Bjcorbin's Blog

5 Inevitable Outcomes of Relative Truth

Statistics indicate that somewhere between two-thirds and three-fourths of adults in America believe that the truth is relative (i.e. that each person defines what truth is for themselves).  Though this philosophy goes by many names (e.g. enlightenment, secular humanism, post modernism, moral relativism…), they all hinge on the idea that truth is more a perception than an absolute (e.g. what I view as truth, may not necessarily be truth to you).  While on a superficial level this point of view might seem graciously tolerant, a deeper inspection reveals profound implications for a society that adopts such a philosophy.  In light of that, I offer these thoughts on what I believe are the very natural consequences of embracing this paradigm.

1.      Self-Centeredness:  A belief that the truth is absolute will generally cause us to search for it outside of ourselves and to view truth as transcendent to our own experience.  It tends to make us more willing to embrace concepts that are beyond our understanding (e.g. a higher purpose or a higher power).  A belief that the truth is relative will generally cause us to turn inward in our quest for truth and to limit it to whatever we can conceive of.  This tends to cause us to live on a more instinctual level, driven largely by how we feel at any given moment.

2.      Broken promises / vows:  Detractors of absolute truth tend to view its immovable nature as oppressive, while seeing the transient nature of relative truth as attractive.  But for those on the receiving end of promises and/or vows, the dynamic nature of relative truth is a legitimate cause for concern; as those who no longer wish to be bound by the limits of their vows can simply redefine their parameters for truth, thereby voiding any previous agreements.  In such cases, the perpetrator will generally rationalize that their mistake wasn’t in breaking the vow, but in making the vow in the first place.

3.      Disunity:  For a society, a community or even a family to be truly functional there must be a willingness on the part of the individuals to forfeit some amount of their personal autonomy for the greater well-being of the group.  The incentive for such sacrifice normally lies within a shared value system or maybe even a commonality of purpose.  Generally, during a nation’s formative stage, a document is forged, which ultimately reflects the commonly held values or goals under which the people choose to unite.  Our own constitution, which has been one of the most successful documents of its kind, hangs all of its lofty principles upon the relatively simple phrase, “we hold these truths to be self evident”.  At the point that each man adopts their own concept of truth, that statement ceases to be accurate; which ultimately renders the words that follow – meaningless. While relative truth would seem to be very liberating on an individual basis, it is highly destructive to the concept of national unity. 

4.      Lawlessness: The concept of a law is that a society agrees to set a limit, boundary or constraint on what is acceptable within that society.  The agreement on where that limit should be set hinges on some common standard by which to measure acceptable behavior.  In a society that embraces the idea that every man is allowed to define truth for themselves, every law becomes susceptible to the charge that it is an obstacle to personal liberty.  If our goal is to elevate individual freedom to that level, than there is no standard that could ever truly be enforced; which by definition creates a state of lawlessness.

5.      Godlessness:  The concept of fearing God is rooted in the idea that He is powerful, that there is good and evil, and that we will ultimately give some sort of accounting for our lives one day.  But if the truth is genuinely relative, then a just God would have no basis to judge anyone.  We would all simply be acquitted of any perceived indiscretion by the fact that we lived in accordance with the truth as we defined it.  In such a reality, even the concept of good and evil becomes abstract, as what I define as evil another may define as good (e.g. flying a plane into the World Trade Center).  If God has no means by which to hold us accountable, His role is reduced to that of a cosmic bystander.  We can invoke His name and claim to believe in Him, but ultimately it becomes of no consequence.