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Relativism and the Nature of Truth

Truth exists.

Any other premise is self-invalidating. Take, for instance, the thought: Truth does NOT exist. Is that a truth? If so, then truth exists and the statement is refuted .

We might argue that the premise just happens to be an exception to this rule: Self-contradictory premises are not always false. But this doesn't help much, since we have a further question to face: Is it true that exceptions to rules exist? If so, we have established the existence of a truth. But then if we deny that exceptions to rules exist, we are in turn admitting the absolute truth that there is no exception to the rule that self-contradictory premises are false .

Can we find some middle ground between the two opposing premises that "truth exists" versus "truth does not exist"? A kind of balance that would satisfy everybody? Let's try this one: "Truth MIGHT exist." This appear more open-minded but it doesn't help much. Why? Because the premise is stated as truth. If it is true that "truth might exist", then we have established the existence of a truth. Thus, truth does exist .

A labyrinth of self-contradictions greets us the instant we adopt any other premise than: TRUTH EXISTS. Trying to make sense out of anything else is like chewing gristle. The more we chew, the tougher it gets. We just can't swallow it .

Rarely do people blatantly say, "truth does not exist." But we frequently encounter the related premise of Relativism, which is the same thing stated in another form: "Truth is relative to the individual." The Relativist insists that when a person claims to have perceived a truth,he is really observing a process going on in his own mind, not objective realities. But this amounts to the same thing as the premise that"truth does not exist", and is just as easily refuted. Example: If truth is "relative to the individual", then what about the truth that truth is relative to the individual? Is that an absolute truth or a relative one? If it is absolute, then there exists a truth that is not relative to any individual. If it is relative, then the premise has no absolute validity and we can ignore it .

Thus, anyone who uses the stock phrase, "that is true for you", is simply spewing nonsense syllables into the air .

Some relativists assert that reality itself is just a state of mind .

Reality is altered or controlled by our state of consciousness .

(Relativists are sometimes unaware that this happens to be the basic premise behind occultic mind science, which has been known to cause severe mental and personality disturbances in some people.) Nevertheless, this kind of thinking thoroughly permeates our culture .

The whole educational system, right from grammar school through college, is rife with it. ("Values clarification", the "open classroom","New Math" and certain social studies programs are samples of ideas invented and pushed by Relativists.) In entertainment, it forms thebasis for many popular T.V .

programs and movies, including some cartoon series for children. These show heroes altering reality by mind power and just believingthings into existence .

Under no circumstances can anyone logically sustain the notion that truth is "relative". It is a self contradictory premise because itcontradicts itself by its very nature and needs no furthers refutation .

However, this doesn't mean that further refutations don't exist. Though relativism dispatches itself, like the proverbial snake that bitesitself and dies, there is another way we can kill it ourselves if we want to. It is this: Before a person begins to reason about anyphilosophy whatsoever, he must accept logic as an absolute. That is, logic must be accepted as a valid criteria for the evaluation of truth .

Not only must this be accepted, it must also be accepted absolutely. Failure to do this deprives us of any right to reason about anything,or to use logic as valid grounds for stating conclusions, regardless of what the philosophy might be. If anyone wishes to question this hemust do so without the assistance of logic. For example: A religious anti intellectual was attempting to persuade a friend that reason is apoor standard for evaluating truth. The friend replied, "I would be glad to hear an explanation of the rational behind that view. But only ifyou agree to use no form of reason whatsoever in your explanation, since it is the validity of reason that you are attempting to refute."This left the anti-intellectual completely confounded .

It's precisely at this point that the relativists crashes into the wall of reality. Is it absolutely true that reason is valid? If so, then an absolutetruth exists. If the relativist balks at this, then he denies himself the right to use reason as a means of validating his philosophy .

The only way a relativist can be consistent with himself is to keep his mouth shut and avoid thinking. Or, if he does think, he must becareful not to consider any of his conclusions as having absolute validity, including the basic premise of relativism. In fact, he is deprivedof the right to even consider it absolutely true that his conclusions are not absolutely true! Relativism is a fine philosophy as long is so farfrom careful not to think, act, or speak. Relativism is so far from reality that anyone who attempts to follow the premises to their logicalconclusions could be a danger to himself and others, and might have to be restrained. After all, a driver who imagines that an automobilebearing down on him is not really there unless he believes it is so, should not have a driver's license. I would hate to be a passenger in avehicle driven by a consistent relativist. Even worse, he might imagine himself to be a bird on no other grounds than that thinking makes itso. This in itself is not harmful unless he tries to fly off a building. If he is not restrained, his philosophy could be short-lived. He mighthave to be incarcerated for his own safety .

At this point I risk appearing unkind, facetious, or even bigoted by what I shall say next. But I assure the reader that my intent is none ofthese. I only wish to demonstrate how utterly untenable any relativist philosophy really is: What else is a mentally ill person other than aconsistent relativist? Or, to put it the other way around, the only reason most relativist are not incarcerated is because they have enoughsense to make no attempt to live consistently with their philosophy .

In a college psychology course years ago, I learned that Schizophrenia is defined as a separation from reality. The schizophrenic ischaracterized by a dogged refusal to recognize any discrepancy between his state of mind and reality. Curiously, this is precisely whatconsistent relativistic philosophy asserts about the relationship between mind and reality. It refuses to recognize any distinction betweenreality and our perception of reality. In practical terms, this means not only that psychologists are disqualified from being relativists, buythat they must also classify relativism as a form of Schizophrenia .

A clear frame of reference as to the nature of absolute reality must exist in the mind of the psychologist before he can declare anyone tobe "mentally ill". But if the psychologist is a relativist, what then is his frame of reference? If he has none, then what right does he have tomake any such declaration? If Relativism is correct, the patient has just as much right to declare the psychologist insane .

If this conclusion is irrational, I would like to see the exact point at which the irrationality occurs. Buy if my reasoning is sound, theneither Relativism is a mental aberration, or Schizophrenia is a philosophy .

When we say then that truth is absolute, we mean that truth is independent of human perception for its existence. By "truth", we mean ofcourse, "that which exists" whether we perceive it or not. Having established therefore a that reality doesn't depend on our perception of it,we can draw a number of other conclusions about truth .

First, since truth is absolute, it must also be universal. Since truth is independent from human perception, them it doesn't matter whetherthe perception of one individual is in question, or millions. It is independent in either case since the grounds of truth is reality itself andnot our perception. For example, it was once universally believed that the earth was flat. But this was a unanimously false misperception .

The world as round then as it is today .

Another example: It is true that at this moment, you are reading this page .

This is a fact that it is still true that you are reading this article .

Whatever is true, is true universally, although people's perception of that truth may vary .

But remember, we are not talking now about human perception. The nature of truth, not a human ability, is the only issue. At all times in adiscussion like this, we have to be careful to make that distinction. Obviously people do not perceive events the same way. But this doesn'tchange the nature of the event. When we are talking about perception, then we can discuss who is perceiving the event most accurately .

But this is different from a discussion of the event itself .

Since truth is universal, it is applicable to every individual in the world. By applicable, I do not mean they have the same importance orrelevance. I simple mean that a fact is a fact, regardless of who perceives it .

Finally , all truth is eternal. Example: It will forever be true that at this time you were reading this article. This will a real event of pasttomorrow as well as a billion years from now .

Sometimes relativists use examples from science to attempt to refute this .

They refer to various theories that were held as fact for centuries, buy which have since been proven wrong. Copernian astronomy wasdisproved by Galileo. Newtonian physics has been overthrown by Einsteinian Relativity .

But of course, this is another failure to distinguish between reality and perception of reality. No scientist today would ever say that inCopernicus' day the sun revolved around the earth. That's why any such examples can be thrown out of court as evidence .

The same is true with relativistic attempts to point out the differences in divergent cultures. It makes no real difference whether it is oneindividual misperceiving reality or a whole society. Error is error .

If, for example, God exists, then atheistic societies are in error. But if God does not exist, then theistic societies are in error. Since God'sexistence is not dependent upon human perception or belief, one is right and one is wrong. One would think that this is too childish tobother to mention. But for the relativist, it is too deep .

Truth therefore is absolute, universal and eternal. By this we mean that truth is independent of anyone's perception for its existence, isvalid for everyone in the world whether they know it, like it or not, and all of the above is true forever. While modern relativists screamprotests against this conclusion, they have never been able to show how it can be logically refuted .

Having established the nature of truth, we can now turn our attention to a related and very important matter: Morality .

Can a logical connection be shown to exist between the nature of truth as absolute and the premise that morality is absolute? I think so .

Further, it is not difficult. We need only to point out that telling the truth is a matter of morality. If otherwise we would have to say thatlying has nothing to do with truth. Of course there will always be a wag somewhere who will want to say this. But then I suppose wecould ask him if what he is saying is absolute truth or if that is only relatively speaking .

If there exists an inseparable link between truth and morality, (and I think the above example on lying shows that there is), then whateveris true of truth must also be true of morality. Moral relativism dies on the same knife as did philosophical relativism. Absolute, universaland eternal moral laws therefore exist if absolute truth exists. This means that some things are always wrong regardless of whetheranyone likes, believes it, or not. This means that some moral laws are applicable to every society on earth regardless of whether theirculture recognizes them or not .

Finally, moral truths must be eternal. This means that the absolute and universal nature of morality can never change. It does no good tosay "the times have changed". Time may change, but truth and morality logically cannot .

Again, we are not talking about human perception here. Ideas as to what is right and wrong vary considerably between individuals andnations. This in itself cannot be used as an evidence that morality is relative to those individuals or cultures. It could only mean that someindividual or cultures are more right morally than others, since, as we have shown, both truth and morality must logically be absolutes .

In this discussion of relativism, we have to make a couple of important clarifications. Just because we have shown that truth and moralitymust be absolutes does not in itself mean that anyone in the world knows what it is. Speaking from a logical perspective, without regardto observable facts, we could say that it is conceivable that nobody in the world knows what the truth is about anything including morality .

Obviously, observable and verifiable facts exist or we could not draw any conclusion about anything, or even think and live. But, thispaper is not about everything .

I am not even attempting to show what the truth is about anything nor what is right or wrong in any context. I am only attempting to showthe inherent irrationality of all forms of relativism whether philosophical or moral .

Further, I am not denigrating the value of human perception. I'm only showing that truth is not dependent on it for its existence. We mustmaintain a certain faith in the correctness of our perceptions of reality or else we could not think with enough certainty to even be able tolive. Not an absolute faith, of course, because we have all learned by experience that we make mistakes in our perceptions. The magicianmakes his living on this fact .

In conclusion, we have shown that anyone who values logic must abandon Relativism regardless of its disguises. It has no rationaldefense. Having shown truth to be absolute, universal and eternal, we can now turn to collecting some of these "observable facts" aboutthe reality around us and come to some unshakable conclusions about what the truth may be .

Relativism in the church

Relativism is an all-pervasive philosophy in our times. It dominates the educational system, permeatestelevision programming, influences decisions of the higher courts and is rapidly forming the fabric of modern culture .

Christians must be exceptionally carefully not to let it infiltrate the Church. It wears many disguises. One comes in the form of the"balance of truth" idea. It's currently used by Christian leaders anxious to reconcile believers with differences. But it plays right into thehands of our enemies .

Truth Cannot Be "Balanced" We may compare opposing concepts, buy we can't "balance" truths. That's inherently irrational. Thefundamental principle behind all logic is that whatever is true cannot be false at the same time. In philosophy this is called "A is notnon-A", and simply means that a thing cannot be itself and not itself at the same time. Without this simple principle, logical thought isimpossible. Consequently, any given truth can't be itself and its opposite simultaneously. Truth therefore cannot be "balanced" .

A church group was discussing whether salvation is by Grace alone or if man assisted through some merit of his own. Although the"merit" view needed polite but firm correction, this is not what happened. Instead, the pastor concluded, "I see a balance of truth here",and then proceeded with a discourse on how Scripture contains room for a wide variety of opinions .

"After all", he said, "the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle." Some nodded in agreement at this apparently reasonableconclusion without realizing that the pastor just undermined everything Christianity stands for. Suggesting that the Bible is too obscurefor resolving essential issues was bad enough. But he also implied that truth is largely a question of personal perspective. His attempt toconciliate the congregation propelled him toward the trap of Relativism.....the denial of absolute and objective truth. He failed to see thatthe consequences of this were worse than the dispute he was trying to quell .

But can there be different facets to the same truth? Surely. The Deity of Christ, for example, is a multi-faceted truth. It involves the VirginBirth, the relationship between Christ's two natures, His preexistence and so forth. But this truth can never be "balanced", since it wouldinvolve an absurdity such as: "Christ is God vs Christ is not God, and the truth lies somewhere in the middle." Some issues are simplynot negotiable, and one of them is the absolute nature of truth .

The early Christians understood that absolute truth is worth fighting for .

In Acts 15, this resulted in a dispute with the Judaizers. Some acknowledged that salvation is by grace alone. Others claimed it is by a mixture of Grace plus Law. How fortunate that this dispute didn't take place in the twentieth century! Invariably someone would have declared: "Well, I can see Paul's viewpoint. But the Circumcision party has some good thoughts, too. I think we need to realize that thetruth probably lies somewhere in the middle. After all, let's not go to extremes. We may never know for sure anyway. In the name of brotherly love, let's all agree to disagree and go home in peace."

Imagine the result if the Reformers had held to Relativism. Picture MartinLuther saying, "I believe in justification by faith. But I know some good folks don't agree. If they're sincere and love the Lord, it doesn't really matter what they believe. After all, we must be careful not to create divisions."

Luther, Calvin, Knox and their contemporaries had anotion that sounds "extreme" to the twentieth century Christian. They felt absolute truth was worth creating divisions over, yes, evendying for. They seemed to feel that if we are sick of doctrinal disputes, then we're sick of truth. And if we're sick of truth, then we are verysick indeed .

How did Relativism Get Started? In the 1800's, a philosopher named Hegel proposed another way to reason than theusual "A is not non-A". He suggested we add a third step called "synthesis". This means we could take two mutually exclusivepropositions, (such as Christ is God vs Christ is not God), put them opposite one another, and then pick some "good" out of each. This would lead to a compromise, the "synthesis", which would then become a new proposition "A". The process could continue from there .

This so-called logic is know today as the Dialectic. Though it sounds rather democratic and reasonable, it has a fatal defect. Who decides what is to be taken from the two propositions to form the "synthesis"? Hegel answered, "The individual!". And who determines what is the "good"? The individual! Do we see where Hegel led modern man? Truth no longer resided in objective reality, buy in"the individual". Reality became whatever the individual felt it was.

So what makes this flaw so fatal? No objective reason exists to determine that it is "the individual" who has the right to make these decisions. Why should it be an individual that does this and not a group, a society, a flip of the coin, God, or the neighbor's dog? If we ask Hegel, the answer is identical: It is the individual who decides that it should be the individual. Result: Irrational circular reasoning .

Clearly, the Dialectic is not a form of logic at all. It is anti-logic. It is intellectual suicide.

But does modern man stop at this irrationality? Hardly! Look at this list of current movements based on the Dialectic: Relativism, Communism, Socialism, Secular Humanism, Existentialism and Psychiatry. Pragmatic Relativism, the brain-child of American Relativist John Dewey, is the one most influential philosophy in American Education today .

Now we see the trap Christians fall into when they subjectivize truth. The pastor who used the "balance of truth" approach was inadvertently teaching Christians to think Dialectically. Some might assume that the word "Dialectic" refers to a new phone company or perhaps the latest soft-drink. "Relativism" might be mistaken for family troubles. But despite unfamiliarity with the terms, the influence is there.

Don't we all have a right to our own opinion (or viewpoint, or doctrine)? Not if the Christian view of truth is correct. No one has a right to any opinion on anything until they have first examined the evidence and evaluated it. This is just as true for Christian dogma.

Many who enjoyed this work also liked our book, Unlocking Grace.

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