Postmodernism: Lack of Meaning

A Life of Nothingness

The popular culture of the world is an ever changing realm which sometimes catches us by surprise. In a grander way, the world of the current younger generations and the way that these people look at the world has changed from even one or two generations ago. There is a term used to describe this arising new outlook known as “Postmodernism”. To examine this outlook, we will look at different aspects of it. We will next examine the Lack of Meaning for life.

Deadly Poison

A true poison to the life of any person, no matter what walk of life or age, is the implication that their life is without purpose or meaning. When confronted with such an idea, the common reaction is listlessness, despair, or even self-harm. The reason is obvious: without purpose there is no real consequence to negative action or inaction, nor any benefit to positive action.

In times past, those opposed to God and the teachings of the Bible did so with the intent of replacing such teachings with another false purpose. For example, pagans would replace the true God with false ones, creating a broken morality befitting their own desires and sensibilities. In later years, humanists replaced God with the god of man himself, creating a morality based upon (in theory) the “bettering” of humanity. These false purposes, while worthless and empty in their own right, at least acknowledged that there was a void to be filled by “something”.

However, the Postmodern worldview, because of its notion that one cannot “impose” one’s idea of morality, purpose, or meaning upon another (as mentioned with the earlier “Relative Truth”), the end result is an abandonment of the concept of meaning. If one cannot say that a particular purpose that applies to one also applies to another, what is “purpose” anyway?

Nothing New Under the Sun

The sad truth is that similar notions have been explored in the past. Solomon famously concluded literally thousands of years ago: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person” (Eccl. 12:13, NASU). However, such a notion would is foreign to the Postmodern, because for something to apply to “every person” it must be an objective purpose.

From the perspective of Christians seeking to provide truth to a lost and dying world, it is eye opening to realize that instead of offering a real and better purpose to who are lost, to some we are offering the very idea of meaning itself to those whose lives are absolutely meaningless.