TRUTH-ABSOLUTE
Truth is now simply a matter
of etiquette: it has no authority, no sense of rightness, because it is no
longer anchored in anything absolute.
If it persuades, it does so only because our experience has given it its
persuasive power, but tomorrow our experience might be different.
God in the Wasteland.
One principle that today’s
intellectuals most passionately disseminate is vulgar relativism. For them it is certain that there is no
truth, only opinion: my opinion, your opinion.
They abandon the defense of the intellect; those who surrender the
domain of the intellect make straight the road to fascism. Totalitarianism is the will-to-power
unchecked by any regard for truth. To
surrender the claims of truth upon humans is to surrender Earth to thugs. Vulgar relativism is an invisible gas,
odorless, deadly, that is now polluting every free society on earth. It is a gas that attacks the central nervous
system of moral striving. “There is no
such thing as truth,” they teach even the little ones. “Truth is bondage. Believe what seems right
to you. There are many truths as there
are (many) individuals. Follow your
feelings. Do as you please. Get in touch with yourself.” Those who speak
in this way prepare the jail of the twenty-first century. They do the work of tyrants.
Michael Novak
When (we interpret Scripture
by focusing) on our inner voice, we risk losing the original voice of
Scripture, the historic anchor that has given the church its foundation and
faith, and the uniqueness of a moment of historical revelation without parallel
to anything we may experience. And
evaluating our own experience risks confusing what is subjectively true for me
with what is objectively true. Truth
(does not) reside in my own temporal experience (but rather in the correct
interpretation of the Scriptures.)
Gary Burge
Interpreting the Gospel of John, Baker, 1992.
(Philosophical pluralism) is
the ideology that refuses to allow any single religion or worldview to claim an
exclusive hold on the truth. It denies
that there are any absolutes. It
insists that all religions and worldviews must be seen as equally valid…To
suggest otherwise is to be arrogant and intolerant. No religion can claim to be superior to any other. You may practice your faith as long as you
realize it is only one of many true faiths.
If what you believe is true at all, it is only relatively true…(But-) at
the same time that philosophical pluralism denies other religions the right to
lay claim to the truth, it presents its own worldview as the absolute truth… In
the end philosophical pluralism’s dismissal of dogma turns out to be just
another dogma.
Philip Graham Ryken
Is Jesus the Only Way? Crossway, 1999, p. 16-17, 19.
The moral absolutes rest
upon God’s character. The moral
commands He has given to men are an expression of His character. Men as created in His image are to live by choice
on the basis of what God is. The
standards of morality are determined by what conforms to His character, while
those things which do not conform are immoral.
Francis Schaeffer
When we move from the
physical to the spiritual realm, fixed laws still exist. We cannot exist without laws in the moral
and the spiritual dimension of life any more than we can do so in the physical
dimension. Our Creator built morality
into life. Just as there are physical
laws, so there are spiritual laws….The same God who controls the physical world
by fixed laws controls the moral and spiritual world.
John MacArthur
You Can Trust the Bible, Moody Press, 1988, p. 5-6.
It's amazing how people can
affirm that God is a God of order and absolute precision in everything He does
in the natural world, yet believe He unconcerned about the moral world. The
scientist in the laboratory operates on the basis that his chemical mixtures
are not going to violate a known truth and blow the building to bits. The
astronauts who blast off into space count on the absolute immutability and
accuracy of scientific laws. If God is a God of law and order in the natural
realm, He's not going to say, 'Oh, just do your own thing. Believe anything you
want.' Such inconsistency is absurd!
John MacArthur
Many people...do not want
absolutes in doctrine and ethics, simply because absolute truths and standards
demand absolute acceptance and obedience.
John MacArthur
1 Corinthians, Moody, 1984, p. 27.
Public-opinion research
points to a deepening paradox in society: the combination of commitment to
religion with a deepening moral relativism.
For example, while 91 percent of the American people consider religion
very important in their lives, 63 percent reject the concept of absolutes.
Don E. Eberly
Restoring the Good Society, Baker, 1994, p. 38.
Such is the immutability of
truth, the patrons of it make it not greater, the opposers make it not less; as
the splendour of the sun is not enlarged by them that bless it, nor eclipsed by
them that hate it.
Thomas Adams
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by
permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 299.
Without absolutes revealed
from without by God Himself, we are left rudderless in a sea of conflicting ideas
about matters, justice and right and wrong, issuing from a multitude of
self-opinionated thinkers.
John Owen