Beginning Anew

According to a 1991 study, 67% of the population of this country do not believe in absolute truth. 52% of Evangelical Christians said they didn't believe in it!

In 1994, 75% of the U.S. population rejected the concept of absolute truth and 65% of evangelicals rejected it. (McMullen)

Are issues too black and white? Does a gray area exist when it comes to morals? Is lying okay for some situations and not for others?
Christians "typically" fall into a Traditional thought group.

First of all, let’s define some basic terminology.

One definition of truth is: (according to Dictionary.com) Fidelity to an original or standard.

This definition has a couple of dimensions to be considered. Firstly, it is important to note that a standard must exist. So truth is based on the existence of other truths. Also, what would truth be without deception? Is that a standard to which truth must be compared?

Morals are: (again, dictionary.com) Conforming to standards of what is right or just in behavior; virtuous: a moral life.

So again we have a comparison to a standard. We have guidelines that we follow to get us to truth and moral behavior. Where are these guidelines derived? For Christians they are given to us in the form of God’s word. We find that we as humans don’t get to choose what is right and wrong when we look at the guides such as the Ten Commandments and other writings that define the will of God with wrong and right in mind.

But what about people who do not believe in God or the Bible? They will fall into one of the other categories of thought. They are modern and post-modern.

A person who tends towards the modern thought will say “if there is no absolute truth, then there can be no absolute right and wrong”. With God out of the equation, is there really truth? So if the answer to that is no, then how can we judge morals? Morals must be based on truth. (McMullen)

There are some subgroups of this group such as “Conventional Relativists” They believe Right and wrong; good and bad are determined by the conventions of one's society, not by any ultimate truth. This brings up some problems because if no one society is wrong then what?

Next is Individual relativists, who basically believe “what’s right for me is right for me, and what’s right for you is right for you” This presents a similar problem as before except on a much larger scale because everyone’s idea of right and wrong will clash if there is no standard.

The problem with having no moral absolutes is that all things then become permissible, even those things such as Slavery and Racism that it are pretty firmly considered to be a bad idea. If you are in the “Modern” or “Relativist” viewpoint, then you are concerned with what is acceptable by society. If this is the case than people who owned and mistreated slaves were “right” in their society. They were engaging in a practice that was accepted as a part of their culture.

Lets take another example. Murder. Is it ever good? Society says no, most individuals say no, the bible says no. We have 3 agreements that it is a reprehensible act. But if you don’t believe in an Absolute NO, then how can you convict and punish this person for murder?

'If a person doesn't think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That's how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing, and I've since come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God, and I believe that I, as well as everyone else, will be accountable to Him.'

These words above are those of Jeffery Dahmer, one of the worst serial killers in the history of mankind. He realized that his belief of there not being an absolute truth to answer to gave him the authority to behave in a way that is unacceptable because there were no after death consequences. Unfortunately for his victims this realization came too late.

We as humans are expected to behave in a particular way, our entire justice system is based on the idea of truth (in the United States, at least). But what is truth? Is it provable fact? How do you really prove facts? There must be a standard on which those facts are based!

Let’s take the concept that “I saw him do it”. You have to believe that the person is giving an accurate representation of what they saw… but it isn’t even that simple. You must first believe that they can see, and that they can commit what they see to memory and reproduce that memory into a communication that we can understand! Do we know that what we remember is fact? Well, often it can be proven through other means, but to what standard are those means held?

We are given a set of standards for our lives. They are great standards. Take sexual sin for example. It is clearly addressed many times in the bible. If we remain sexually pure we are rewarded. We don’t get STD’s, we don’t get pregnant, and we don’t have to deal with the emotional issues of being sexually active. Most would agree that sexual purity is a Biblical principle.

If you don’t believe in the bible, are the consequences any different?

The obvious answer here is NO! All those things can happen whether you believe the bible or not. So truth exists whether you belive or not!

An earlier discussion brought up this point about recent news involving Billy Graham: “he sees things not as black and white, but as issues that have compelling sides and needs to be walked through.”

I contemplated that for a while, and here is my response: There are many issues that could be dealt with in the realm of this comment, but I’ll focus on one of them. We, as a society and as Christians, must have a standard by which to live. If we have no standard then chaos will ensue. We as people have not done very well setting up our own utopia (i.e. the fall of communism) and we cannot rely on our own understanding to guide us. Someone somewhere has to have some moral absolutes or societies as we know them will not continue.

What is important to note about Rev. Graham is his way of loving the sinner and hating the sin. He doesn’t feel the need to attack them as people, but rather he ministers to them through love and appeals to their sense of reason. We don’t need to break out the “30lb Bible on a Stick” and start going around telling people how wrong they are, but we need to build relationships and SHOW them that they should change to conform to the standards set for us by God in the Bible. I’m not saying our message should change, by any means, but the method used by some could be more in the image of Jesus. Remember that Jesus got angry with sinners once too, though. He did not take kindly to the dishonesty that was going on IN THE CHURCH!

Back onto my other topic, ethical relativism. This principle says that “what is right in one situation is not always right in another”. Plato would argue that if given the choice between telling the truth and someone’s life being taken or telling a lie and their life being saved, he supports the lie.

In his book, Ethics in Media Communications. Cases and Controversies. 2^nd ed Louis Day gives a great summary for this topic: telling the truth never needs any moral justification; lying and deception ALWAYS do. (Sourced from McMullen)

Why is this? Because truth is the basis of all morality. Without it, there is no standard to which our actions are to be compared and proven to be the best or right choice!

The age old question of stealing a loaf of bread to feed ones family being right or wrong. How do you think God would view that? Not only is it a direct violation of the Ten Commandments, but it shows a total lack of faith that God can provide for our family within the guidelines he has set forth!

Ok… wrapping this up…

Moral and ethical absolutes are important, and Truth must exist.

I know that seems like an abrupt end to this whole tirade, but that summarizes everything I’ve said and could say on the topic.

OH! One more thing… any good and believable lie has some element of truth. Think about that and leave some comments, if you’ve read this far!

Here’s a link to some of the Dr. McMullen stuff I’ve been sourcing all along here. She was my favorite prof in college and really got me to thinking about this stuff!

http://fly.hiwaay.net/~jmcmulle/310truth.htm

http://www2.una.edu/jmcmulle/310lecture2part2.htm

http://fly.hiwaay.net/~jmcmulle/truthcross.htm

http://www2.una.edu/jmcmulle/400firstamendment-part3.htm