One of the most popular beliefs in America today is something called relativism. Often referred to as postmodernism by many, relativism is the “general denial of objective truth.”[1] Those who follow relativism think that our beliefs are dependent only “upon one’s own personal views or the collective beliefs of one’s culture.”[2] That is, our beliefs are nothing but personal or cultural opinion.
Relativists belief in the uncertainty of knowledge and think that it is arrogant to think one has figured out any kind of truth (especially spiritual truth).[3] In relativism, two contradictory opinions or views can both be true. I’m sure many of you have heard something along the lines of “true for me” or “true for you.” Truth is subject to someone’s own experience and opinions or is judged to be right or wrong by the majority in society (hence why so many leftists like “democracy” as it is majority rule unlike a “republic” which is the rule of law).[4]
It shouldn’t be difficult to see that there are many problems with relativism. First off, if there is no objective truth, then any kind of argument or evaluation of beliefs is doomed from the very beginning. If all truth is “true for me” or “true for you” then there is no reason to try to persuade anybody of anything. To prove something would be to establish its objective truth.[5]
It is interesting that so many relativists, who are liberal by the way, try to persuade everyone that abortion or homosexuality is good. This contradicts their own belief that everybody has their own truth. Maybe someone else’s truth is that abortion and homosexuality are wrong? Liberals cannot be angry when someone who disagrees with them because relativism doesn’t allow them to argue for their version of the truth.
Secondly, relativism is self-contradictory in that it claims that there is no objective truth while claiming objective truth for its own assertions.” To say there is no truth is a truth statement: it is true there is no truth. This is paramount for relativism since if the relativist “denies that even his own assertions are objectively true, then those assertions no longer assert anything.”[6] They cannot argue that their view is correct and that someone else’s is wrong because that contradicts their own position.[7]
Thirdly, this creates yet another problem because a country will not be able to claim that its views are better than another’s. If a society decides that abusing women, euthanizing the elderly, owning slaves, or throwing people in concentration camps is ok, then no one can criticize them for that.[8] This means that it was wrong for the Allies in World War II to fight against Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. In a relativist worldview, there was nothing wrong with the things that those nations were doing.
All of this should make the present scene in America seem bizarre. Liberals tend to criticize conservatives as being racists, misogynists, homophobes, and bigots (among other things). Although none of these are true even if they were the left has no right given their worldview to criticize conservatives. To do so contradicts relativism which is a major component of the Left’s worldview. To add to this, relativists cannot dislike Nazism or slavery since these are considered right by other cultures.
Fourth, relativism makes moral progress impossible. “[F]or what one currently believes is already right or good, so there is no standard for evaluating progress.” The same applies to individuals and smaller groups within a society as the status quo is already seen as morally right.[9]
Fifth, relativism, if true, keeps us from knowing anything at all. Of course, no one truly believes this. Not even those who advocate it.[10] This would make whatever “truth” that may exist completely meaningless.[11]
There are two reasons why someone would believe in relativism. First, it is simply “an abdication of intellectual responsibility: it boils down to a policy of believing what you want to believe and being skeptical about what you don’t want to believe. That policy frees you from the responsibility of ever having to seriously examine evidence.”[12]
Secondly, it is a way to live a life with as little confrontation as possible.[13] Since the end of World War II and the advent of the nuclear age, many people think that we can solve the world’s problems by just being accepting and “loving.” As one can see from the current situation we find ourselves in this has created a whole host of other problems.
Relativism/postmodernism is a weak worldview. It contradicts itself and has destroyed anyway for moral improvement at the individual and societal level. Not only that, if followed through to its logical conclusion, it leads to moral anarchy and the possible collapse of a nation.
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[1] John Frame, Christianity Considered (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018), 9; Elmer Towns, “Postmodernism” in The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2008), 400; Lew Weider, “Relativism” in The Popular Encyclopedia of Apologetics (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 2008), 418.
[2] Weider, 418
[3] Towns, 398-399.
[4] Weider, 419-420.
[5] Frame, 10.
[6] Frame, 10; Weider, 419.
[7] Weider, 419.
[8] Ibid., 420-421.
[9] Ibid., 419.
[10] Frame, 10.
[11] Weider, 419.
[12] Frame, 10.
[13] Weider, 419.
Gordon
What you call relativism is more explained by several principles of secularism:
1. Absolute truth is infinite, therefore unreachable. It’s true that paper is a thin line from 90° until I expose its surface and see it is a rectangle.
Phlogiston is a truth with the ability to explain calxes and fire in a way that matches what’s true, but Oxygen and ionic reduction is more true. Planet Vulcan explaining Mercury’s orbit is true my Newtonian’s true laws of nature. Einstein eliminating Vulcan is more true. Having absolute truth is elevating yourself to omniscience in that field.
To claim that you have the answers is extremely arrogant when you only have one brain, some religious texts (only shreads of Jesus’ life that John redused to write further), and two eyes which can’t see into the spiritual real, and ears that can’t hear god’s voice.
2. The Golden Rule is an absolute foundation for the human conscience’s morality, and observable patterns match secularism’s compass of truth.
This unspoken,fixed base of secular truth has been betrayed by secularists about as much as Christians have violated the Bible’s truths through its history.
controversialchristian1
This is a really good post, but as a Brit with left political leanings and who is also a Bible-believing practising Christian, you fall into the trap countless Americans (Christians or otherwise) seem to effortlessly and even wilfully fall into! You equate left wing and socialist principles, with a political regime and a particular outcome, yet never say the same about conservative values. But this is also true of conservative and conservative values.
Europe has some quite startling differences to America, and also many things which are the same or very similar. Politics and the social and economic currents tied to them being one of those differences. You think Trump was a good Christian, incidentally? Anyway, our left wing notions in Western Europe were a much needed bulwark against an often rabid right wing aristocracy and a very right wing factory and industrial system that brutalised the poor for centuries. In fact, you might say we have capitalism with some checks and balances, an NHS, a reasonable welfare system, some infrastructure and even were poor and working class people have some say so, rather unlike your capitalism-on-steroids in America. Neither left or right are particularly Christian or anti-Christian if they serve to truly help people. You are conflating two different things! And, in essence, whose side did Jesus generally take, the rich and powerful or the poor and oppressed?
Yes, Christians should always be socially conservative, but not necessarily economically conservative. The two are not necessarily the same things.
Just saying..
Gordon
American Capitalism is not on steroids by any means (that is 1840s 9-year-olds working in coal mines, and companies like General Oil and Bell Co.
America is in a bureaucratic-capitalism of price controls and subsidies, and taking large shares of the market, and lobbying, all producing the efficiency that works worse than Italian Fascism.
I’ll than 6 legal clauses can be changed, and a less than 100 executives could be killed, and our medicine will cost less than that in Africa, and no one would need large medical insurance plans because the bills would be less than 1/3 what they are now.
It was the implimentation of the socialist program instead of price capping and other consumer safeguards which is why Capitalism stopped making the poorest in the US well-off compared to other nations’ average citizens.