A Short Introduction to Postmodernism and the Christian Response: Every Truth is Valid, Until It's Not

Jacques Derrida

His Major Idea: “Nothing exists outside the text.”
His bumper sticker idea: “Every ‘Truth’ is Valid…until it’s not.”

Derrida is, in my opinion, the vaguest of the three Postmodern philosophers.

The major idea quote is a mistranslation of the French, which says, “il n’y a pas de hors-texte.” This can be translated “There’s no outside—text,” but that makes even less sense. He posited that words mean things within their context, but the historical and cultural significance of words can change over time. He called this idea différance. As far as this goes, he’s right.

But where he landed in his explanation of différance is where we encounter the idea that Postmodern interpretation of texts—or just about anything—is purely subjective. He called the aim of assigning meaning to a text deconstruction. A meaning was assigned once, but now, since things have changed, we need to assign meaning again.

Within the “process” of deconstruction the meaning of any text is perpetually postponed: There is never a time when meaning can be understood as being complete. In other words, Paul wrote the letter to the Romans, but when we read the letter to the Romans, we can assign a different meaning to what he wrote than what he intended because our understanding of words has changed over time.

Much of what Derrida says is hard to understand, and every now and then, he says things that are correct. And to be fair, as Christians, we have experienced times reading the Bible when certain passages become more meaningful the more we read them. However, meaning is enhanced only because our understanding of what Paul was saying has deepened, not because it’s meaning has changed because we live in a different time and culture than Paul. And, in most cases, we certainly can ascertain meaning in a text: We don’t need to postpone the meaning.

How we should deal with this: “strengthened in the faith as you were taught”
Colossians 2:6b

Gary Habermas, in an extended transcript of the John Ankerburg special called  Evidence for the Historical Jesus, makes a compelling case that Christian doctrine was systematically taught to new Christians very early within the history of the church. (See especially the transcript for Program 2, pages 17-30.) Habermas makes the case that the teaching was established very early because that’s what the early church needed to ensure its veracity. For example, the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas were deemed to be too late and inaccurate to be included in the New Testament canon, even though they put forward a new meaning to the story of Christ.

If you encounter a new meaning to a Biblical text that hasn’t been put forward in the two thousand years since Christianity began, it’s probably wrong.