higher among youth, artists, and media
influencers. Brian MacLaren says that 80% of young people have already
transitioned into a postmodern mindset and 20% of older people.
Postmodernity is the water we swim in. It is not a case of whether we like
or not. Or agree with it or not. It is here. It exists. It just IS.
However, and this will come as good news to
some, I believe that postmodernity is a transitional period and what we are
moving into will be different again. Not completely different, since there
are elements in postmodern thinking that will be here to stay. But our
journey is a long one and we have not reached shore yet. The transition from
one way of thinking to another does not come smoothly. There is always an
intermediate step, a series of experimental convictions that allows the new.
We will be in the postmodern world for some time and it is essential that we
come to grips with it and learn how to function in it. Just as our ancestors
came up with "Good News For Modern Man", we also must find the
good news for postmodern people. Functioning and even succeeding in the
postmodern world is not as hard as it seems. In fact, a world in transition
is generally more open to change and new things that than a world stuck in
the status quo of a dominant worldview. Explaining the mystery of the gospel
should be easier for us now than it has been for a really long time.
Postmodernism in the Context of Global
Worldviews
If there are three dominant mindsets, then
there is at least another worldview that would represent the transition from
one to another. If this transition takes time, which I believe it does, then
the transitional mindset becomes in many cases a worldview of its own,
although more dynamic than static. In our world, we are calling it
postmodernism, since we are leaving the modern worldview and will one day
adopt another. In the account of Job, the flow of conversation is
interrupted by a young man who, after waiting his turn to speak, tells Job
that the other three men are wrong. The young obnoxious man is Elihu. I see
Elihu as representing the transitional, which in today's world, is the post
modern. There is a pregnant moment when Elihu comes closer to the truth than
the three older men. And yet he also is proved to be wrong. In my mind,
Elihu personifies the deconstructive, the doubt-casting, idol-dethroning,
paradigm-shattering attack on the status quo. It is Elihu who is the
postmodern hero of the Book of Job.
Elihu: Postmodern Hero
The thinking of Elihu is the vehicle that
allows contemplation, suspicion, deconstruction, and the way to think in
another dimension. Listen to his advice to the suffering Job. "For the
ear tests words as the tongue tastes food. Let us discern for ourselves what
is right; let us learn together what is good." (Job 34:3-4) Here we
have three elements of postmodern thinking. The suspicious
"testing" of what seems right. The commitment to the local
community to discern for "ourselves". And the value of
collaboration in learning "together". I see in Elihu the
postmodern tension of today, the conflict of living and thinking in between
worldviews. For it is my opinion that we are moving from a Zophar (rational)
way of thinking to an more Elipahaz (mystical/experiential) way of thinking.
One that is more eastern than western, more Hebraic than Greek. One in which
experience precedes explanation rather than follows it. Rather than attacking
the shortcomings of postmodern thinking, we might do better to prepare
people for the worldview around the corners, one which is showing us
glimpses of itself.
Postmodernism: Worldview Number Four?
Walter Truett Anderson includes the postmodern
in his set of 4 ways of thinking. Anderson's first three fit in with the
previous sets that I have mentioned.
1. Social-traditional, in which truth is found
in the heritage of previous learning.
2. Scientific-rational in which truth is found
through methodical inquiry.
3. Neo-Romantic in which truth is found either
by "attaining harmony with nature and/or spiritual exploration of the
inner self." Again, these three line up with Job's three friends. But
Anderson adds another worldview.
The fourth he calls "postmodern-ironist",
which sees truth as not found at all but rather made or "socially constructed".
Anderson's distinction between finding truth and making truth is valuable.
All truth in its man-made packaging is somehow constructed by someone.
Three Kinds of Postmoderns
It is also important to note that there is not
a singular "postmodern" but rather many "postmoderns"
and many "postmodernists". For the sake of simplicity, there are
basically three postmodern positions, at this point in time.
Pauline Marie Rosenau, Professor of Political
Science at the University of Quebec, has done a great work in naming the
distinctions that separate the first two groups of postmodern thinkers, who
she calls "skeptics" and "affirmatives".
1. Skeptical Postmodernists offer a
pessimistic and gloomy scenario. They are inspired by early Continental post-modernism
(Heidegger and Nietzsche) and focus on the chaos, death, and impossibility
of truth. It is these early authors who were picked up by Christian teachers
as representative of postmodernism in general; a very unhealthy and unfair
critique which has made it difficult for dialogue to take place among
Christian intellectual communities.
2. Affirmative Postmodernists, who may agree
with the skeptics critique of modernity but offer a more optimistic view of
the post-modern transition. They are more influenced by North-American and
British authors. They affirm an ethical system(s). They value choices that
are superior and are open to honest intellectual practice. This is more
reflective of the Christian teachers who are training students to minister
in a postmodern world.
Rosenau acknowledges that there are some
postmodernists who avoid the label since the word "postmodern"
"promotes a singular view of reality, encourages closure and denies
complexity. Although she doesn't give a name to this group in the short
article of hers I am reading, others often call this group "post-postmodern"
or "po-po-mo". I don't like the term since it sounds too reactive
of modernity. People in this third category are no longer defined by what
they came out of but rather by where they are now and where they are
heading. In line with Rosenau's other labels, an appropriate name that I
would ascribe to this third set would be "Intuitive Postmoderns".
Anderson also sees three kinds of
postmodernists: he names them The Nihilist, The Constructivist and the
Player. The Player, like the Intuitive, finds it natural and effortless to
cruise this new world and find success in it.
Douglas Ruskoff, in his excellent book
"Playing the Future" would call the last one a "Surfer"
rather than a Player. Rushkoff describes Surfers as those that see the
"deeper order" in the chaos around them and learn instinctively
how to surf the patterns and move through life. The fractal patterns of
"self-similarity' reveal the patterns than can be surfed. He goes as
far to say that surfers (the kind at the beach with surfboards) were the
first postmodernists. If Christians were reading Douglas Rushkoff in the
1990's rather than Douglas Coupland, then we might have not camped out so
long in the skeptical mode.
Brad Sargent, of Golden Gate Theologial
Seminary, also sees three distinct postmodern thinkers and gives examples of
them.
1. New Edge, as personified by the punks of
the 1970's.
2. Far Edge, like the cyber-punks of the
1990's.
3. Over The Edge, like the Global-Nomads and
Third-Culture Kids of the emerging global culture. Many missionary's kids,
Sargent adds, would fall under this category since they have learned to
function in multiple environments.
In my own explanation of the various stages of
the postmodern transition, I found it helpful to use the following concepts.
1. Barn-Burning - a sometimes angry or
resentful deconstruction to delete what should not be there.
2. Dumpster-Diving - an inquisitive
exploration to discover and restore what was missing, hidden or forbidden.
3. Well, I don't have a good word for this
stage, actually. I was using Lego-Land but am not happy with it. Consider
the naming of this stage as a "work in progress". But even without
a label, this final stage of the transitional process represents a creative
re:mixing of the new and old elements to construct a new and better way.
Brian MacLaren, a leading Christian teacher on
this topic, often explains the transition using these same three stages that
I shared with him, even though the last one lacks a title.
Lets Catch Up
There are three major worldviews and, at the
risk of oversimplification and a shameless reductionism, we could sum them
up like this. There are:
1. Traditionists, who inherit truth
2. Rationalists, who discover truth
3. Mystics, who experience truth And, if we
include the present transitional postmodern mindset,
4. Postmodernists, who construct truth.
Of course the postmodernists would say that
everyone constructs truth, based on their own background, disposition and
bias. But the postmodernist is the one who admits it and would not take
their own construct as seriously as the others. The posture towards man-made
truth is more humble, suspicious and playful, in the acknowledgment that
everything made by human hands is suspect. That goes for our sermons, books,
theologies. Even our statements of faith are tainted by prejudice and
therefore under suspicion. This leads us to affirm the words of the famous
hymn, "I dare not trust the sweetest frame [construct], but wholly lean
on Jesus name. On Christ the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking
sand. All other ground is sinking sand."
So right about here is where the
traditionalists and modernists chime in with their attack on postmodern
thinking. Is there a truth that is really true? Absolutely true? (They like
that word, "Absolute") And there is not one single correct
postmodern answer since, as I have said, there are many postmodernists and
not all of them would agree with my stance. But let me answer it my way.
Yes, Virginia, there is truth. But truth is
found in Someone, not something. God is truth. His Word is truth. God never
changes. He will always be true. God is also beyond time and space and the
small boundaries of human definitions. But we are bound by time and space
and see through a glass dimly, at least on this side of eternity, which
humbles us in our intellectual treatises and makes us more dependent on God
to reveal himself. It also removes us from an unhealthy dependency
(idolatry?) upon scientific methods to determine correct interpretations. It
drives us towards faith in God, dependence on His Spirit to lead us, to
protect the sanctity of the mystery of God, to value the role of creation as
a co-revealer of God, to be holistic in striving towards truth, to trust in
each other as the community of God (Ecclesia). All in all, to be faithful to
God and each other in this postmodern world means to be people of faith,
people who are holy (wholly) just as God is holy, people who refuse to
downsize God by reductionist explanations. We are moving from dualism to
holism, piecing things together rather than pulling them apart. Humility and
honesty in our attempts to discover and communicate truth.
Elihu says it well. "How great is God -
beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out . . .
Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds?" (Job 36:26-29)
So . . .
It is probably true that we are half-way
through a major global paradigm shift. The time of Eliphaz is almost upon
us. From a rational world of highly processed truth that gives way easily to
human inquiry to a world of mysterious, elusive truth that lies hidden in
nature and peeks out occasionally through power encounters, dreams,
revelation and the truth that resonates in what is really Real. We are
presently experiencing the chaos of transition out of modernism and into
something that is as yet undefined. The time of transition is one in which
we cannot land anywhere for very long, cannot see everything clearly. We
need to have faith in what is unseen, to rest in God's ability to lead us.
As Job says "But you know the way that I take. And when you have tried
me, I shall come forth as gold. (24:10)
References
Global Mind Change: The Promise of the 21st
Century, Willis Harman, 1998, Institute of Noetic Sciences
Playing The Future: What We Can Learn From
Digital Kids, Rushkoff, D. 1996, HarperCollins
The Truth About Truth: De-Confusing and Re-Constructing
the Postmodern World, edited by W. T. Anderson, 1995, Putnam
Godspace for the New Edge, By Brad Sargent.
1997, Cutting Edge Resources, Golden Gate Theological Seminary.
Paul Ray, ONN Interview, 1998,
www.cogenesis.com