Theology in a Postmodern Age
By Nancey Murphy
(Reviewed by Ron Sanders)
Theology in a Postmodern Age is the written collection of Nancey Murphy’s Nordenhaug Lectures given in 2003. Murphy’s project is to elucidate the problems that modern philosophy created for the Christian faith and to point out the promise of questioning these modern philosophical assumptions for the future of theology.
Murphy questions five philosophical assumptions that characterized the modern era (1650-1950): (1) foundationalism, (2) scientific reductionism, (3) representationalism, (4) reductionism in human nature and (5) epistemological internalism. Her first lecture focuses on (1,2,3), lecture two focuses on (4) and lecture three focuses on (5). Let’s take them in order.
Murphy argues that three metaphors dominated modern understandings of knowledge, science and language. For knowledge, the metaphor of a building, with solid foundations dominated the epistemological landscape. In theology, this meant searching for a foundation for religious knowledge. Murphy argues that there were only two options: first, the conservative option relied on Scripture as their foundation, and second, the liberal option relied on religious experience as their foundation. She argues that this focus on foundations produced a chasm between the liberal and conservative branches of Christianity. This chasm only increased as a reductionist view of science developed during the modern period. The scientific metaphor of the modern era was that the universe is like a giant machine. For theology, the question became how God works in such a mechanistic world. The conservative option was interventionist—God intervenes in the natural order—and the liberal option was immanence—God works through the natural processes. Finally, the modern metaphor for language was a mirror—our language reflects and presents reality. Theological conservatives tended to focus on the facts, truth, and precise representation of religious language, theological liberals tended to focus on language as an expression of a person’s experience. Again, this only increased the chasm between liberals and conservatives.
Murphy also contends that modernity produced an unnecessary chasm between liberals and conservatives in their understanding of human nature. Accounting for the unique aspects of human existence required an explanation. The conservatives posited a substance other than the body—a soul—to explain those unique capacities. Liberals were uncomfortable with something like an immaterial substance, and posited that human nature was only physical. In both cases (dualism and physicalism respectively) Murphy contends we find an inadequate and reductionistic account of human beings.
Finally Murphy contends that modernity produced a picture of human beings as trapped within themselves—their true selves are located within in the mind or soul. This inside-out approach trapped people behind their minds and caused skepticism about a mind-independent reality.
After outlining the problems created by modern philosophical reflection, Murphy contends that the postmodern shift (1950-present) holds out more hope for theological reflection in the future. Postmodernity questions all five philosophical assumptions: (1) eschewing foundations for knowledge, (2) rejecting scientific reductionism, (3) focusing on the instrumental use of language, (4) rejecting dualism and physicalism as adequate pictures of human nature, and (5) escaping from the Cartesian theater of the mind to get to the concrete realities of human existence.
