Tag Archives: relativism

Getting back to relativism

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Last Friday at our church we had a great presentation by Mark Strauss on the reliability of the gospels. You can watch it here: http://www.efcc.org/grow/sermons/sermon-messages/series/13/. For this blog post I’d like to get back to my discussion of relativism. Let’s look at challenges of relativists and good responses to them.

They may say there are no absolute truths because people disagree about morals, art, philosophy, and politics. But just because it’s hard, it doesn’t mean truth cannot be found. We may need to look for more evidence. C. S. Lewis says that, in fact, there are no real differences in societies. All cultures, for example, say the unjust killing of people is bad. What has changed is the concept of justification.

As part of this challenge against the existence of absolute morality, critics may give you the story of the blind men and the elephant. In this account several blind men encounter an elephant for the first time with one feeling the tusk, another touching the leg, a third running his hand along the elephant’s side, and a fourth tugging on the elephant’s tail. Each of them argues that he has figured out the elephant, but obviously they only have a piece of the truth. A nobleman comes by and tells them to stop arguing, that they have in fact a piece of the truth but not the entire truth. The message here is that we who disagree about absolute truth are blind to the big picture. But notice where that places the narrator of the story – he becomes the nobleman with the truth. How is it that he has sight but the rest of us do not? That’s a pretty egotistical thing to suggest.

We get the same situation when we are offered a different illustration. In this one there is a mountain with God at the top and many roads leading up to the top of the mountain. These roads represent different religions with their own truths. But if they could only see from an helicopter, they would notice that they are all heading toward the same destination. Again notice where this places the narrator of the story – in the helicopter with a birds-eye view of all religions. How did this person get such a lofty position above the rest of us? How is it that this individual has a privileged position compared to all of us?

Next time I’ll explore more objections to absolute morality and ways we can begin to find truths in morality and religion. This is a crucial issue to discuss in today’s society since so many people have bought into the view that all morality and religion is a matter of subjective views.

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More problems with relative/subjective truth

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We’ve been talking about the idea of truth in today’s society. Nearly 2/3 of Americans say there is no such thing as absolute truth, and 57% of church youth agree. Yikes! Truth is seen in other areas, just not in morality or religion. In past blog posts I discussed the difference between absolute/objective truth and relative/subjective truth, how we got such an increase in relativism, and one problem with relativism (it is self-defeating). This time let’s get into some other problems with relativism.

For one thing, it’s a lazy way to avoid thinking about religious and moral issues. When somebody says, “that’s just your truth,” that means he or she does not have to take you seriously and listen to your argument. Another relativist may say, “all religions are the same,” but again he/she has not really taken a look at religions. They differ greatly when it comes to the idea of who God is, what the human race is, the problem of humanity, how we solve the problem, what happens to us after this life,… Again, this is a lazy way to avoid considering what each religion believes and why it believes that.

Another huge problem with relativism is that nobody can live out this idea. We all commit to a view, and we believe our view is superior. For example, consider Nazi Germany. Who in their right mind today would suggest that the morality espoused by the leaders in the 1930s is no better or no worse than any other morality? Someone who is a feminist beliefs that position is superior to a patriarchal way of running a society. A person sensitive to racism believes it is far better to show kindness and respect to all races than to believe one is superior to the others. We are built to have these innate moral thoughts.

Finally another problem with relativism is the way it leads to the new idea of tolerance, which says all truths are equally valid. This shuts down discussion immediately, leads to political correctness, allows the introduction of twisted ideas to become mainstream, and, strangely enough, leads to intolerance. If you disagree with a “tolerant” person, he/she will not try to argue with you. Instead, you will be seen as dangerous, intolerant (get the irony?), narrow-minded, . . .

Next time let’s take a look at challenges raised by relativists and answers to these challenges.

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Problems for Those Who Believe Truth is Relative

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In the last blog post, I started discussing what’s happened to truth today in our society. Absolute/objective truth (a correspondence to reality)  has been overshadowed by a new type of truth – relative/subjective truth in which each person or group of people has individual truths. Let’s take a look now at the problems with this relativism, which is so prevalent in our society today.

First of all, an easy criticism has to do with the fact that it is self-refuting. Think about somebody who tells you he or she can’t speak a word of English but uses English to tell you that. You can see the confusion with that claim. Or somebody else says that each sentence in English must be shorter than two words. Again, there’s a problem here because the person took more than two words to give you that sentence. In each case you notice that what he or she says defeats the point the person was trying to make. This is what I mean by saying some statements are self-refuting.

So now let’s look at self-defeating comments made by somebody who is a relativist when it comes to truth. “All truth is relative.” But this statement claims to be true for all people, which is an absolute statement. Here’s another one – “There are no absolutes.” But again, this is an absolute statement. Someone may say, “That’s true for you, but not for me.” That individual has made a claim that is true for both people. Then there’s this one – “There’s no such thing as truth.” See the problem? That’s a true statement. One more – “We can’t know anything about God.” However, that is a statement about what we can know about God.

Watch for these self-refuting statements from modern-day truth skeptics. They will make such skeptical statements, but their claims are blanket statements which they believe apply to everyone in the world. Probably the most blatant example of self-refutation has to do with individuals who write books supporting their belief in relativism. Why in the world would they write books for everybody if they think there’s no such thing as truth for everybody?

Okay, more to come with problems for relativists in a future blog post.

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What Is Truth?

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In our Apologetics 101 class we first covered a general introduction to apologetics and tactics. We then discussed the issue of truth, and that’s what I’d like to take a look at today.

We started with a quote by Allan Bloom: “There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.” That’s how far we’ve come as a society. We used to be able to argue various beliefs, assuming that somebody had the truth and somebody was wrong. But not anymore. We hear things like “That’s just your truth.”

We then took a look at two definitions of truth. First is absolute/objective truth, whatever corresponds to reality. It is discovered, transcultural, unchanging, unaffected by emotions or beliefs, and knowable. For example, the shape of the earth was always around, no matter what people believed over the centuries. Secondly, there is something called relative/subjective truth in which each person or group of people has his/her own truths. It is created, specific to cultures, ever-changing, affected by emotions, not knowable. The second definition is the type that has swept through our society today. Think of preferences for ice cream flavos–nobody is wrong in having different likes.

We traced back this increase in relativism to a lack of belief in the existence of God. As people have become increasingly secular, relativism has flourished with several unpleasant side effects. First, people say there are no standards anymore outside of the individual, which leads to a disintegration in arts, morals, and philosophy. People are far more self-centered as well. In addition, people are unwilling to criticize with the result of dangerous ideas on the rise. There is an emphasis on pleasure – if it feels good, it must be right. Relativism also creates less confidence since people believe there is no meaning to life. If each person decides on his or her own morality, there must be a powerful institution like government to force people to behave a certain way. In addition, relativism rejects reason and argument in favor of emotional tirades. Political correctness raises its ugly head in this time of relativism. Then there’s multiculturalism, the idea that every culture is as valid as every other one.

I want to continue this discussion about truth in a future blog.

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