Dr. Hiebert provides us with an understanding of the basic contours epistemology germaine to the ongoing conversations regarding the cultural ebb and flow of modernity and postmodernity. The book is arranged in three major sections: 1.The Epistemological Foundations of Positivism; 2. The Epistemological Challenges of Instrumentalism and Idealsm; and 3. Critical Realism–A Way Ahead. Additionally he offers sixteen concise figures which provide, in some cases, diacritical analyses of the subjects covered in the text, and in other cases illustrative examples.
The first two sections set the stage for explaining and contrasting his adopted perspective, Critical Realism. Although he is not dogmatic in his assertions, he does provide strong arguments as to why he thinks critical realism is a better way forward. Notably, in the process he critiques the positivism of modernity and the instrumentalism of postmodernity. Postmodernity, he argues rightly, is a negative reaction against modernity, often for good reason, but not so often with ideas for a better way forward. Postmodernity tends to focus a bit more on deconstruction and criticism, sort of as a inevitable antecedent of its reluctant forebear, rather than as a healthy corrective. However, I would add that there is much to be thankful for in certain elements of postmodernity and the emerging church movement in the Western hemisphere, namely the call for holistic gospel and ways of doing church, and a move away from Greek dualism, which unfortunately separates concern for the soul from concern for health and social justice. Moderns generally tend to think and act as if body and the material is bad and the spiritual is good. This is not a biblical concept.
On page 107, Figure 15 is offered as a comparative chart of the Epistemological Shifts Western Thought. I will use the next few paragraphs to describe partially the conflicting views. Critical Realism is posited as globalism and vice versa. Whereas modernity espouses positivism which declares, for example, that a photograph is an exact representation of truth, and whereas postmodernity suggests alternatively that a Rorschach instrumentalism reveals relevant truth perspectivally, globalism as defined by critical realism offers maps, blueprints and models as partial representations of truth. Critical realism then, argues that there is an ultimate reality, a truth that is independent of human perception, but also suggests we can know in part to the extent that ultimate reality reveals itself to us, and to the extent we are able to observe and perceive in the natural.
Positivism focuses strictly on absolutes, often naively so. Instrumentalism focuses on the pragmatic vis-a-vis the perspectival and often, as they are so often accused, the relative. Positivism tends to be reductionistic while instrumentalism is usually pluralistic and fragmented. Both worldviews focus almost entirely on their own preferential tendenz. Critical realism, on the other hand, suggests a different way, an integrative metacultural perspective, neither modern nor postmodern, neither positivism nor instrumentalism.
Anthopologically, the positivism of modernity adheres to evolution, specifically articulating the unity of humanity and civilization and absolutes. Positivism focuses on one comprehensive theory to describe everything. The instrumentalism of postmodernity, on the other hand, offers particularistic theories, reflecting the diversity of cultures and humanity. Wheras modernity tends to be etic, absolute and sender oriented, postmodernity is characterized by functionalism, emic, relative and receptor oriented. Critical realism, however, is postfunctional, focusing on the unity/diversity of human cultures, etic/emic, absolute/relative, correspondence oriented, and integration of several comprehensive theories. For critical realists, the goal is a metatheology leading to community based theology rather than simply the systematic comprehensive theology of modernity or the deconstructionist and pluralist theology of postmodernity.
This serves as a poignant reminder of the helpful elements of both modernity and postmodernity. The former focuses on the text and rightly so. The latter on social context and rightly so. Globalism posits the necessity of the text in context, which is to say doing theology within the rubric of the social sciences so that the text truly can be communicated and understood within varied human contexts. Lest anyone within modernity should see red here, I am not suggesting that culture should inform the meaning of the text. I am suggesting that practitioners and scholars should gain particular understanding of specific cultural contexts so that we may communicate appropriately the sacred text with winsome clarity.
This implies, as Hiebert suggests, an incarnational witness which offers revelation from above to all cultures, rather than simply the West to the East as in modernity, or simpy dicovery from within as in postmodernity. The confrontationalism of modernity is rightly critiqued by postmoderns as being no longer effectual, at least not in the postmodern culture of many western cities. But to be fair, the nonconfrontational approach of postmodernity may also prove to be equally ineffectual. Surely there must be a middle groud, a better way forward. Hiebert suggests that the “hard love” which can only be effectively employed by legitimate incarnational witness offers the best alternative.
For my part, I am not prepared to do away completely with confrontation, where appropriate. Nor am I prepared to disregard as a fad the postmodern preference of nonconfrontational evangelism, understanding that sometimes this is the very sort of thing God will use to draw the lost to him in specific contexts. I wish that writers from both worldviews would tone down their antipathy and rhetoric toward each other.
As I reflect on my reading of this book, I feel called to weigh carefully the weaknesses and strengths of the opposing worldviews, namely modernity and postmodernity, but not so much that I accept uncritically the critical realism set forward by Hiebert. I think his thesis is timely, even if the book is a bit dated. Yet I ask myself, how might I as a practitioner, take the best implied by critical realism and integrate it into my own life and ministry?
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