2008-06-02T15:27:00.000-07:00

Tell Me Don’t Show Me; I’m from Postmodernity
Jim Gray

Introduction

What is Truth? Of all of the questions which may strike fear into the hearts of philosophers, ministers, historians and thinkers of all kinds, it is that question which probably remains the most frightening. Truth be told, questions about truth and the meaning of truth date back to much of the world’s earliest wisdom literature. While it is probably safe to surmise that people have always searched after truth, it is much harder to explain what truth is. Even the Merriam-Webster dictionary is at a loss for words when attempting to define truth; Webster defines truth as “a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true.” When one finds that a dictionary is at a loss for words, one can be assured that defining something like truth is no small undertaking.

Fortunately, for the purposes of exploring truth and how it relates to stories, we are less interested in what truth is and more interested in discussing how truth (or an idea) is communicated. However, before discussing communication, it will be helpful to offer a very brief history of the way in which truth (or an idea) has been viewed throughout history. At that point, it will be possible to discuss the relationship between truth and stories, and offer some insight with regard to the way in which stories might be used to communicate truth in a contemporary context.

A (Very) Brief History of Various Views of Truth

The way in which truth was viewed in the Ancient World is obviously quite different from the way in which truth is viewed in a Modern context. Surprisingly however, the Ancient view of truth bears some striking similarities to the way in which truth is sometimes viewed in a Postmodern context; it seems that in some ways the whole debate has come full circle after thousands of years.

The Ancients, it seems, were not exclusively concerned with logic, historical accuracy, or verifiability. Thinkers in the Ancient world were apparently quite comfortable with the idea of paradox; for example, we see that in the Hebrew Bible, God is often revealed as Lion and Lamb, Servant and King, etc. We also see passages in the Hebrew wisdom literature such as Proverbs 26:4-5:

“Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself.
Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes.”

The real question surrounding paradoxes such as these is not “Are these things logical;” rather, the appropriate question is “What are the writers trying to communicate.”

With the introduction of Aristotelian logic and Greek philosophy, the concept of how truth is understood began to change. Beginning with observations of the world around them, the ancient Greek philosophers began to ask a different type of question: What is real? A famous and well known example of exploring this type of question is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, in which several men are chained up inside a cave, with their backs to the cave’s opening. When the sun hit the cave in a certain way, the men were able to see their shadows, and this was their reality. They began to formulate, based on their observations, what the “real” world was like – but all they had to go on was their observation of the shadows of the things that were outside the cave. One day, one of the men breaks loose, and sees the world in its true form. He attempts to share his new-found knowledge with his former cave-mates, but they are unable to accept what he is explaining to them because their observations do not correspond with his description of the real world. In other words, the Greek view of truth was such that truth must be inexorably linked to reality – whatever that meant. In the Ancient Greek mind, if something did not correspond with reality, then it was not “true.”

The advent of modern science and the enlightenment added enough fuel to the fire to permanently cement the apparent link between “reality” and “truth.” Thanks to the advent of modern science and the deductive scientific method, people were suddenly able to make verifiable observations about the real world; thus, if something could not be scientifically verified and proven using a combination of scientific reason and hard logic, then the nature of its reliability was called into question. In other words, unless something could be proven using modern methods, one had to question whether or not it was “true.”

These modern methods of discovering the reliability of beliefs and observations were not relegated merely to scientific observations about reality; they were linked to the way in which people understood the world, and subsequently, the way in which people began to understand history. And what is history, other than the story of humanity, and how humans arrived at the point they are today? Stories about the past, then, began to fall into three basic categories: First, those stories about the past which could be verified and proven using scientific methods, deductive reasoning, and logic as being historically accurate beyond the shadow of a doubt – these stories were considered “true.” Second, those stories about the past which failed one or more of the tests mentioned above, but might still be historically accurate – these are stories which “might be true.” Last, those stories which failed enough of the tests mentioned above (i.e., they contained events which defied logic, science, and human reason) – these stories were considered “untrue” or, in today’s language just that – stories.

Hence we arrive at the basic conclusion of how the Modern world views stories: A story, almost by definition, is an account of something which seems to defy, or at very least fail, logical explanation. In fact, if today we wish to communicate something in narrative form which is also historically verifiable, we feel that we must add the caveat that this narrative which we are about to communicate is a “true story.” In other words, the implication here is that stories (again, almost by definition) are unverifiable and thus almost always “untrue,” unless one qualifies a narrative by explaining that it is actually a “true story.” Therefore, when we hear that a book or movie is “based on a true story” we know that there is some grain of historicity attached with the narrative. Conversely, since many people equate stories with events that are “untrue” (i.e., historically unverifiable), we often hear people dismiss such narrative by saying something like “Oh, that’s just a story.” In this case then, “true” is used almost interchangeably with “historically accurate” and “untrue” is used almost interchangeably with the word “story.”

Similarities Between Ancient and Postmodern Views of Truth

Such a view of stories does a grave injustice to the value of storytelling and narrative. It seems almost as if in many modern contexts the Ancients are excused for believing such stories as Noah and the Ark or the story of Jonah, who was swallowed by a whale and lived to tell about it, simply because we assume that without the knowledge of logic or the modern scientific method, they would have no way of knowing that such stories were untrue. We assume that because we do have the benefit of such knowledge, that while it might be acceptable for the ignorant Ancients to believe such things, it is not acceptable for us to believe such things.

However, there is little evidence to suggest that the Ancients thought that their stories were historically verifiable – in fact, the question of historical veracity probably never even crossed their minds. For the Ancients, such stories held truth value regardless of whether or not they could be proven as historically true. These stories, just like folk tales and fables, at one point communicated something to their hearers that is universal to the human experience, even though they do not necessarily live up to modern standards of historical accuracy. In fact, these stories can still communicate something valuable, if we let them. Imposing a Modern view of truth on a story created well before the Modern era and then dismissing it as invaluable because it fails a litmus test for which it was never intended is not only anachronistic, it is a travesty.

According to Dan Kimball, understanding in the Modern context was rooted in “power and faith in human reasoning, science, and logic;” whereas in the Postmodern context, understanding is rooted in “power and faith in personal experience.” Since understanding and truth are deeply intertwined, it seems safe to suggest that the roots of understanding for a particular culture are also where the roots of their views concerning truth lie. If Kimball is correct, we see that the Ancient view of truth and the Postmodern view of truth are much more similar to one another than either of them are to the Modern view of truth.

Tell Me, Don’t Show Me; I’m from Postmodernity:
Storytelling and Ministry in the Postmodern Context

It is important to treat stories with the respect they deserve; in fact, the majority of cultures in the world – both past and present – have a narrative view of truth, not a deductive, logical view of truth. Christians within the Modern context have expended a great deal of time and energy trying to “prove” that the Bible is “true.” Some Christians want to read the Bible as if it is all meant to be an historical account, and have gone to great lengths to squash archeological, anthropological, historical, and scientific evidence into a mold that will fit their beliefs about truth. Any scientific evidence which might suggest that some of the Bible may not be scientifically or historically verifiable is either dismissed, or attempts are made to prove that scientific observations are incorrect. In other words, when some Christians say that they believe that the Bible is “true” they are working with a Modern view of truth – they mean that they believe that the Bible is 100-percent historically accurate. Anything that might suggest the contrary is immediately viewed as a threat to their faith.

The Postmodern context is often times quite a different case. Indeed, the question as to whether or not something is historically accurate or logically provable is somewhat irrelevant. If truth in the Postmodern context is deeply rooted in personal experience, what better way to share truth – either universal truth or personal truth – than to tell personal stories.

As Christian ministers in a Postmodern context, we must continue to learn about the culture to which we are called. While not every Christian minister is called to minister to Postmodern persons, those of us who are should strongly consider using narrative to communicate truth. Postmodern culture does not demand that everything that comes out of our mouths is historically true and it is unlikely that anyone will ever ask us to prove something. Our task is in fact far more difficult: we must be authentic.

Sharing our own stories within a postmodern context can indeed be valuable, but we must also keep in mind that in many ways, stories like that of Noah and Jonah are far more likely to be of value to Postmoderns than Moderns because of the similar ways in which Ancient culture and the Postmodern culture communicate truth.

In the United States, each state has its own slogan. The slogan of Missouri is this: “Show me, don’t tell me; I’m from Missouri.” The opposite is true for those in the Postmodern context. Those who hold to a Postmodern worldview are not easily convinced by logic or scientific reason – they are convinced by personal experience. According to Kimball, Modern epistemology is rooted in a “man-centered trust in reason to discover truth” whereas a Postmodern epistemology is rooted in a “self-determined, pluralistic view of culture and religion [wherein] conflicting truths and beliefs are accepted.” If Postmoderns value personal experience and do not necessarily link truth with historical veracity, then storytelling is the perfect medium to communicate ideas within the Postmodern context. Postmoderns do not need to be shown why something is true – they need to be told a story. Tell me, don’t show me; I’m from Postmodernity.

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