Moral Relativism
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I remember the dismay of my high school ethics teacher when he asked his teen-aged class whether any action was “always right” or “always wrong” or whether it depended on circumstance. Almost all the class concluded that circumstance determined whether an action was right. We grappled whether stealing was justified by the need to survival, and other juicy philosophic questions.
A Victorian perception of ethics has been exposed as ethnocentric and fraudulent by a generation of existential philosophers. What we are left now is a deceptively unified agreement to disagree. Any one who claims to know universal truth is immediately beaten down as closed minded, intolerant and offensive.
This moral framework leaves agnosticism as the only logical option for thinkers and scientists, TV presenters, and any public leader. The proclamation “God is Dead” resounds through our seats of government, colleges, and even some churches, although their clergy try to camouflage it. To share one’s religious beliefs is an act of insult. To be a missionary is to be a religious extremist, a cultural terrorist.
These questions gnaw at me, ever since I decided I would be a part of a mission team. I certainly don’t feel like a missionary! I find it difficult to have zeal. I do, however recognize the hand of God in many small things that happen to me. I can defend orthodox theology skillfully, but how do I fight the framework of relativism? What use is theology to the postmodern unbeliever? I can very skillfully share the gospel, I believe it fully. Yet I find it difficult to evade the label of “closed minded religious nut”.
Moral relativism is in fact a very shrewd observation. It’s basic tenet is that there are no objective observers. No one is impartial. Everyone is tainted, contaminated by culture, and cannot think outside it. Only an outside observer can judge accurately. But, there are no human outside observers. Who can we trust? No one.
What follows next is the source of the chasm. Since no one is an objective observer, some have concluded that everyone’s beliefs are valid, even though they are contradictory and mutually exclusive. Many people of faith conclude differently, however. We conclude that if all humans are invalid observers, we need someone who is not human, the true God, to illuminate our minds with objective truth.
The great error of atheists (not agnostics) it that they think only the believers are biased. They do not see that they are just as contaminated with culture as the believers. They have subscribed to an atheistic culture, and believe it as blindly as many religious people. They think they are the only ones with objective truth. In that they subscribe to the very same error they denounce. Atheism is their god, their religion.
The question that divides us is whether a source of objective truth exists. In my case I believe that the Bible is the best source. At first glance, the Bible fails as a source of objective truth, because we did not receive it intact, dictated from the mouth of God. It was inspired by God, but written by mortal, fallible men, more than 70 of them. Many of them lived millennia apart. Their language and culture span ancient Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Palestine and Arabia. Even between those of them that lived relatively close together, there are apparent contradictions, as in the doctrines of James and Paul, for instance. Upon closer scrutiny, though, I find that it contains much timeless wisdom, unity of teaching, and accurate archaeological information. It is undoubtedly a genuine document, in the sense that it is ancient, and very well preserved.
Does it contain objective truth from God? Could these truths survive being channeled through culturally biased people? Should these truths govern our behavior now, several millennia after the ink dried on the last manuscript? I believe that the answer to these questions is “yes”.
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You can make a judgement according to circumstance without believing in moral relativism, as long as you believe in ultimate objective principles, and for that you don’t need the Bible.
Science can deal with objective truth, critical thinking. But what you seem to be looking for is not objective truth, but absolute certainty. Sorry, but you can only get absolute dogma.
I agree with what you say…there can be objective truth, but how do we attain it without contaminating it with our own culture-soaked world view?
I share and understand people’s need of a bond with something greater than themselves and transcending all human fallibility, it’s arrogant to bluntly deny it. It’s possible to find some objective truth within the framework of the Bible but that doesn’t make it inerrant. I see it as an instrument of spiritual guidance that requires critical interpretation due to the historical and cultural context in which it was conceived, not intended to be taken literally. This interaction between the human intellect, conscience, will, and belief is a matter of faith rather than knowledge. And faith by its very nature requires belief outside fact and even objective truth.
I was a little worried until the last “yes”.
(I thought you might give some explanation like Hebrew letter man.)
God will see to it that the Word remains true throughout the ages. The gift of faith confirms it’s truth and accuracy. That is where absolute certainty exists. In the heart.
Yes, I appreciate Daniel’s comment. “Hebrew letter man”. I only disagree in one thing…the requirement to believe outside fact and objective truth.
I am out of my league, but here I go: If something cannot be proven, should we assume it is false? What is a fact?
I think faith is to believe in spite of incomplete knowledge. But the believer assumes that the parts he or she does not know, are not illogical or unbelievable, but true.
Much damage has been done by taking passages of the Bible that are literal, and saying they are not. Vice-versa, passages that are allegorical have been taken literally. Unfortunately, sometimes it is difficult to tell them apart.
Christians, unlike Muslims, don’t believe that every word in the Bible was literally dictated from the mouth of God, except the words of Jesus, and God’s words recorded by the prophets. The rest is wisdom literature, the history of Israel, sermons, personal and public letters of teaching. Nevertheless, we hold them to be “God-breathed and useful for for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim 3:16)