9
meaning." Taylor is like Nietzsche in that he attempts "to turn the loss of meaning into
a net gain for humanity. For it is only when we abandon the hope of a higher life and of
recovering the hidden meaning of life that we can abandon ourselves to this life."
39
Taylor claims that the postmodern person must not accept nihilism passively, but
actively -- and must willingly embrace it.
40
. But we should rightly ask, as Vanhoozer
has done: Is nihilism truly freedom or is Taylor's celebration premature? Is it really
possible to have joy and freedom following the death of God?
41
Taylor's a/theology has
not adequately handled the human condition of despair if he pulls out all the plugs.
Taylor does not seem to acknowledge the deep, emotional, grief that should
characterize the loss he is advocating. He is speaking no less than eliminating the entire
base of beliefs by which all who usually consider themselves "Christian" are building
their emotional, religious, and family identity upon. Although he refers many times to
the sense of loss and awareness of death that one embraces in postmodern thought, his
"theology" lacks the practical wisdom to help one work through such emotional grief as
human beings. Instead, Taylor abruptly moves forward with an abstruse intellectualism
seemingly unaware of the desperate human condition he is placing others in.
42
B. The Violence of Despair
If we are indeed trapped in a maze of endless wandering and "erring" all of our
days without any hope of escape or finality, then we are "placed not in joyous
disempowerment but in panoptic dominion."
43
Gillian Rose submits that "[v]iolence
lurks" in Taylor's "labyrinth."
44
This is a criticism worthy of consideration. She
contends that there is violence in nihilism itself. One may not warmly embrace nihilism
when it violates all that we understand to be true. One must consider the "violence" of
essentially destroying all historical Christian understanding committed by Taylor's
a/theological proposal. Humans need some understanding of history and destiny.
Landmarks are simply a device people use to measure their lives in order to live their
lives to the fullest on a daily basis. Such an a/theology seems to be ultimately self-
destructive and unworkable in real life.
39
Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in this Text? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), pp. 72, 73.
40
See Taylor, Erring, p. 140.
41
Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in this Text?, p. 73.
42
See Erickson, The Word Became Flesh, p. 325. Don Cupitt, although not specifically referring to Mark C.
Taylor, also submits, that such a departure from past traditional notions, will be extremely difficult for theology.
Cupitt states: "A relgious tradition finds it even more difficult to admit that it is in terminal crisis and needs to
make a break with the past than does a philosophical. And would not a complete break require an entirely new
language, which nobody would be able to understand?" Don Cupitt, The Long-legged Fly (London: SCM Press
Ltd., 1987), p. 120.
43
Gillian Rose, "New Jerusalem, Old Athens From The Broken Middle," in The Postmodern God: A Theological
Reader, ed. Graham Ward (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 329. p. 318-339.
44
Rose, "New Jerusalem, Old Athens," p. 329.