Apologetics 101Sample

Relativism

Although it may not be possible to know everything, surely it is possible to know something. Yet some disagree with even this, claiming that we can’t know anything outside our own “personal” reality and must instead get in touch with consciousness—our “higher selves.” Trying to search for knowledge outside ourselves wilts our true potential. New Spiritualist writer Shakti Gawain believes that “when we consistently suppress and distrust our intuitive knowingness, looking instead of [external] authority, validation, and approval from others, we give our personal power away.”

The idea that truth and morality depend on our personal or cultural situation is called relativism. If relativism is correct, one of the main goals in life should be to remove any barriers people might face in finding truth for themselves. But isn’t this dangerous? Even Paul Kurtz, an atheist philosopher who helped develop a philosophy called “Secular Humanism,” acknowledged that it can be:

“The humanist is faced with a crucial ethical problem: Insofar as he has defended an ethic of freedom, can he develop a basis for moral responsibility? Regretfully, merely to liberate individuals from authoritarian social institutions, whether church or state, is no guarantee that they will be aware of their moral responsibility to others. The contrary is often the case. Any number of social institutions regulate conduct by some means of norms and rules, and sanctions are imposed for enforcing them…. Once these sanctions are ignored, we may end up with [a man] concerned with his own personal lust for pleasure, ambition, and power, and impervious to moral constraints.”

Kurtz understands that unless there is some revealed moral truth we are all obligated to obey, anything can be construed as good or bad relative to the situation in which we find ourselves. Even though we strive to do the right thing, if there is no absolute standard by which to judge, then we may honestly disagree among ourselves what the right thing is.