On pp. 77-80 of The Great Emergence, Tickle goes into Einstein and Heisenberg, about Einstein's Theory of Relativity and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. And what do these scientific theories have to do with the Bible...?
...Nor would the Heisenberg Principle stay safely tucked away in physics laws. Instead, "uncertainty" became the only fact that could be accepted as fact, not only in the popular mind, but also in large segments of the academic world as well
In particular, literary deconstruction planted its standard dead in the center of Heisenberg, claiming that there is no absolute truth, only truth relative to the perceiver. And, as an obvious consequence, all writing--be it sacred or secular--has no innate meaning until it is read and, therefore, has no meaning outside of the circumstances and disposition of the reader. Enter the battle of the Book. Enter the warriors, both human and inanimate, who will hack the already wounded body of sola scripture into buriable pieces. Enter the twentieth century's great, garish opening in the cable's waterproof casing of story.
Tickle, The Great Emergence, pp 79-80
If you've heard some people make arguments against the current postmodern virus, you'll likely have heard them sum up the postmodern position in a statement something like this, "The only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths". I mention that because Tickle may as well have said that when she writes ""uncertainty" became the only fact that could be accepted as a fact".
In other words, it is a statement that is it's own contradiction, it is self-refuting. One cannot believe it because if it is truth it is a false statement. To say that "The only certainty is uncertainty" is to make even that statement an uncertain statement.
So, right off, we can see that postmodernism is a realm of madness.
Even more subject to madness and the result of it is the statement "there is no absolute truth, only truth relative to the perceiver". McLaren goes on in one of his books about how postmodernism is supposedly a reaction to Nazism and the certainties that led up to it. Even granting that those early pomos may have been at least partially right in the diagnosis of the problems leading up to Nazism, can we really say that extreme uncertainty really sufficiently answers what went wrong? If truth is merely relative to the perceiver, than upon what basis can one even answer someone who says that something like Nazism was a good thing? If there are no absolute truths, than how can one say that Auschwitz was evil? And if such a thing happens again (and things like it have happened since then, in places like the Soviet Union and Cambodia and China and Darfur), how are these disciples of uncertainty ready to say that those who do those things are wrong?
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