Tag Archive for: relativism

How to Spot a Kant in Sheep’s Clothing

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One of the ways you will find philosophy professors denying Christ is through an appeal to Kantian ethics. Kant’s ethical theory uses many positive-sounding words that appeal to our moral intuitions. Yet, when we examine the content, we find that Kant was opposed to Christ as revealed in Scripture. Instead, he sought to elevate the individual’s moral intuitions as the highest authority, and even above the Bible.

 

I know of professors who lure students in by claiming to be Christians, but then play a shell game: they subtly replace Christianity with Kantianism, and then argue that the Bible and Christianity are false because they contradict their moral intuitions.

Kant’s Ethics

Permit me to give you a brief overview of Kantianism. Immanuel Kant sought to ground ethics not in religion or divine revelation, but in human reason alone. His project was part of the broader Enlightenment goal of establishing a rational foundation for morality that could be universally valid, independent of theological commitments. By itself, that all sounds great. But once we begin to ask what Kant meant by terms like “reason” and “summum bonun,” we run into deep problems. Here’s how he approached it:

1. Moral Law from Within, Not from Above

Kant believed that morality must be autonomous, not heteronomous, that is, it must come from within the rational will of the individual, not from an external authority like God or the Church. By “reason,” Kant distinguished between pure reason (used in studying metaphysics) and practical reason (used to solve problems in means/ends reasoning). He was a skeptic about pure reason, arguing that it ends in contradictions. So, when he tells us to be rational or to use a rational will, he means to use reason to live according to the categorical imperative.
He famously wrote:

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration… the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”
Kant, Critique of Practical Reason (1788)

This “moral law within” was, for Kant, the source of true ethical obligation. He did not deny God’s existence, but he insisted that moral duties must be discoverable by reason, not dependent on divine command. He speaks like the Serpent from the Garden: he believes to be moral we must determine good and evil for ourselves.

2. The Categorical Imperative

Kant replaced divine law with a purely rational principle: the categorical imperative. This is a test for determining whether an action is morally permissible. His most famous formulation is:

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

This is an attempt to derive moral law from pure reason, without appeal to consequences, emotions, or divine will. For Kant, if a rule cannot be universalized, it is morally impermissible.

Yet, he bases this on “if you can universalize it.” Can you live with this rule being universal. This means it is a statement of subjective opinion and not objective reality. Nietzsche took this to its logical conclusion in his will to power. Because the Kantian rejects God’s law as heteronomy he has no appeal to anything objective by which to critique the will to power. And this is why professors in the Kantian tradition fell in so easily with philosophies of power like DEI and critical theory.

3. Human Dignity and Autonomy

Kant believed that each person possesses intrinsic worth because of their rational nature. Therefore, one should always treat humanity, whether in oneself or in others, never merely as a means, but always as an end. This principle grounds ethics in respect for persons, not in obedience to God.

The university Kantian combines this with the categorical imperative to make an appeal to abusive empathy. This is when you take advantage of the listener’s disposition to compassion and excuse the wrongdoing of the person who is pitied. How another person feels becomes their moral standard. If someone is poor, we do not consider the possibility of sloth; instead, we ask how they must feel and how good they would feel if they were simply given money and a house. This abusive empathy is used to bully the Christian into accepting the radical leftist morality that Kantianism has become.

Kantianism presupposes Rousseau’s claim that human beings are naturally good and only corrupted by the invention of private property. It rejects God’s providential rule of the world and instead insists that all injustice stems from the unequal distribution of material goods and resources. Kant rejects the biblical doctrines of the Fall and sin, and instead teaches that humans are perfectible through adherence to Kantian moral theory.

4. Religion as Morality’s Handmaid, Not Its Source

In his book Religion Within the Bounds of Bare Reason (1792), Kant argued that religion should support morality, not define it. He viewed Christianity as a helpful moral teaching only insofar as it agrees with his subjective reason. It is “subjective reason” because it relies on his moral intuitions about “how the world should be.” Christ was seen more as a moral example than a divine Savior.

And remember, for Kant, “reason” means: What can I universalize?, and then solving practical problems that arise as you live according to that principle. In other words, Kantian “reason” becomes subjective and denies the clear general revelation of God and His moral law.
Kant even called the concept of a divine command the “heteronomy of the will,” which is a failure of reason to guide itself. He wanted a moral law that any rational being, whether religious or not, could recognize and obey.

5. Postulates of Practical Reason

Although Kant did not ground morality in religion, he concluded that moral reasoning requires presupposing three things:

● God (as the guarantor of justice, otherwise unknowable)
● Immortality (so that perfect virtue is achievable)
● Freedom (to be morally responsible)

These are not proofs, but practical postulates, which are ideas we must assume if we are to take morality seriously. Still, they are subordinate to Kantian reason, not based on revelation or faith in Christ.

Kant attempts to get around God’s providence in this world, and the inherent connection of sin and death, by saying that what appears to be unfair in this life (the righteous suffer and the wicked live well) is made right in the next life. He defines the summum bonus, or highest good, this way: “The highest good is the complete unity of virtue and happiness” Critique of Practical Reason, 5:110).

In other words, the summum bonum is the state in which a person who is fully morally good (possessing a good will) also experiences the full happiness that such goodness deserves.
Kant teaches his followers to reject God’s law as heteronomy, to live according to their own subjective intuitions about what should be universal, and to be content with the idea that their self-defined virtue in this life will be rewarded with happiness in the next.

6. The Serpent and Kant

Think about how closely all of this resembles the teaching of the Serpent in Genesis 3. The Kantian is told to determine their own good and evil. God’s law is rejected as imposed, as a limitation on freedom, it is heteronomous and therefore illegitimate.

It is seen as an invasion of the human will by an outside source. But in Genesis 3, God imposed death as a call to repent of sin. Instead of repenting, the Kantian says, “Live by my philosophy, and you will be given happiness in the next life.” “God” becomes a mere postulate, which is a necessary idea to guarantee that promised happiness.

Yet Kant offers no explanation of how a sinner can be reconciled to a perfectly holy and good God. He teaches works righteousness. In his system, the human is not a sinner in need of grace, but someone who does wrong due to social circumstances, and who can be perfected and made virtuous by following Kantian philosophy.

7. Identify the Wolf

As a student, you should understand the philosophy your professors will be imposing on you. You can use Kantianism against them. Instead, insist on your own autonomy and reject their heteronomy. Then challenge their categorical imperative and ask how it escapes absolute subjectivity. And ask why God, who is holy, would ever grant happiness to an unrepentant sinner; someone who has spent a life rejecting God’s law and reducing Christ to a mere moral example rather than the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Kant:
1. Couldn’t explain what has existed from eternity.
2. Denied that what is good for a being is based on their nature and therefore determined by their Creator.
3. Rested his entire philosophy on ultimate skepticism about God and providence.
4. Denied that the Bible is divinely inspired.
5. Denied we need to be reconciled to God by Christ.

The Kantian is no Christian.

Learn to expose your professor’s presuppositions and demolish their arguments. Or better yet, don’t even sign up for, or pay for, such classes. Exercise your autonomy to find a university and professors who recognize what is clearly revealed about God and the moral law through general revelation.

Recommended Resources:

Intellectual Predators: How Professors Prey on Christian Students (DVD) (mp3) (mp4 Download) 

Correct not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism by Frank Turek (Book, MP4)

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

Letters to a Young Progressive by Mike Adams (Book)

 

​​Dr. Owen Anderson is a Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Arizona State University, a pastor, and a certified jiu-jitsu instructor. He emphasizes the Christian belief in God, human sin, and redemption through Christ, and he explores these themes in his philosophical commentary on the Book of Job. His recent research addresses issues such as DEIB, antiracism, and academic freedom in secular universities, critiquing the influence of thinkers like Rousseau, Marx, and Freud. Dr. Anderson actively shares his insights through articles, books, online classes, and his Substack.

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A Disturbing Trend

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A disturbing trend is rising. People are calling for Trump’s assass1nation.[1] Political discourse has shifted from divisive and shrill, to radical and violent. Meanwhile, there have been four confirmed attempts on the president’s life, one of them missed by mere inches. This is getting out of hand.

 

Ironically, the same people calling for violence against the elected president think they’re fighting for democracy. Apparently, people can avoid the courts, evade elections, derail due process, and bypass all the checks and balances of this constitutional democratic republic, and somehow they’re still “pro-democracy.” How does that work?

“The same people calling for violence against the elected president think they’re fighting for democracy”

Firebombing Car Dealers . . . Bad.

Now I don’t think Donald Trump is the best or the worst. He’s neither demon nor angel. And he’s definitely not the Messiah. As a Christian conservative, I have mixed feelings about him. But, I pray for him in office, just as I prayed for Biden and Obama before him. I believe in civic engagement, voting your conscience, and so forth. My view on Trump isn’t pollyanna or apocalyptic. I’ll give him credit when he’s right, and critique when he’s wrong. He needs the Constitution and the courts to keep him in-check and level-headed. Every other presidence had needed that same check-and-balance system. So, when I go on Facebook and X, and see people calling for his severed head, it’s a little startling.

I’ve been trying, and failing, to convince anti-Trumpers that regardless of their views on Trump, domestic terrorism is really bad and we shouldn’t support it.[2] You don’t have to be a Trump supporter to recognize that “killing is bad.” But, those same people argue instead that firebombing a car dealership is “pro-democracy,” erecting a guillotine outside a Trump rally is just “good clean fun,” and that we should be cheering for assassination attempts against Trump. Folks, this is not okay.

Of course, radicals are going to do what radicals do. We can expect veiled threats of violence in the wafting smog of hot air from loud-mouth critics, social media incels, and guerilla radio pundits. Till Christ returns, we can expect as much. That’s bad, of course. But, there are loud-mouth fools on the political right, left, and middle. As long as it’s just talk, then we might not need to sound the alarms just yet. As long as they stay on the fringes, they aren’t the political “base” of their party. But the fringe isn’t so “fringe” anymore.

“The fringe isn’t so ‘fringe’ anymore.“

The Fringe is now the Base

The radical edge of the Democrat party is quickly becoming the core of the Democratic party. We’ve seen a lot of this shift in real time, over the last 12 years or so. There’s Occupy Wall Street (2011-2012), BLM (2013). Antifa (2016), George Floyd riots (2020-2021), not to mention the disorienting rise of radical Trans-activism (2016-2023) and the Covid chaos of 2020. And that’s not even counting “old-school” terrorists like Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). To be sure, the right wing have their issues too, and I don’t doubt that – if pushed – radical elements on the right could resort to violence too. Domestic Terrorism and violent extremism is not just a “left-wing” problem, even if that’s where some of the loudest support is right now. The point is the mainstream left is starting to sound and act like domestic terrorists.

The “left” has pulled hard left since at least 2012. The “radical fringe” of progressive radicals, neo-marxist revolutionaries, and anarchists isn’t “fringe” anymore. They’re mainstream.

The Conversation Has Changed

If you’ve been tracking the tone of political discourse in the last few years, you’ve seen a swelling violent undercurrent. Political discourse is losing the humility, sophistication, and mutual respect it once had. People now talk at their political opponents like they’re instructing imbeciles, house-training a puppy, or even rebuking a demon. The conversation has changed, for the worst.

I’ve been monitoring this trend, in part, because of my background in logic and debate. I taught logic and debate at the high school and college level. I’ve organized and participated in several formal debates. I celebrate respectful, intelligent, civil discourse. I honestly don’t trust people who agree with me on everything, because that means someone’s lying. We all have disagreements. That’s normal and healthy. And we can’t mature very well, socially, unless we learn how to respectfully engage over contentious topics and dialogue through our disagreements. That’s a big part of adulting.

For all the risks and drawbacks that come with that aspect of free speech, it’s critically important that we have the freedom to disagree or we lose one of the most basic tools for warding off tyranny and correcting injustice. Not to mention, as a Christian, free speech means people like me have the freedom to confess and share our faith with others, preaching, teaching, and shining God’s light into a dark and dying world.

In recent years, however, civil dialogue has been drowning in the undertow of angry tirades, ignorant screeds, paid propaganda, and deliberate misinformation. And with the rhetorical swell, there’s been a rise in violence. We aren’t just dealing with a “few outliers” anymore, or the occasional random crazy person. Trump has already survived a near-miss assassination attempt, so we know it’s not just idle threats either. Mainline and establishment lefists are calling for political violence (i.e., literal domestic terrorism).

Rationalized Violence

People don’t just support violence because they like being the bad guy. That’s not how sympathy for the devil works. Instead, people want to feel like truth, goodness, and justice is on their side. So, they argue that this violent act is a necessary evil for the sake of some greater good. That necessary evil might not seem palatable at first. But with a little desensitization, ordinary men can become killers; peaceful pedestrians can be made to cheer for crimes against humanity.[3] That desensitization can be as simple as media streams constantly comparing Trump to “Hitler,” calling him a “Fascist,” “Dictator,” and “Autocrat.” And social media algorithms can populate our news feed with alarmist click-bait and conspiracy theories casting Donald Trump as the devil incarnate. The perspective shift can be so gradual you don’t even notice your own moral drift. Domestic Terrorists start looking like “Freedom Fighters.” Soon you’re imagining how the world would be better off without him.

At that point, it’s easy to rationalize violence. If Trump is as bad as his critics are saying, then assass1nation sounds entirely justified. If you’re creative enough, or deluded enough, then you can make any sort of violence sound plausible. The pandemic of Trump Derangement Syndrome has gotten that bad.

Even if Trump were to save America $10 trillion dollars of government waste, drain the swamp, secure the borders, save thousands of lives through healthcare reform, convict thousands of violent gang members and fentanyl smugglers – every one of those “wins” will be interpreted in a conspiratorial way to make Trump out to be a racist, elitist, megalomaniacal dictator and all those “wins” are just bribing people into compliance with his demagoguery.

Government Overreach Across the Aisle

Now to be fair, Trump is certainly more aggressive in office than Biden was. But, every potential overreach from Trump is being challenged in the court system – as it should be. And the outsized power of executive orders, in Trump’s hands, stems from the Obama and Biden-era precedent, where both of them expanded the power of the Executive office. Trump is still working within their established order. Not to mention, we have recent memories of Obama earning the title “the Deporter and Chief,” and Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer all talking tough about strong borders. Meanwhile, the deep state shenanigans of USAID, FBI, DOJ, and CIA, were operating at full force under Obama and Biden. We could also talk about government overreach in the form of DEI programs, activist judges, vaccine mandates, and more. Government overreach has never been a uniquely Republican phenomenon. If you’re on the progressive left, and you don’t fear government overreach till it’s coming from the other guys, then it’s not authoritarianism you dread, it’s conservatism.

If you’re on the progressive left, and you don’t fear government overreach till it’s coming from the other guys, then it’s not authoritarianism you dread, it’s conservatism.

Worldview Factors

One reason domestic terrorism is easily rationalized among progressives is because many on the left have already committed to a flexible view of truth, language, and reality. For example, the popular left-wing perspective known as Critical theory tends to oppose and question any hard facts, asserting instead that everything is a social construct. Instead of factual knowledge, it’s all perception and interpretation. Unfortunately, those can be stretched to make anything fit.

When your grasp of language, factual truth, and subjective bias are all entirely framed by social constructs, then truth doesn’t matter much anymore. You can make any behavior seem justified through word games, propaganda, and emotional manipulation. I’m sure, Ring-wingers have their self-serving biases too. But, social constructivism is a common theme among modern leftists, and it offers no safeguard against radicalism, violence, or domestic terrorism.

A lesson from 1984

This truth-issue reminds me of one of the most chilling details in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. When the protagonist, Winston Smith, is arrested and interrogated by a “Big Brother” agent, the agent eventually admits that truth doesn’t matter to him. For him, power is all that matters. Truth and falsity are just tools to be used, as needed, to collect more power. There’s no ultimate accountability for our actions, there are just winners and losers. Righteousness is irrelevant because any demon powerful enough to “win” can rewrite the history books afterward and make himself the hero. He doesn’t have to be a hero – that’s a truth-claim. He just has to win. Then he can invent the hero part.

Historically, reality has been the final arbiter between competing forces. People disagree about scientific theories? Let reality decide. People disagree about what “woman” means? Let reality decide. People disagree about American history since 1619? Let reality decide. But now a deeper deception has crept in. It whispers that no one really knows the truth. It’s all social constructs. It’s all relative. Perception is reality. Underneath it all, everything is really about the age-old struggle between the “haves vs have-nots”. These relativist themes tie together a whole batch of theories common to left-wing politics: postmodernism, critical theory, Marxism, Neo-Marxism, nihilism, absurdism, anarchism, critical race theory, queer theory, and more. From that adjustable platform, you can rationalize any amount of distortion, lying, deception, propaganda, and yes, even violence. All of that can be rationalized for the sake of securing more power for your side.

Let’s Call it What it Is

Ultimately, when it comes to actual political violence, we need to call it what is: Domestic Terrorism. And terrorism is a poor man’s authoritarianism. When people resort to terrorism they are using fear and violence to force their political agenda on others. That’s what we’re dealing with in all the “assass1nation idealization.” That’s what we’re dealing with in the fire-bombings on Teslas dealers. That’s what we dealt with in the BLM riots of 2020-2021. That’s what we dealt with in the attempts on Trump’s life.

People may think they’re just rooting for “the good guys” through pragmatic means, but when folks are quick to violence at the expense of courts, elections, and the democratic process, they are not fighting FOR democracy, they’re fighting for terror. The “means” has become the “ends”.

A Poor Man’s Authoritarianism

It’s like when a team of bank robbers get their way through fear and intimidation. For all we know, they may have suffered terrible injustice, maybe they are poor by no fault of their own, or they lost their jobs for bogus reasons. We don’t know. But regardless of the injustice done to them, they are still terrorizing innocent people in that bank. In that way, terrorism is a poor man’s authoritarianism. It’s a method of getting your own way, even if no one votes for you, likes you, or agrees with you.

“Terrorism is a poor man’s authoritarianism.”

As Christians we need to be especially discerning in these confusing times. Scripture encourages us to weigh both sides of a matter, “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him” (Proverbs 18:17; ESV). And Proverbs 6:17 warns us that, God hates “haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood.” We need an extra dose of wisdom these days. It’s all too easy to be deceived by our own latent bias. It’s not enough to just “do the right thing” either. We must do it the right way or else it’s not the right thing.

Leftists cheering for violence is nothing new. And it’s not unique to the Left either. But, the degree of foolishness and delusion behind it might be a new peak. Meanwhile, Christ-followers must honor the sanctity of human life at every turn, even when it means loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us (Matthew 5:44).

References: 

[1] I don’t have exact numbers. We probably won’t have any credible surveys on this any time soon, since threatening the president’s life is a federal offense. You can see some of these threats replayed at Trump’s impeachment trial here. Christian author and political moderate, George Yancey has been writing about this alarming trend calling it “assass1nation idealization.” And conservative commentator Allie-Beth Stukey has been calling out democrat politicians and pundits for advocating for violence. The Trump administration also compiled a list of violent threats against Trump from Democrat politicians sometimes veiled, and sometimes overt.

[2] I’m not speaking of most or all people on the political left, but only a sample of folks on the left. For the record, there are radical revolutionaries on the right wing too.

[3] Regarding evil possibilities from “ordinary men,” see Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men (2017). See also, Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (2006).

Recommended Resources:

Was Jesus Intolerant? by Frank Turek (DVD and Mp4)

Correct not Politically Correct: About Same-Sex Marriage and Transgenderism by Frank Turek (Book, MP4, )

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

 

Dr. John D. Ferrer is a speaker and content creator with Crossexamined. He’s also a graduate from the very first class of Crossexamined Instructors Academy. Having earned degrees from Southern Evangelical Seminary (MDiv) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (ThM, PhD), he’s now active in the pro-life community and in his home church in Pella Iowa. When he’s not helping his wife Hillary Ferrer with her ministry Mama Bear Apologetics, you can usually find John writing, researching, and teaching cultural apologetics.

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Truth Matters

The world defines truth as relative and subjective: “You have your truth, I have my truth.” It is customizable to one’s preferences and lifestyle. Definitive or absolute truth is considered offensive to the culture at large. This confusion over truth is further fueled by social media. Liking, sharing, retweeting, and posting happen with the click of a button. To promote and defend “your truth,” all you have to do is open an app on your phone. Though some may suggest that our culture is more unified based on the controversial matters of our day, I would argue that we are walking in greater disunity than ever before.

Can’t We All Just Coexist?

The Coexist bumper stickers often seen on the back of vehicles advertise that all religions are equal with a mutually unifying end. To argue against this can be considered hate speech in some spaces. The irony in this pop-culture view of truth, however, is that the major world religions have some profound differences that mutually exclude the other. It does not take very long to find contradictions between Mormonism and Islam.

Furthermore, there are particular instances of absolute truth that no logical person could deny. Gravitational pull or mathematical equations are proven true with singular explanations and sums. Your trash pick-up being on Monday is a fact. If you decide to put your garbage can at the curb on Tuesday because that is your truth, you will be disappointed to find overflowing trash the next day. Yet, the larger issues in life take on a whole different meaning to the word “truth”.

Scriptural Definition of the Truth

In John 14, Jesus names himself to be the way, the truth, and the life. The familiar passage goes on to say that no one accesses the Father except through Christ. Anyone claiming another means to heaven apart from Jesus the Messiah is promoting a lie.

“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
John 14:6

Upon the trial and accusation of Christ, just before his crucifixion, Pontius Pilate asked the question “What is truth?” (John 18:38). The question is still being asked centuries later, and the answer remains. Jesus, being God himself was, is, and always will be the truth. Our triune God displays the reality of truth. The Holy Spirit leads the Christian into all truth (John 16:13). God the Father never lies, He fulfills all His promises (Numbers 23:19). Jesus the Messiah is the only true path to restoration and eternal life (John 3:16).

Why Truth Matters

In 2022, I prepared for an unmedicated birth. Among many things, I conducted research and read books about the goals I had for labor. I found myself needing to carefully filter content that included New Age and witchcraft practices. Much of what I came across revolved around feelings of empowerment and self-expression. However, bringing a new baby into the world is a complete act of surrender to the Creator of the universe. It is emptying oneself to rely solely on Christ. It is for the glory of God that none may boast.

Satan strives to keep us in a feelings-based mindset. He convinces us that life is about us and the benefits we can receive. Faith in Christ must extend beyond feelings to facts. Otherwise, we blend in with the culture around us. It was invaluable to study the creation account in Genesis and to spend time prayerfully considering the heart of God as our due date neared. In Scripture, we unfold the truth of Christ and are changed to reflect him. We exist for the singular purpose of glorifying Jesus our Lord.

To distinguish truth as absolute and to follow Christ with wholehearted devotion is the greatest threat to Satan. He is unbothered by “his truth” and “her truth.” He is, however, thrown off his high horse when a people boldly stand for and confidently share the truth.

Living Transformed by the Truth

As said in Matthew 7, there is one path to heaven, and it is indeed narrow (Matt 7:13-14). To say that Jesus is the only way may feel a bit too exclusive and limited to an on-looking unbeliever. Therefore, it is deemed best to reject singularly defined truth. As Christians, we are to take up our cross, forgoing anything within us that does not align with the will of God by bringing his name glory. The word “cross” in Matthew 16:24 means only one thing. In the first century, a cross represented death by crucifixion. Though the emblem of the cross is undoubtedly viewed through a lens of agape love, it very much signifies death. The Christ follower is to die to themselves and the sin that so easily entangles. Though actions based upon one’s personally determined truth are appealing for a time, there will inevitably be an ongoing search for more apart from an intimate relationship with Christ the King.

Subjective Truth is Unloving

Affirming the idea of truth being subjective is one of the most un-loving things we can do. If Jesus is the only way to the Father, and therefore eternal life, we have the tremendous responsibility of shutting down every other notion besides the inspired Word of God. Speaking the truth means that we know the truth. In Philippians 4, Paul the Apostle provides a beautiful list of things to think about in combating anxiousness (Phil 4:16-17). From a prison cell in Rome, he tells the church to remember that which is true. In doing so, we remember the very nature of God. All that God is, he is truly. He is true love, true kindness, true mercy, true forgiveness, true hope, true life, true light, true grace, true rest, true wisdom, and the list goes on. When we think about the trueness of God, anxiety and fear diminish. How profound and contradictory to the rest of society when a person chooses to humbly submit to the revelation of God as the only means to authentic understanding and perfect clarity.

The Truth is Transformative

A belief in the one truth that exists is transformative. We are brought to life upon our confession of faith and trust in Christ. Manifestation says, “Believe in me and my ability”, but transformation says, “Believe in Jesus and his sovereignty.” Jesus being the truth means that we acknowledge our limitations and humbly submit to the Lord who has none. John 8:31-32 says, “So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Believing and abiding in the infallible, inerrant, and inspired Word of God is the most freeing thing a person can do. The shackles we were once bound by are broken by belief in Jesus Christ. This is the good news of the Gospel, and it is available for all people, everywhere. Sharing the truth in boldness is a radical act of love.

Our world measures truth based on personal preference and ideology. It is ever-changing and regularly modified to best please mankind. Freedom is miraged by temporary happiness and affirming acceptance. Freedom in its truest form is found in one place; it exists in one person. His name is Jesus, and it is in his presence that we walk in perfect clarity. His presence abides in us, and we have the unique privilege of inviting others to dwell with Christ who is our peace. There is no greater combat against division than Divine intervention.

God is not the author of chaos or confusion. We do not have to question right from wrong or good from bad. His Word makes it clear. In both our belief and our obedience, we are blessed beyond our comprehension by the Lord of Hosts.  The truth found in Scripture is both life-giving and life-changing. Second Timothy reminds us that the entirety of the Bible is useful for teaching and training us to look more like Christ (2 Timothy 3:16-17). All sixty-six books hold tremendous weight and power in our lives still today. As we learn it on an individual basis, we are drawn closer to the heart of God, and our belief is confirmed time and time again. Let God’s truth transform you because it is the only thing that will.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Counter Culture Christian: Is the Bible True? by Frank Turek (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD)   

Can All Religions Be True? mp3 by Frank Turek

How Can Jesus be the Only Way? Mp4, Mp3, and DVD by Frank Turek

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Frank Turek (Mp3/ Mp4)

 

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Annie Brown has joined us as Content Coordinator working with the Truth That Matters team. In this role, Annie will be creating written content meant to edify and equip lay learners and scheduling content channels as needed. In addition to being a student at SES, Annie has a B.S. in Family & Child Development from Liberty University. “I am grateful for the opportunity to serve on the Truth That Matters Team at SES. Using my passion of writing to prayerfully bless others excites me, and I look forward to what the Lord has in store.”

Originally posted at: https://ses.edu/truth-matters/

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Contradictions In The Life of a Christian

Contradictions In The Life of a Christian

By Luke Nix

Introduction

The Christian Church is no stranger to hypocrisy. The Church is comprised of sinners who do not always practice what they preach, and sometimes such practice is in stark contradiction to what we preach. Some of the most heinous acts have been committed by Christians while they speak truth. It seems that sexual misconduct within the Church is always on the radar. Ever since I can remember being able to comprehend it, I have been made aware of numerous sexual scandals within the Church. Like just about any person, some have hit close to home and others further away. The ones that are closer to home tend to be particularly devastating- not just physically and emotionally, but spiritually and intellectually.

It is important for those who are affected to hold to a worldview that can objectively condemn such actions and provide healing for the victims. In these emotionally trying situations it is easy to entertain doubts of the truth of Christianity. Today, I want to take a few moments to show how such hypocrisy actually reveals the truth of the Christian worldview and how the Christian worldview offers the only possible answer to hypocrisy.

The Objectivity of Evil

First, a sexual predator’s actions must be called out as objectively evil, not merely something that a group of people do not like or prefer. The claim that what they did was evil is not just an opinion that can be dismissed by those who do not see anything wrong with the actions. That such actions are objectively evil is a feature of reality that must be faced, explained, and answered by every worldview.

No worldview can escape this obligation. No worldview that is missing an anchor for objective morality can provide any meaningful judgment of “evil”- those who hold to these worldviews can only render opinions, which is no more valid or true than the person, who may also hold to the same worldview, who says the actions were “good.” Any worldview that is missing such an anchor is demonstrably defeated by any sexual predator’s actions (whether they are members of a church or not).

The Scars Sin Leaves and The Cost of Moral Agnosticism and Relativism

Every single victim of sexual misconduct, molestation, rape, etc. is created in the Image of God, thus they are intrinsically valuable. Their violation is objectively evil, and justice must be served. The devastation of violations like these take years and even decades for healing to take place, if it even does. These men, women, boys, and girls will bear the scars for the rest of their lives. These scars will stand as a testimony to the truth that objective evil exists.

Any worldview that remains agnostic or ambivalent about the moral status of these actions makes the victims victims over and over again. Worldviews without an anchor for objective morality objectively devalues the violations and raises them to moral equivalency with love, honesty, and integrity. Worldviews that cannot call evil “evil” in any meaningful sense of the word (or for that matter, cannot call good “good” either) encourages the creation of more victims and compounds the suffering of those who are already victims.

Such sins in the life of a Christian demonstrates conclusively that no morally relativistic or agnostic worldview deserves to have a place in a culture, government, or even at the table of intellectual inquiry because it perpetually violates reality by violating the victims time and time again.

What If God Does Not Exist? 

Sexual sin is detestable, despicable, and heinous, and we all know that intuitively. The person who commits evil is ultimately, eternally damnable because they have violated the intrinsic worth of a human being created in God’s Image, and by doing so, they have violated the eternal, morally perfect God. God is the only source for morality that is independent of any and all human beings. He alone is the anchor that allows anyone to objectively identify such actions as morally “evil.”

Simply put, if God does not exist, then nothing that these Christians did is evil. Nothing that they do is worth condemnation or even discussion since they are merely dancing to their DNA- the victims will continue to be victims because they are not really “victims” of anything good or evil. This is not to say that someone has to believe that God exists to condemn a Christian’s sexual violations; rather this is to say that it is only because God does exist that even an atheist can accurately condemn such actions as objectively evil. If God does not exist, not even the theist can condemn sexual abuse as objectively evil.

The Cognitive and Emotional Dissonance of Evil

When the stories of a perpetrator’s heinous acts are recounted, the moral law that is written on all our hearts will emotionally and powerfully rise to the surface. The emotions we feel are not there merely because we feel that these actions are evil, but because they objectively are evil, and our outrage is a most appropriate reaction to such violations. The head and the heart, logic and emotion, converge in perfect harmony to reveal the truth of reality and the truth of God’s existence. Unless God exists, a person’s “evil” deeds bring nothing but cognitive and emotional dissonance.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If the grotesque moral failings of ministers of the Gospel are to serve any purpose, it is to attempt to shock our culture back from its moral and intellectual stupor and remind us of the contradiction in every Christian life. But in stark contrast to every Christian, in God there is no contradiction: not in His actions and not in His words. We all long for someone to be fully consistent with what they say and what they do. But this simply will not happen when we look to man, even Christian leaders. We should not be surprised when ministers of the Gospel morally fail. We should be surprised that despite the evidence all around us of humanity’s fallenness that we still try to look to humanity for perfect consistency.

Rather, we must look to the morally perfect Creator, against whom every human has sinned. This God loves us and desires an infinite, personal relationship with us so much that he became one of us to take upon Himself our sins and the wrath that we deserve because of our sin. Justice was served for every sin we could ever commit when Jesus Christ died on the cross. And in His bodily resurrection from the dead, we have forgiveness (1 Cor 15). The resurrection of Jesus provides us proof of the truth of His claim to be the Creator God of the universe- the Way, the Truth, the Life, without whom no one can come to the Father (John 14:6).

Conclusion- My Two Prayers

Sin, hypocrisy and betrayal in the life of any Christian minister does not demonstrate or even indicate that Christianity is false. Rather the opposite is the case: they provide severe tests of a worldview against reality, which Christianity alone passes. Christianity never makes the claim that Christians will be perfect; in fact, it makes the contradictory claim: that Christians can and still do heinously evil things. This is the reality that we live in, that we are a part of, and that Christianity uniquely, among all the worldviews of history, accurately describes. It is only through Christ that the sinner is healed, that the victim is healed, and that both can be reconciled to God.

It is my prayer that all victims will find understanding ears in today’s culture- people who recognize,  validate and anchor the objectivity of the evil and suffering they endure, people who recognize that full healing can only be found at the Cross.

It is also my prayer that as more revelations of moral failings within the Church come, that it will cause unbelievers to consider the foundations of their moral outrage, investigate the evidence, and realize that they too are in need of Christ’s atonement, forgiveness and Resurrection.

Finally, remember that it is not Christ who has failed us; it is members of His Church who have failed us. It is time that we stop misplacing our trust in people and start properly placing our trust where the evidence tells us it should have been in the first place: in Christ. I implore you to follow the moral, philosophical, historical, and scientific evidence where it leads: surrender your life fully and completely to Christ to find both healing and forgiveness.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

If God, Why Evil? (DVD Set), (MP3 Set), and (mp4 Download Set) by Frank Turek 

Is Original Sin Unfair? (DVD Set), (mp4 Download Set), and (MP3 Set) by Dr. Frank Turek

Jesus, You and the Essentials of Christianity by Frank Turek (INSTRUCTOR Study Guide), (STUDENT Study Guide), and (DVD)      

 

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Luke Nix holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and works as a Desktop Support Manager for a local precious metal exchange company in Oklahoma.

Original Blog Source: https://cutt.ly/Pm5hRad

 

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Living In A Post-Truth Culture

Living In A Post-Truth Culture

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By Bob Perry

I’ve made the case that truth, goodness, and beauty are objective features of the world we live in. Hopefully, you’ve found that to be interesting. But please don’t think this is just an esoteric triviality. It’s not. We are living in a post-truth culture. But it’s a place where the objective nature of truth, goodness, and beauty are deeply relevant. Our view of objective truth affects everything about how we live our lives. It’s the antidote to moral relativism. Truth matters. And understanding the profundity of that simple fact will revolutionize the way you interact with our world.

Here’s why.

The Assumptions of the Culture

Consider the three topics I’ve been talking about. And think about how you’re used to hearing about them:

Truth — “That may be true for you, but it’s not for me.”

Goodness — “Don’t impose your morality on me!”

Beauty — “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Despite thousands of years of human knowledge and experience, our contemporary culture has made every one of these subjective. Suddenly, they’ve each become things we decide for ourselves.

In fact, if you were to express the notion that anyone of these is not subjective, you would be considered arrogant. Oppressive. A Neanderthal who wants to impose your personal values on the rest of the world.

Who are you to do that?!

The World Turned Upside Down

This is cultural relativism. A place where we are supposed to accept the idea that everyone’s opinion about every topic is equally valid.

And remember that pesky definition of truth as: “correspondence to reality”? That’s out the window. The new normal tells us that our highest calling is to “be true to ourselves.”

But what does that mean, exactly?

Follow Your Heart

When your standard for truth and virtue is the person you see in the bathroom mirror, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see what’s coming. Feelings rule. You are encouraged to “follow your heart.” And following your heart means you evaluate reality based on emotion instead of reason and logic.

If it feels good, you do it.

“If it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad …”

Sheryl Crow

Conforming to reality becomes passé. An archaic inconvenience.

But there is a problem with that. And the problem is that the “persistent belief in something that does not conform to reality” is called a delusion.

Our culture has elevated delusion to an art form.

Philosophy Is About The Real World

It turns out that the whole discussion of truth, goodness, and beauty is more than the hobby of navel-gazing philosophers. These things have real-world consequences. Ideas always do. Good or bad, we live in a world where those ideas will play themselves out.

And so, we see the consequences of bad thinking in our politics and in the family and community relationships on which our politics depend. We read about them in the news — and in the “fake news” generated at both ends of the political spectrum. We suffer the repercussions of denying reality in our economics. And our children and grandchildren will — quite literally — pay the price for those willful delusions.

Most of all, we see it in the glorification of sexual autonomy that has infiltrated every corner of our culture. Denying reality is at the core of issues like abortion, sexual libertinism, transgenderism, and same-sex behavior. Defending each of them is nothing but a persistent delusion.

Faith Communities Are Not Immune

The Church is most certainly not immune to the corrosive acid of bad thinking. The vacuous nonsense you can find in the Word-Faith Movement, Universalism, and so-called “Progressive” Christianity is proof enough of that. And every societal ill listed above has also found its way into the church.

But when you boil it all down, the problems we see in our culture are nothing new. In fact, they’re as old as mankind. The denial of truth, goodness, and beauty started soon after we came on the scene. The Fall of Man was simply the first instance where human beings made the free-will decision to exchange the truth of God for a lie. Since then, we’ve only pushed the limits of that futile exercise even further.

The good news is that the antidote to bad thinking has always been the same. Seek truth in all its forms. Then align your life with it.

The Church should never be a safe space for bad ideas. It must be a place where people are treated with gentleness and respect, but also a place where corrupted thinking goes to die.

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Digging for the Truth: Archaeology, Apologetics & the Bible by Ted Wright DVD and Mp4

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp3 and Mp4

When Reason Isn’t the Reason for Unbelief by Dr. Frank Turek DVD and Mp4

Right From Wrong by Josh McDowell Mp3

Can All Religions Be True? mp3 by Frank Turek

Counter Culture Christian: Is There Truth in Religion? (DVD) by Frank Turek

How Can Jesus be the Only Way? (mp4 Download) by Frank Turek

 

Bob Perry is a Christian apologetics writer, teacher, and speaker who blogs about Christianity and the culture at truehorizon.org. He is a Contributing Writer for the Christian Research Journal and has also been published in Touchstone, and Salvo. Bob is a professional aviator with 37 years of military and commercial flying experience. He has a B.S., Aerospace Engineering from the U. S. Naval Academy, and a M.A., Christian Apologetics from Biola University. He has been married to his high school sweetheart since 1985. They have five grown sons.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/39xoLwt

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45 Quotes About Relativism vs. Truth

45 Quotes About Relativism vs. Truth

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By Luke Nix

  1. “When it comes to truth, the outcome affects not only individuals but nations and even civilizations. What starts looking like a small abstract issue ends with titanic, public consequences for all who love freedom and justice.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  2. “Although someone’s beliefs and assumptions may not be true and do not describe reality, they will still drive their behavior. So if someone doesn’t believe in truth, count on him to lie. If someone says there are no objective facts, expect her to be careless with facts to further her own interests. If someone explains everything by referring to evolution and the ‘selfish gene,’ be sure that at some point, he will be extremely selfish on behalf of the fitness of his own survival.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  3. “Our challenge today is not to lament, protest, or simply talk about the crisis of truth in one of a hundred ways. Rather, it is to do something about it by becoming people of truth and learning to live free.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  4. “Far from being a naive and reactionary notion, truth is one of the simplest, most precious gifts without which we would not be able to handle reality or negotiate life.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  5. “When nothing can be judged except judgment itself– ‘judgmentalism’–the barriers between the unthinkable, acceptable, and doable collapse entirely. And then, since life goes on and the sky doesn’t fall, people draw the conclusion that the original concern was unfounded. Lighten up, the newly amoral say as they skip forward blithely, complicit in their own corruption.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  6. “If truth is truth, then differences make a difference — not just between truth and lies but between intimacy and alienation in relationships, between harmony and conflict in neighborhoods, between efficiency and incompetence in business, between reliability and fraud in science and journalism, between trust and suspicion in leadership, between freedom and tyranny in government, and even between life and death.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  7. “While we all may have a sense of what is evil and what is good under the philosophy of cultural tolerance, evil and good can only be relative ideals. Without an objective truth—a set of universal moral values—good and evil are defined by the individual, community, or society. Therefore we have no moral basis by which to judge another person, community, or nation for what they do or don’t do.” Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, The Beauty of Intolerance
  8. “Right up to the end of the nineteenth century, the most important course in an American student’s college career was moral philosophy, or what we today call ethics.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  9. “Much of today’s focus is on ‘prevention ethics’ rather than on principled ethics. It is more concerned with ‘not being caught’ (or sued or exposed in the press) than with doing right.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  10. “What is seen as important are issues related to corporations, schools, courts, governments, and the treatment of the environment– not the individual’s virtue and responsibility that underlie these secondary issues.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  11. “The current ethics is often taught with a shallow view of human nature and an even more superficial view of evil in human society.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  12. “The emphasis now is on surface, not depth; on possibilities, not equalities; on glamour, not convictions; on what can be altered endlessly; not achieved for good; and on what can be bought and won, not gained by education and formation.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  13. “The present preoccupation with ethics in elite intellectual centers has an element of absurdity because they have no moral content left to teach. The fruit of the Western universities in the last two hundred years has been to destroy the possibility of any moral knowledge on which to pursue moral formation.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  14. “If truth is contingent upon the society in which we live…there is nothing intuitive or universally or absolutely true about freedom from torture or freedom from slavery; our society just happens to have come up with these values over time.” Stephen McAndrew, Why It Doesn’t Matter What YOU Believe If It’s Not True
  1. “If moral truths do not exist as a foundation for law, then the law itself becomes merely a system of raw political power accountable to no one.” Scott Klusendorf, The Case for Life
  1. “Just as iron filings are drawn to the strongest magnet, so minds weakened by a loss of truth are drawn to the most powerful positions.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “What happens when we succeed in cutting away truth-claims to expose the web of power games only to find we have less power than the players we face? If truth is dead, right and wrong are neither, and all that remains is the will to power, then the conclusion is simple: Might makes right. Logic is only a power conspiracy. Victory goes to the strong, and the weak go to the wall.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “Just as the Greeks entered Troy concealed in the hollow wooden statue of a horse, so post-modernism is providing the cover for all sorts of ideas and practices to enter American life–ideas that on their own would have difficulty gaining entrance.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  2. “Short of total isolation, the American society you live in today is going to influence how your children make moral choices in one way or another. Stop and think about it. What are the voices of society telling your children about the choices they are about to make? What is the central theme that today’s culture emphasizes over and over again? If you were to reduce it to a single sentence, it might look like this: You have the right to choose for yourself what is right for you and what is wrong for you–and no one should judge that choice.” Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, The Beauty of Intolerance
  1. “When nothing can be judged except judgment itself— ‘judgmentalism’—the barriers between the unthinkable, acceptable, and doable collapse entirely.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “If everything is endlessly open to question and change, then everything is permitted, nothing is forbidden, and literally nothing is unthinkable.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “Applying to the skeptics the skepticism they apply to others [pushes] them out toward the negative consequences of their own beliefs.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “While all beliefs appear consistent to those who believe them, they always have one of two problems. They are either constricting or contradictory. In the first case, the beliefs are more consistent but are incomplete in the sense that they are too small for the fullness of life…And in the second case, the beliefs are more comprehensive but are inconsistent—which in the worst cases makes them self-refuting- a problem Chesterton calls ‘the suicide of thought.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “Inevitably, moral choices based on our own moral compass will often be wrong choices. And wrong moral choices can result in consequences ranging from minor disappointments to major disasters emotionally, relationally, physically, and spiritually.” Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, The Beauty of Intolerance
  1. “Truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  2. “It is that truth, like meaning as a whole, is not for to us to create but for us to discover. Each of us may be small, our lives short, and our influence puny. But if truth is there—objective, absolute, independent of minds that know it— then we may count on it.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  3. “In order to discover truth it is necessary to coldly dissect and examine all of our prejudices and inherent biases to ensure we receive unbiased answers. This takes effort. It is always easier to simply accept the ideas presented to us than to question the status quo.” Stephen McAndrew, Why It Doesn’t Matter What YOU Believe If It’s Not True
  1. “While we all may have a sense of what is evil and what is good under the philosophy of cultural tolerance, evil and good can only be relative ideals. Without an objective truth—a set of universal moral values—good and evil are defined by the individual, community, or society. Therefore we have no moral basis by which to judge another person, community, or nation for what they do or don’t do.” Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, The Beauty of Intolerance
  2. “We are all entitled to our own beliefs, but this doesn’t mean each of us has our own truths. Our beliefs describe the way we think the world is. Truth describes the objective state of the world, regardless of how we take it to be. Beliefs can be relative, but truth cannot. So when we consider the nature of truth—that it is an objective description of reality—it makes no sense to say that something is true for you and not for me.” Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, The Beauty of Intolerance
  1. “Without truth, a belief may be only speculation plus sincerity.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “While we all may have a sense of what is evil and what is good under the philosophy of cultural tolerance, evil and good can only be relative ideals. Without an objective truth—a set of universal moral values—good and evil are defined by the individual, community, or society. Therefore we have no moral basis by which to judge another person, community, or nation for what they do or don’t do.” Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, The Beauty of Intolerance
  1. “It is often said that to have a fulfilling life, three essentials are required: a clear sense of personal identity, a deep sense of faith and meaning, and a strong sense of purpose and mission.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  2. “For those who find themselves without faith in God and who conclude that the world they desire does not fit with the world they discover, life is fundamentally deaf to their aspirations.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “For all the fragile precariousness of our human existence on our tiny earth in the vastness of space, we may throw the whole weight of our existence on God, including our truth-seeking desires, because he is wholly true.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “Those who put their faith in God do so for all sorts of good reasons, but the very best reason is that they are finally, utterly, and incontrovertibly convinced that the faith which they put their confidence in is true.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “All truth is God’s truth and is true everywhere, for everyone, under all conditions. Truth is true in the sense that it is objective and independent of the mind of any human knower. Being true, it cannot contradict itself.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “The beauty of intolerance is its opposition to wrong and evil in the world—in alignment with God’s righteous and perfect standard of justice, equality, human rights, and caring for others. Intolerance of evil is not mean-spirited and condemnatory; it is actually the only way to be loving and caring.” Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, The Beauty of Intolerance
  1. “What is more beautiful than God’s intolerance expressed in his moral outrage toward the tragedies of poverty, racism, sexual abuse, slavery, AIDS, bigotry, and other such evils?” Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, The Beauty of Intolerance
  1. “Human beings are truth-seekers by nature, and truth persuades by the forces of its own reality.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  2. “It is impossible to experience love without being truthful, and it is impossible to discover truth without loving it.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “Truth is our best friend, and it is an inseparable part of what real love is. While cultural tolerance may disguise itself as caring, understanding, and loving, it lacks the moral authority of an authentic love that looks out for the best interest of others. That is another quality of authentic, real love—it is always other-focused.” Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, The Beauty of Intolerance
  1. “As human beings, we are by nature truth-seekers; as fallen human beings, we are also by nature truth-twisters. And a proper account of truth in the human project must do justice to both.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  2. “Conforming our desires to the truth is harder in the short term but easier in the long. We give up our need for control and submit to truth outside us, which, if we were wrong about truth before, requires repentance rather than rationalization. We have to face up to reality rather than trying to fit reality into our schemes. But the long-term outcome is freedom because…truth is freedom and we are engaging with reality at it truly is.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin
  1. “What distinguishes God’s unconditional acceptance from that of our culture is authentic love. His love is intended to make the security, happiness, and welfare of another as important as his own. It is other-focused, not performance-focused. God knows the real truth about us—that we were created in his image—and that truth allows him to separate the person from performance. God unconditionally values us for who we are without always approving of what we do because he separates the value of the person from the acts of the person.” Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, The Beauty of Intolerance
  1. “The Christian faith is not true because it works; it works because it is true. It is not true because we experience it; we experience it—deeply and gloriously—because it is true. It is not simply ‘true for us’; it is true for any who seek in order to find.” Os Guinness, Time For Truth: Living Free In A World of Lies, Hype, and Spin

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Dr. Frank Turek DVD, Mp3 and Mp4

Right From Wrong by Josh McDowell Mp3

Counter Culture Christian: Is There Truth in Religion? (DVD) by Frank Turek

Deconstructing Liberal Tolerance: Relativism as Orthodoxy (Mp3) by Francis Beckwith

Defending Absolutes in a Relativistic World (Mp3) by Frank Turek

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? (Mp3), (Mp4), and (DVD) by Frank Turek

 

Luke Nix holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and works as a Desktop Support Manager for a local precious metal exchange company in Oklahoma.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2L19IR3

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Real Place Morality

Right Behavior. Does It Exist?

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By Michael C. Sherrard

How do you know if your idea of right behavior is truer than mine? I ask, of course, because nearly every day I’m confronted, as are you I’m sure, by someone who insists that they are right and I wrong about how to live. Arguing is native; it’s the air we breath. The article you read before this one was likely someone arguing that their view of right behavior is better than another’s and that you should fall in line. Everyone has uttered the words “that’s not fair, or “right” or “good”, be it about something like eating the last piece of cake or whether or not to bake a cake with a message on it you find objectionable. So if we agree, then, that it is obvious that people believe there is behavior that is better than other behavior, how can we have any confidence that our behavior is the good one?

Real Place Morality

Well, there is only one way to have confidence at all, and it is this – right behavior must actually exist. It must be a place we can arrive at, a destination of sorts. C.S. Lewis explained this well in Mere Christianity, perhaps my favorite book of all time. He wrote, “The reason why your idea about New York can be truer or less true than mine is that New York is a real place, existing quite apart from what either of us thinks.” As it is true of ideas about New York, it is also true of ideas about behavior. There must be a real right way to live and a real wrong way to live for our ideas about behavior to be truer or less true than another’s. For it would be nonsense to argue about something that doesn’t actually exist.

Indeed, there must be something official, something authoritative, some standard of good behavior that really exists that one’s behavior more closely aligns with than another’s for one’s behavior to be right and the other wrong. This is quite simple isn’t it. Such an obvious fact of reality. Fighting about beliefs assumes their are right and wrong beliefs. But of course, you know the next question this brings. What is this standard with which we judge beliefs about good and bad behavior and from where did this standard come?

I suppose, of course, we could abandon all together the notion that right and wrong exist and give up arguing. But to even get there, we would need to argue if that is the right thing to do. It seems we are stuck. If we are going to continue to fight about whose beliefs of right behavior are best, we also must have a talk about whose standard for judging behavior is best.

I don’t think I’ll take this space to explore this thought any further and try to settle what’s the best standard for judging behavior. Rather, let me just end by insisting that we recognize the obvious fact that our arguing about behavior presupposes that there exists some standard of good and bad behavior. It is probably a healthy exercise for all people to reflect on their standard. How did you come by it? Who told you it was the standard? And most importantly, why is your standard sufficient to be the authoritative source of moral judgement? Regardless of what side of an issue you find yourself in the future, remember that you share common ground with your opponent. You are each trying to conform yourself and others to some standard. Which brings one last question to my mind. Why on Earth should anyone obey your standard? Why is it worth my allegiance? Perhaps a time out is in order so that all parties can reflect on these kinds of questions before resuming the incessant declaration’s of “I’m right!”

Recommended resources related to the topic:

Stealing From God by Dr. Frank Turek (Book, 10-Part DVD Set, STUDENT Study Guide, TEACHER Study Guide)

Legislating Morality: Is it Wise? Is it Legal? Is it Possible? by Frank Turek (Book, DVD, Mp3, Mp4, PowerPoint download, PowerPoint CD)

Is Morality Absolute or Relative? by Frank Turek (DVD/ Mp3/ Mp4)

Was Jesus Intolerant? (DVD) and (Mp4 Download) by Dr. Frank Turek 

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Michael C. Sherrard is a pastor, the director of Ratio Christi College Prep, and the author of Relational Apologetics. Booking info and such can be found at michaelcsherrard.com.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2xAE9Vf

 

 

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Ethics Relativism Morality

Should We Be Moral Relativists?

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INTRODUCTION

This is a short introductory essay to defend objective moral values. In philosophy, the term ‘objective,’ is defined as the existence of an object independent of human mind (mind-independency); “the object would “be there,” as it is, even if no subject perceived it.”1 In contrast, the term ‘relative’ refers to the perception of an object by the subject (mind-dependency).

‘Relativism’ espouses true or false moral judgments relative to language, culture or biological makeup.2 For instance, relativism need not consider polygamy as crime, for cultures or people can justify polygamy relative to their thought paradigm. Relativism denies objectivity and appeals to man’s mind.

Alternatively, ‘Objectivism’ espouses truth and falsity as independent of mind, so to claim and appeal to the reality of objective moral facts. Therefore, objectivism will rule polygamy to be a crime by appealing to the existence of objective moral laws (which is discovered and not invented by humans). This is similar to objectivism affirming the objective reality that sun is more massive than the earth.

THESIS

I – A Case for Objective Moral Values:

‘Objectivism’ or ‘we should not be moral relativists’ could be reasonably defended by positing the presence of ‘objective moral values.’ Moral relativism opposes ‘objectivism’ by negating the presence of objective realities.3 But if objective moral values can be postulated to exist, then moral relativism could be reasonably debunked.

 (1) Objective Reality is Factual

There are objective realities. The fact that sun is more massive than earth is an objective reality. This fact does not depend on anyone affirming or negating it.

(2) Objective Moral Values are a Reality

It’s morally wrong to not assist a person in need when we are able to. Similarly genocide is morally wrong; it is morally wrong to deliberately and systematically eliminate a group of people. These are universally affirmed objective moral values and do not depend on people’s mind (whether anyone believes or accepts, it is morally wrong to not assist a person and to commit genocide). Thus there are universally affirmed objective moral values.

(3) An Objective Basis is Necessary for Objective Moral Values to Exist

The “objectivism” proposed by Ayn Rand (1905-1982) posits man’s selfishness or man’s survival as the objective foundation to objective moral values.4 But human selfishness cannot be sustained as an objective foundation against an argument that a certain human subjectivity ought to be involved in deciding opposing values of human selfishness.

Would it be objectively true if the Nazi’s argued that it was morally right for them to eliminate the entire Jewish population because the Jews were an economic burden to Germany? The human selfishness of the Nazis was predicated upon the economic crisis in Germany, but in stark contrast, the human selfishness of the Jews was predicated on protecting their own life. So the Randian objectivism would crumble when two opposing cases of human selfishness collide with each other. Thus one ought to subjectively decide between the opposing objective moral values espoused by the two groups.

But ‘God’ can be reasonably posited as the sole objective source for moral values. God, as the greatest conceivable being, transcends humanity and the space-time coordinates. Hence God is an objective reality and the sole objective basis for objective moral laws.

However, proof of God’s existence ought to be reasonably provided, if not, God cannot be posited as the basis of mind-independent objective moral laws. Many arguments for God’s existence have been reasonably and plausibly posited, such as the Teleological Argument,5 Cosmological Argument,6 Moral Argument7 etc.

Since objectivity, objective moral values, and an objective moral value giver (God) can be posited, a reasonable conclusion is that there are objective moral values. Hence, we should not be moral relativists.

II – A Case for an Immoral World:

Moral relativism would stimulate an immoral world without any restraint whatsoever. When moral values are predicated on human mind, morality would be a slave of the dogma that controls that human mind. If one’s dogma is cannibalism, he would appeal to moral relativism to justify his devouring of his neighbor. Since moral relativism promotes an immoral world, we should not be moral relativists.

CONCLUSION

Two mutually contradicting statements cannot be true within the same context, at the same time and for all people. So objective and relative moral values cannot both be true for they contradict each other. The presence of objective moral values and the case for an immoral world portrays that moral relativism exists by ignoring or suppressing the truth of objective moral values. Therefore, we should not be moral relativists.

END NOTES:

1http://www.iep.utm.edu/objectiv/#SH2a

2http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/

3http://www.iep.utm.edu/moral-re/#H3

4http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayn-rand/

5 J.P Moreland, Scaling the Secular City – A Defense of Christianity, (Michigan: Baker Academic, 1987), p43-76.

6 Ibid, p15-42.

7http://www.reasonablefaith.org/moral-argument#ixzz2mPz3C86b

This article was posted at http://rajkumarrichard.blogspot.in/2013/12/should-we-be-moral-relativists_28.html

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2th89GR

 

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Is Spiritual Truth a Matter of Opinion? An Open Letter to a Relativist

Is Spiritual Truth a Matter of Opinion? An Open Letter to a Relativist

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By Natasha Crain

I received the following blog comment this week, packed with statements that your kids are likely to hear (and possibly come to believe) about the nature of truth. I wanted to reply to the commenter right here in a blog post because I feel there is so much that is important for everyone to understand about what he is saying.

I’m going to include the full comment below so you can read it in its unbroken entirety, then I’ll break it down part-by-part. If you have older kids, I encourage you to read them this letter and use it as a discussion starter.

For context, this person is responding to an atheist who had commented on a post previously and is encouraging him to stay strong in the midst of Christian claims.

You are really brave defending your stance against a bunch of evangelical Christians banging on you. I myself am not an atheist. If I have to put a label on myself, I would choose agnostic theist. I believe in God or a higher power, but I don’t have an absolute certainty of his or her nature.

 My belief is rational to [a] certain extent. The rest is on faith. However, unlike Christians, my spiritual path is highly personal and subjective. I will never say that “you’d better believe what I believe or you will suffer eternal consequences”. Christians, whichever denominations, like to intimidate me which [sic] this “Jesus is the high way” tactic even though I never initiate any religious conversation with them. However, I have survived as a gay, Vietnamese, and non-Abrahamic-faith person, and my life is pretty good so far. I know you may not like to hear this. I feel connected to God with contemplation, prayer, and compassion practice. When I have a child, I will not raise him or her as an atheist or a believer. I will do my best to raise him as a person who has a higher sense of empathy and compassion. If he chooses to be a Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan, Pagan, etc., I will support his decision. I believe that God is like an ocean, and different spiritual paths are like rivers. I am not the one who decides which river is the best to reach the ocean…

Keep your stance and keep searching truth…your truth. Not mine and definitely not these Christians’.

My Response: An Open Letter to a Relativist

Dear Minh,

Thank you for being willing to honestly share your spiritual journey in the comments section of my blog. It’s clear that spirituality is an important topic for you, as it is for me. With that in mind, I’d like to respond to several of the points you make.

You said: I myself am not an atheist. If I have to put a label on myself, I would choose agnostic theist. I believe in God or a higher power, but I don’t have an absolute certainty of his or her nature.

From what you’re saying here, it sounds like you are “agnostic” about what kind of God or higher power exists because you haven’t found anything pointing to that Being’s nature with absolute certainty. However, it’s important that we’re honest with ourselves about this desire for absolute certainty. There’s pretty much nothing in life we know with “absolute certainty.” For example, do you know with absolute certainty that you are a real person and that everything you experience is not just an illusion? No, but you have good reason to believe you really exist and you live accordingly. We claim to know things all the time that we can’t be absolutely certain about. When the preponderance of evidence points toward something being true, we go ahead and say we know it.

The question I would leave you to consider, therefore, is this: If you discovered that a preponderance of evidence pointed to a specific religion being the one true revelation of God to humans, would you accept it as truth? Or do you require a level of certainty that you don’t require of anything else in your life?

If you require a unique level of certainty in spiritual matters, then I would suggest perhaps you don’t want to find truth. If you are open to considering the weight of the evidence for the possible objective truth of a specific religion, then I would invite you to begin that investigation in earnest. If you would like to learn about the evidence for Christianity specifically, I will recommend a great starting book at the end of this letter.

You said: My belief is rational to a certain extent. The rest is on faith. However, unlike Christians, my spiritual path is highly personal and subjective.

It sounds as though you are suggesting that a highly personal and subjective spiritual path is a better way than an objective one, such as in Christianity. However, it’s important to realize (if that’s indeed what you are implying) that by claiming this, YOU are making an objective statement–that a highly personal and subjective spiritual path is best for everyone! That’s a contradiction.

You said: I will never say that “you’d better believe what I believe or you will suffer eternal consequences”.

If you’re an agnostic theist, then you presumably don’t believe there are eternal consequences for your beliefs, so of course, you will never say that. But what you are really saying here is that it’s wrong (and probably arrogant) for Christians to suggest to others that they have objective knowledge that beliefs have eternal consequences. Here’s the problem: What if Christianity is true? What if there are eternal consequences for what you believe? Would it be more loving for Christians to tell others about that, or to stay silent in the fear that the truth might bother you? Whether you believe Christianity is true or not, it’s not logical to suggest it’s a bad thing for Christians to warn other people about what they believe to be eternal consequences. When a person truly believes something horrible will happen to another person unless they warn them about it (think of someone about to get hit by a bus), the logical and loving action is to warn them. I would hope you would do the same if that were your belief.

You said: Christians, whichever denominations, like to intimidate me which this “Jesus is the high way” tactic even though I never initiate any religious conversation with them.

We really need to stop here and better define the nature of intimidation; there is a huge difference between an intimidating delivery of a message, an intimidating message, and feeling intimidated.

If a Christian has gotten in your face, waving a Bible in the air and shouted angrily at you, “Jesus is the only way!” then they have delivered a message in an intimidating way. And I apologize if you have been the recipient of any such graceless delivery. That is not how Jesus would speak.

An intimidating message is one that is frightening in and of itself. Is the message that Jesus is the only way to God frightening? If so, I encourage you to really dig deep and understand why it would be frightening to you if there was really just one objective truth. The gospel is good news…Jesus died so that our sins can be forgiven and we can be reconciled to our wonderful Creator.

Finally, a person can feel intimidated even if someone does not deliver a message in an intimidating way and doesn’t even deliver an intimidating message. There is nothing inherently intimidating about saying that Jesus is the only way to God! But if in response to that, you feel intimidated, then it’s worth digging within to understand why the notion of one objective truth is so challenging to you personally.

You said: However, I have survived as a gay, Vietnamese, and non-Abrahamic-faith person, and my life is pretty good so far. I know you may not like to hear this.

Minh, the test of truth should never be whether or not our lives are “pretty good.” A person can believe the world is flat (a wrong belief about reality) while having an amazing life from an earthly perspective. It’s not about survival and circumstances; it’s about having good reason to know that what you believe is an accurate picture of reality.

You said: I feel connected to God with contemplation, prayer, and compassion practice.

But why put so much trust in your feelings? Our feelings can’t be the final arbiter of truth. If I tell you I feel connected to Jesus as God’s son, who represents the only way to God, you wouldn’t believe I’m right. So there has to be something objective–evidence outside of your and my personal experiences–to help us determine what is actually true.

You said: When I have a child, I will not raise him or her as an atheist or a believer. I will do my best to raise him as a person who has a higher sense of empathy and compassion.

Why are empathy and compassion the most important values? Why are they “higher” in value or truth than whether or not God exists? If God doesn’t exist, and the world is only material, then there is no basis for objective morality; there is nothing morally good or bad because there is no moral authority. Empathy and compassion are morally equivalent to killing people if we are just molecules in motion. To be sure, I’m not suggesting that most atheists would ever think killing a person is OK. But, in a world with no God (a moral authority), at best you could say that killing people is not good in your opinion, and therefore you won’t do it. Atheists can be “good without God,” but they have no objective basis from which to call anything good. Similarly, if you don’t believe in a God who has revealed anything of His nature, you have no objective basis from which to refer to empathy and compassion as “higher” values.

You said: If he chooses to be a Christian, Buddhist, Wiccan, Pagan, etc, I will support his decision.

If by “support” you mean you will continue to love him dearly, regardless of what he believes, then I agree wholeheartedly. But if by “support” you mean you will accept whatever he believes as an equally valid picture of truth, then once again this is a contradiction. At the end of your whole comment, you advise fellow readers to not search for the truth of Christianity. Clearly, if your son believed Christianity is true, you would not feel that view is as valid as yours. Thus, you are willing to claim that at least some views are objectively wrong.

You said: I believe that God is like an ocean, and different spiritual paths are like rivers.

If you study where all these “rivers” are actually leading, you’ll see that they make logically incompatible truth claims; they aren’t even claiming to run to the same ocean. As a simple example, in Judaism, Jesus is not the Messiah. He is simply a man. In Christianity, Jesus is the Messiah and is God Himself. These claims cannot both be true. They contradict each other and cannot point to the same truth.

You said: I am not the one who decides which river is the best to reach the ocean.

If God exists, as you and I both believe, then you are correct: We are not the ones who decide which river is the best to reach the ocean. GOD IS! Ironically, by stating that you are not the one to decide what is best, so you, therefore, choose to believe that all paths are fine, you ARE making a claim of what is best. God, and God alone determines which “river” flows to Him. The question is, has He revealed which river that is, and if so, which revelation is correct? Christians believe He has revealed that river as Jesus. We are not claiming to have decided that on your behalf, which I think is a misunderstanding that flows throughout your comment. We are simply claiming that the river that runs to God has already been decided by God and are sharing what we believe He has revealed.

You said: Keep your stance and keep searching truth, your truth. Not mine and definitely not these Christians’.

After all you wrote about the equally valid paths to God, it’s hard not to see the irony in how you’re advising others to definitely not search for the truth of “these Christians.” Are all paths valid except Christianity? You champion relative, subjective truth, but in doing so, you are making an objective claim that all paths are equally valid (except, notably, Christianity).

The bottom line is this: Truth is not what we like the best, what makes us most comfortable, what costs us the least, or what makes us happiest. It’s what accurately matches reality. I encourage you to consider the actual evidence for the truth of various worldviews, including, of course, Christianity. If you honestly and openly do so, I am confident you will see that there is a good reason to believe that Christianity is the uniquely true revelation of God. An excellent book that examines this evidence from the perspective of a detective is Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels.

 I wish you the best and hope that there is some food for thought here.

For anyone wanting to better understand the nature of objective truth, whether or not all religions can point to the same truth, why Christians can claim to “know” Christianity is true, and how common sense and personal experience are or are not helpful in determining truth, please check out my new book, Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side: 40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith. It’s available from your local Barnes & Noble and Christian book retailers, as well as ChristianBook.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and Amazon.com.

 

Natasha Crain is a blogger, author, and national speaker who is passionate about equipping Christian parents to raise their kids with an understanding of how to make a case for and defend their faith in an increasingly secular world. She is the author of two apologetics books for parents: Talking with Your Kids about God (2017) and Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side (2016). Natasha has an MBA in marketing and statistics from UCLA and a certificate in Christian apologetics from Biola University. A former marketing executive and adjunct professor, she lives in Southern California with her husband and three children.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Clbys2

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