Duffy on Postmodernism and Mormon Apologetics

Posted on March 31, 2009
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In the other thread we ended up discussing Duffy’s “Can Deconstruction Save the Day? ‘Faithful Scholarship’ and the Uses of Postmodernism” that was in Dialogue last spring. I’d not looked at the paper since late last spring and didn’t recall it that well. But I finally got a copy and wanted to make a few comments.First, his presentation of what “postmodernism” consists of is horrible. It bears no resemblance to the thinking I’m familiar with by figures often labeled postmodern. (For the record I’ve come to hate the term postmodern simply because so many use it to mean sloppy thinking and relativism of truth) He also tends to do the “label someone and then argue in terms of the label rather than what they wrote” technique at times.

That said I’ve heard quite a few people suggest that it’s a fascinating as much as it is frustrating. So let’s put aside the philosophy where Duffy has no idea what he’s talking about. All of that could easily have been eliminated from the paper. (And were I an editor I’d have encouraged it – the paper just didn’t need the postmodern aspect)

His basic point is that apologists argue that theories aren’t neutral. That is if a historical theory includes as part how God isn’t real then that is problematic. It’s hard to dispute that this is a key dispute. Further when some historians adopt psychoanalytic theories and so forth “as given” then it seems unremarkable that those who reject those theories will have trouble with the history. So it’s unsurprising that believers and disbelievers will disagree if some controversial claim is a premise for an argument about history.

That’s not particularly postmodern. I think what one should say is that theories can be vague. That is not take a position on say God, prophecy or so forth. For much historical writing it honestly doesn’t matter. The problem pops up when you deal with a figure like Joseph Smith, Mohommad, or others for whom their history is wrapped up in their religious views. Needless to say a skeptic will interpret things different from a believer from that religious faith.

Now the question of “perspectivism” is interesting. Ignoring Duffy’s attempts to tie this to philosophy (especially Nietzsche) I think there’s some truth here. That is apologists attempt to do scholarship making assumptions secularists would not. However this opens up its own problems since even among apologists not all of them agree on what God is doing, where God’s intervention ought be assumed, and a lot else. Indeed among what I’ll call “the good apologetics” it seems that beyond a few broad assumptions there are almost no religious assumptions in the scholarship. That is they accept that there were Nephites somewhere, that revelation is possible even if you can’t tell who is fully having revelation, and that God can intervene, even if you can’t always tell historically when he is, and so forth. To move beyond that they have to make arguments from history. Some do better than others (and some are atrociously argued). But by and large there isn’t agreement and given that it’s merely accepting something as possible it’s hard to see this as a strong perspectivism. Further it seems clear that just because you accept the possibility of revelation that saying something particularly is from God tends to be trickier. And I’d just note that typically even apologists don’t do that in their arguments.

So I think Duffy is clearly correct to a degree. It seems, though, hard to deny he overstates things too much. This is because he ignores the very real debates and differing views from within apologetic organizations. The debate really isn’t about perspectivism and certainly not postmodernism (although some writers do embrace certain philosophers sometimes viewed as postmodern). Rather the debate is really over scientism. That is are the only acceptable assumptions those already established by science?

I can certainly understand those who approach history, especially Mormon history, skeptically. I’d like to think I do myself. However it seems to me that complaining because some people at least allow God, intervention and so forth as at least living possibilities is odd. At a minimum one can engage these arguments. Heaven knows people have pointed out flaws in apologetic arguments without necessarily attack those fundamental issues. Why isn’t that the approach to take?

It seems to me that the best LDS historical writing – especially among what might broadly be called the apologetic movement – simply provides arguments. Having to argue over fundamental issues (like the existence or non-existence of God) is silly. But on other issues (such as authorship, text transmission, etc.) what counts are the arguments. And I just can’t see too many arguments that depend upon what Duffy calls postmodernism.

Related posts:

  1. Mormon History & Critical Theory
  2. Arguments from Evil
  3. Are there Examples of Accepted Conceivability Arguments?
  4. Arguments
  5. Spatially Located Souls
  6. The Secular Question

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