Allowing for the Transcendent in Postmodernism

A position in academia should exist in which tenets of Postmodern thought can be posited on a foundation of faith—a camp in which apologetics is used to test theory, not simply to dispel it. The seeming Postmodern tendency to eschew any sort of unified experience asks necessary questions of conventions that seem antiquated—conventions of social codes regarding gender and race, of social etiquette and expectations, of religion, and how the self is perceived (this list is far from exhaustive). Finding gaps in convention leads to finding gaps in consistency and, therefore, in the logic behind convention and in the performance (and the ensuing experience) of it. Thus, identifying these gaps can result in heightened awareness and subsequent bridging of them. However, in an attempt to expose very legitimate issues, acceptance (or even recognition) of the transcendent seems to have been discounted (completely for some, nominally for others). In general, theorists seem to perceive persons of faith as unthinking conventionalists who refuse to muddy the waters with probing questions. Those who have rejected faith seem to be respected because they have shed convention and allowed themselves to absorb life and render opinions based on their own [limited] experience. In the confines of academia, recognition of the transcendent elicits surprise because the intelligentsia tends to assume that its own have moved beyond religion (i.e., convention), apparently into the much more enlightened realm of skepticism. The transcendent can be defined as that which defies human explanation or even experience, for human experience cannot define meaning for all time. Only that which transcends all time can define experience—i.e., that which transcends is the Divine, God. Clearly, in academia, there exists the widespread assumption that one progresses beyond the confines of religious convention; one does not bury oneself further into it. However, I would like to promote a faithbased look at autobiographical Postmodern theory —a look that allows theory to penetrate assumptions without sacrificing doctrine’s divine experience, a look that might, in the end, conclude that the end result of Postmodern thought is a realization of the Divine.