In Locust Grove, when we ask the question, “Do you believe
in moral absolutes, that is, definite standards of right and wrong or do you
believe in moral relativism, that is, no absolute standards of right an wrong,”
overwhelmingly the respondents answer, “moral absolutes.” That’s all to the
good.
When we ask the same question to the Athenians in Decatur,
the answer is more likely to be, “Moral relativism.” As the Athenian gives her
answer, you sense that it doesn’t bother her at all. She sees no serious issues
with it, no serious implications. We move on to the next question as she bats
not an eye nor does she say, “I want to think about that for a moment.”
DECATUR, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
She hasn’t thought about her answer and what it means. Her
belief that there is no right and wrong is a belief she can’t live with, a
belief she can’t live out, but she may not realize it. The reason she can’t
live it out is because of her DNA, the DNA of a human being.
Having the DNA of a human being means that she’s a moral
person in the sense that she has a code by which she lives. This code is what
Paul is talking about in Romans 2:15: “in that they [the gentile unbelievers]
show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience
bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them,”
This DNA means that the Decaturite has a conscience, one that
accuses or defends her. At times she feels a true moral guilt because she’s
really and truly guilty. At other times she may say, “My conscience is clear,”
meaning she neither bears nor feels any guilt. But where does guilt come from, if
all is relative?
This doesn’t mean that her conscience is an infallible guide
because her conscience can be hardened, seared, and leading her astray. At
other moments she may be rationalizing her sin to keep her conscience from
accusing her.
CAUGHT BY LOGIC
If we were to talk to this relativist, about her relativism,
we would bring out facts, dollars to donuts, she’s never thought of before. For
example, I had a conversation with a relativist in which he accused me of
wrong-doing, telling me, in a very angry voice, that I had neglected doing the
right thing regarding him and two other people.
He had a problem, if all is relative and absolute right an
absolute wrong don’t exist, how could he say that what I had done was “wrong?”
If he denounces some action as “evil,” then he has to assume there is an
absolute “good” by which to call something “evil.” He’s hung up.
Another case in point: our Decaturite friend may object to
what he’s heard is about God, particularly in the Old Testament—God’s ordering
the killing of the Canaanites. Most likely our friend doesn’t know about God’s
giving them 400 years to change their minds and stop all their perversion of
burning their babies and other perversions not to be mentioned in polite
society.
But that aside, what’s our educated relativist doing? He’s
stealing from God in order to condemn God, but he has no idea that he’s doing
committing this robbery. To pronounce something as evil (even though in his
case, his pronouncement is wrong) he must steal from the righteous standards of
God, ironically to condemn God.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “Unless there is some agreed upon
standard for the true, the beautiful and the good, there can be no absolute
standard by which we can condemn ‘evil’ behavior.
Our Decaturite will denounce the greedy capitalist, the
corrupt politician, the wanton destruction of the environment as evil, but she
can’t logically do that because, in her view, there’s no absolute good and one
must have an absolute standard of what is good to say what is evil.
This problem invades everything for the relativist. We see
this when she encounters the inequities of life in a fallen world. She gets all
huffy and shouts, “That’s not fair!” But wait, from what source does she get
her concept of “fair” and “unfair?”
GIVE IT THAT GOOD OLD COLLEGE TRY
The Decaturite may give it the old college try and say that
it’s on the basis of a consensus that we can say that something is evil or
unfair. Good luck with that. Getting a consensus in our pluralistic society?
Are you kidding?
Larry Hall summarizes the problem of the Decaturite:
As long as our morality continues
to be based in our humanistic pride, moral consistency will elude us. We will
go on being bundles of self-contradiction, wildly judging each other while
vehemently demanding that no one judge us. We can forget about arriving at a
consensus ethic. There is virtually no consensus in a society as pluralistic as
ours. About the most we can hope for is some sense of political correctness,
and who in their right mind would hope for that? Even if true consensus were
possible, history has proven repeatedly that such a consensus can be very
immoral. When ethics are based on self and pride, all objectivity is lost.
Things are no longer right or wrong. Instead, they are feasible or impractical,
desirable or unappealing, agreeable or nonnegotiable…. Indeed, the very
concepts of virtue and vice become meaningless.
A morality based on a consensus didn’t work well in Nazi
Germany, where they burned books and then they burned people. The first leads
to the second. It was a consensus
morality that burned witches around the world in the 17th century. Relativism's inevitable horror is a society in which “every man does what’s
right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25)
No comments:
Post a Comment