Truth War Conference Notes: Part One

I am starting a series on the blog that will be made up of notes that I took from the Truth War Conference that Dad and I attended last November. (You can read an overview of our trip here.) The group of posts will consist of five sets of notes that I took from each session of the conference. The series is going to start off with Phil Johnson's session titled: 
Can Truth Survive in a Postmodern Society?

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Truth requires us to acknowledge God.

1. 2 Timothy 3:1-7
2. 2 Corinthians 10

Society believes Truth can't be known, so Truth does not matter.

Modernism began in 1850 and lasted until 1980. Modernism is opposed to anything supernatural. Postmodernism is the death of modernism and began in the 80's.


Progress of Western Thought:

1. Premodern

• Covers a span of 2500 years
• There is an objective ultimate truth.
• Supernatural; Reality is not just what is visible
• Authority is from God; Along with ultimate truth there is an ultimate authority.

2. Modern 

• Spans 250 years
• There is still an objective ultimate truth
• Anti-supernatural; Supernatural is irrelevant in the search for truth
• Authority is from science and human reason
• Thomas Payne helped bring forth modernity
• All socialist experiments have their roots in modernism

3. Postmodern

• Postmodernism began in 1980 and is still going today
• Objective ultimate truth is unknowable 
• Mystical supernatural; People go by feelings. Reality is a subjective perception of ones mind
• There is no ultimate truth. God is without authority.  

Christianity is not premodern, modern, or postmodern. 

Secular philosophy always gets worse. As a result, western thought is becoming more hostile to Christianity.


Postmodernism is hostile to any worldview that makes a claim to truth.

Postmodernism is also known by deconstructionism. Where instead of wanting to know truth, they only want to eliminate certainty. Postmoderns thinks that certainty is intolerance.


Christianity has always been opposed to the wisdom of the world.