How do Christians answer the present spirit of the age, relativism?

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Summit Ministries: What exactly is moral relativism? Greg Koukl: Think of the difference between ice cream and insulin. With desserts you choose what you like what s true for you.

1 May/June 2005 How do Christians answer the present spirit of the age, relativism? Dear Friend, The following discussion is adapted from an interview with Summit Ministries, Manitou Springs, Colorado, an organization training young people in Christian worldview leadership. Summit Ministries: What exactly is moral relativism? Greg Koukl: Think of the difference between ice cream and insulin. With desserts you choose what you like what s true for you. With medicine, it doesn t matter what you like. You have to choose what heals what s true, period. Moral relativism is the view that ideas of right and wrong are more like ice cream than insulin. For relativists, the word truth describes an individual belief or preference. It doesn t describe some objective reality in the world. There can be many truths, then, about the same moral issue. Moral relativism, then, is a kind of subjectivism. When it comes to moral rules principles of right and wrong it s up to the subject, the individual person, to decide. Morality is not objective. It s an individual matter. SM: How should Christians respond when others assume morality is just a matter of personal preference? GK: There s a difference between disliking something and thinking it s morally wrong. Of course, all morality collapses into mere preference if there are no moral rules at all. But when people like myself make moral claims, we need to make clear we are not simply talking about what we prefer like ice cream. I might say, for example, that homosexuality is immoral. I m not saying I don t prefer it. I m saying something more, that it s wrong. Some things I think are wrong may actually appeal to me. When I say pornography is immoral, I m not saying I don t like it. Maybe I do. That s not the point. I m saying it s wrong, regardless of what I like. Maybe I m mistaken on my claim, but I don t want to be mistaken on the kind of claim I m making. When I say a thing is right or wrong, I m not merely expressing a preference. I m expressing a moral conviction about some conduct; It s not just true for me. SM: The emphasis now, it seems, is on neutrality and tolerance. Nobody should push his views on others. Can someone truly be morally neutral? GK: One of the alleged virtues of relativism is that it promotes a kind of moral neutrality: You do your thing, I do my thing; no judgments involved. This is at the heart of values clarification education in grade schools. But there s a built-in problem. In an exercise in class, my young nephew was asked to decide if a man who killed his wife as an alleged act of mercy should be punished. When my brother voiced objections, the teacher said, We re not telling the students what to do. We re neutral. We re leaving it up to them. My brother s response was insightful. He said that when teachers give children difficult moral problems and then tell them there are no guiding moral rules, but instead it s up to them, that s not neutral. That s a point of view on morality called relativism. QUICK SUMMARY: Moral relativism treats the question of right and wrong more like ice cream than like insulin. There are no correct answers to moral problems, just different flavors for different folks. People defend relativism by noting there is no universal agreement on morality. Even if this were true (which is doubtful), just because people differ doesn t mean no one is right. This leads nowhere. If relativism is true, there can be no immoral cultures, no immoral laws, and no immoral people. There is nothing ultimately bad, deplorable, tragic or worthy of blame, and nothing ultimately good, honorable, noble or worthy of praise. There are three ways to deal with relativism: Show that relativism is self-refuting, push the relativist s own moral hot button, or press the tolerance issue. Relativism fails because we are all directly aware of objective moral rules. We re also aware of our own guilt when we fail to keep them. Both of these things fit perfectly with the Christian account of God, sin, Jesus, and forgiveness.

2 And that s the problem. Everybody has to take a position here. You either believe in real morals or you don t and you re a relativist. There is no middle ground. People who think they re neutral do tremendous damage. Just think of what kind of society is produced when kids grow up believing that it s simply up to them to decide what s right and what s wrong. This is a recipe for moral anarchy. SM: Your book, Relativism Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air describes three kinds of moral relativism. What is the first kind? GK: It s the kind you ll run into in an anthropology class. The professor points out customs in other cultures that are morally repugnant to us, but morally acceptable to them. The basic thesis is that different cultures have radically different moral values. Therefore, morals are relative to culture. Since morals are mere cultural conventions, nobody has a right to say his morality is any better than another s. This view purports to describe what societies do, so I call this Society Does relativism. It s formally known as descriptive relativism. There are some problems, though. For one, even if there were big differences and I m not convinced that s ultimately true how does it follow that because two cultures differ on moral views, then neither is correct and right answers to moral questions are fictions? It doesn t follow at all. No conclusion about the nature of morality can follow from the observation that people have different moral points of view. None. One culture thinks taking care of the elderly is a virtue; another thinks killing them is right. This might tell you something about those cultures, but it doesn t tell you anything about killing old people. Amazingly, in every public debate I ve had on relativism, this is the main argument offered against me. Yet it turns out to be completely irrelevant to the question. SM: What is the second kind of moral relativism Christians come across? GK: The first kind of relativism is simply a description of what cultures seem to do. The second type is not just descriptive, but prescriptive it tells what one ought to do. Since morality is unique to each individual culture, the argument goes, then we ought to do whatever society says we should do, so I call it Society Says relativism. Trekkers know about the Prime Directive of the Federation not to interfere with another culture s morality because all cultural values are equally valid. It s basically the same view. Each culture defines right and wrong for itself. Obey your own cultural rules, but don t judge another culture s conduct. The chief problem with looking at morality this way is there can be nothing like an immoral society. If the society itself determines what is right and wrong, then anything society decides turns out to be right by definition. Morality is a function of popular vote enforced by law. This reduces morality to power. If it s legal, it s moral. This doesn t seem right. On this view there can be no immoral laws. There can be no majority of one, no moral reformers who opposes the status quo and press for social change. People like Corrie ten Boom who rescued Jews from the Nazis would actually turn out to be immoral because they violated the laws of their ruling culture. It seems pretty obvious that this can t be correct. Therefore, this way of explaining morality fails badly. SM: The third type of relativism is more individualistic, isn t it? GK: Yes. In the second type of relativism, the cultural group decides what is right and wrong. In the third form, morality is completely up to the individual. I call this I say relativism because each person gets to say for himself. When you hear, Who are you to say?, or Don t push your morality on me, you know you re dealing with the third kind of relativism. The problems with I Say relativism turn out to be similar to the problems of Society Says, but on an individual basis. In the first view, there could be no immoral cultures by definition, and no true moral reform. In this view and many people don t realize this there can be no immoral individuals by definition. The only way to have an immoral individual is if there s a common standard of morality, something universal he continually violates. But in ethical relativism there is no such standard. Everyone does his own thing. There are other serious complications that don t occur to most relativists. For instance, we hold certain concepts like justice, tolerance, fairness, etc. to be meaningful, common-sense notions. Further, people bring up the problem of evil as an argument against God. We also have moral discussions to determine the best course of action what s right in a situation. Each of these seems to be legitimate ways of talking. But if ethical relativism is really true, all of these things are nonsense because each derives its meaning from an objective moral rule. Not only that, we can never complain about the problem of evil because the objection depends for its force on the fact that evil exists out there somewhere as an objective feature of the world. But this is precisely what relativism rejects. So for relativists, there can be no true evil to object to. Evil is just a matter of how they personally define things from their perspective. Relativists find themselves in the unenviable position of having to admit that there is no such thing as evil, or justice, or fairness, or moral improvement. Ironically, they can t even demand that people be tolerant. After all, who are they to push their morality of tolerance on the intolerant person? Live and let live may be their personal morality, but why should anyone else be forced to live that way, given relativism? SM: What tactics would you use to deal with relativism? 2

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3 Cruise with Greg Koukl, William Lane Craig, Craig Hazen and J.P. Moreland, August 7-14, Go to and download a brochure to learn more. Reserve your spot today. Call (800) or contact Inspiration Cruises online at This happens all the time and it s very simple to see once you know what to look for. Without realizing it, relativists consistently smuggle morality into their rejection of morality. It s like saying, There are no moral rules; here s one. Always call them on it. GK: The key to dealing with relativism on the street is to realize that no one is really a relativist. Being made in the image of God, each person displays what Francis Schaeffer called moral motions, a fact that always surfaces when someone s guard is down. SM: What about pressing their hot button? A person can wax eloquent with you in a discussion on moral relativism, yet she ll complain when somebody cuts in front of her in line, she ll object to the unfair treatment she gets at work, she ll denounce injustice in the legal system, she ll criticize crooked politicians who betray the public trust, and she ll condemn intolerant fundamentalists who try to force their moral views on her. Yet all these things are meaningless concepts in the confused world of moral relativism. GK: This tactic is easy to use. If people claim there is no morality, find their own moral pet peeve and relativize it. Try being relativistic about gay-bashing, racism, feminism, tolerance, or abolishing abortion rights. You ll see how quickly relativists change their tune. People signal their hot buttons with the words should or ought. Note that when they do this they re not just advancing personal opinions. When someone s been robbed, he actually thinks he s been wronged. His own objective morality is surfacing. Keep your ears open. When a relativist reveals his own hot button, relativize it to make your point. With this in mind, I use three different tactics to unravel relativism. First, I show how moral relativism is self-refuting. Second, I push relativists own moral hot button. Third, I press the tolerance issue. SM: Give me an example of showing that relativism is self-refuting. What if someone says, You shouldn t force your morality on me? SM: There s a trend today to try to explain morality by evolution. Does that work? GK: The first thing out of my mouth would be two words: Why not? This tosses the ball back in his court where it belongs. He is going to have a difficult time answering why it s wrong for me to push my morality on him without him imposing his moral rules on me. This shows how relativism self-destructs. GK: I call this monkey morality. Scientists have observed monkeys practicing rudimentary moral behavior. It s the result of natural selection they say. The key word here is observe. Can morality be reduced to observable behavior? The answer is certainly no. For example, you observe a boy trip an old woman. At first glance it seems he did something wrong. But what if he didn t intend to do it, but tripped her by accident? Even if he tripped her on purpose, what if his motive was to keep her from being hit by a bus? The point is you can t analyze the morality of an action by simply looking at behavior. Motive and intent are vital parts of moral conduct. This cannot be determined by observing physical conduct. Stealing and borrowing look the same. The difference is a non-physical element called Once someone objected to my judgments on a moral issue. It s wrong to judge, he said. If it s wrong to judge, I asked, then why are you judging me right now? That caught him by surprise. After taking a moment to mentally regroup he tried again. Okay, judging is all right as long as you don t push your morality on others. This just repeated his mistake. I asked, Is that your morality, the idea that you shouldn t push your morality on others? He nodded. Then why are you pushing it on me? 3

4 permission. The Darwinian explanation must reduce morality to behavior. If morality entails more than actions, though, evolution can t explain it. Even if morality dealt only with behavior, there s another problem. Evolution might in principle, at least account for behavior connected to individual reproduction based on genetic makeup. That s the whole point of Darwinism evolving physical features enable a creature to get its genes into the next generation. But then things like goodness, kindness, mercy, love, etc., would not be acts of virtue that were freely chosen. They would be instinctive behaviors that were hard-wired for personal survival (a fact evolutionists readily admit). However, the morality we re trying to account for seems to involve chosen traits, not instinctual ones we hold people morally responsible for free choices, not innate reactions. If morality were reduced to genetics, it wouldn t be morality anymore. But if morality is not in the genes, then evolution can t explain it. Finally, evolution would only be capable of explaining why we acted in certain ways in the past (i.e., we evolved that way by natural selection). It couldn t tell us why we ought to be good in the future, or even what being good would look like. Since morality is not simply an account of what we do (descriptive), but a system explaining what we ought to do (prescriptive), evolution can t explain what it claims to explain. SM: What does the defeat of relativism tell us about God and about the human condition? GK: If relativism fails, then some form of moral objectivism must be true; morals are real. If they can t be explained away by evolution, then where did they come from? It seems there are only two possibilities: Morality is either the result of chance or it s not. Morals are either accidents or the products of an intelligent Mind. I don t know of any other options. Are morals accidents? The problem is this: If morals formed by chance, then why obey them? If you see a random display of letters on a Scrabble board that spell Don t go. Is this a command? Of course not; it s an accident. Ignore it. In the same way, if moral rules are just accidents, there s no reason to obey them. But moral rules have a sense of oughtness to them an obligatory force that needs to be accounted for. Chance can t explain it. The only alternative left is that moral rules are real commands. Commands come from a commander. This pushes us into some version of theism, it seems to me. By the way, this would also explain feelings of guilt. When we violate a moral rule, we intuitively realize we are offending the rule maker. There is accountability to a person. This creates the feeling of dread we call guilt. When we realize we re law-breakers sinners, in biblical terms we know we re in trouble. We re guilty and we need mercy. This is precisely where Jesus comes in. At this point the Christian message of guilt and forgiveness begins to make a lot more sense. It speaks truth that resonates with our deepest intuitions about the world. First, the universe is a moral universe with laws that uniquely apply to human beings. Second, we have violated those commands many times and are guilty of moral crimes against our sovereign. This highlights something we ve always said at STR: The Christian message makes sense of this world. It is a dual message of justice and love. Justice, that those who commit moral crimes ought to be punished. That s bad news. Love, that amnesty and mercy are offered to anyone who abandons the rebellion and seeks forgiveness on God s terms. And that s very good news. Your partner for the truth, Gregory Koukl President, Stand to Reason PUTTING YOUR KNOWLEDGE INTO ACTION Be alert for someone playing the tolerance trick on you. When they say you re not being tolerant for judging others, point out that they aren t being tolerant for judging you. Remember, there s no neutrality. Everyone thinks his views are right, not just you. Whenever you hear the but-people-disagree-on-morality defense for relativism, ask them to explain how the mere fact that people have differences of opinion on right and wrong actually proves there is no correct answer. Show that no one is really a relativist by pushing their moral hot button. When they use words like should or ought with their pet issue, relativize it. Then ask why they re upset. This letter may be reproduced or forwarded via without change and in its entirety for non-commercial purposes without prior permission from Stand to Reason Gregory Koukl 4

5 Did you know you can hear the STR weekly radio show at our website? Simply go to and click on radio in the top menu bar. Pray with Us Praise God for all those faithfully becoming equipped as good ambassadors through STR. Pray for expanded opportunities to reach new people with our vision and training materials. Pray for continued and steady provision during normally lean summer months. STR LAUNCHES BLOG Read the latest postings by STR s great thinkers on key topics facing today s Christian ambassadors. Simply go to and click on latest postings in the STR Launches Blog box in the middle right side of the home page. There you can read a week s worth of clear thinking on current ethical and theological issues. Greg Koukl MAY 14 Religious Research Project, Minneapolis, MN Contact: (763) Brooklyn Park Evangelical Free Church, Brooklyn Park, MN 9:00 & 10:30 a.m. Topic: TBD Contact: (972) or Richland Bible Fellowship Church, Richardson, TX 7:00 p.m. Topic: various Contact: (972) or JUNE 18 Zielinski-Maki Home Outreach, Coto de Caza, CA 7:00 p.m Topic: Is One Way the Only Way? St. Thomas Church of L.A. retreat, Whittier, CA Contact: (626) Steve Wagner MAY 6 Woodland Hills Neighborhood Church youth group, Woodland Hills, CA Contact: Mark Mohr (805) Brett Kunkle MAY 1, 15 Rock Hills Church, Laguna Nigeul, CA 1:00 p.m. Topic: Mormon Evangelism Training Contact: (949) , 29 JUNE 5, 12 Rock Hills Church, Laguna Nigeul, CA 1:00 p.m. Topic: Mormon Evangelism Training Contact: (949) , Rock Hills Church, Laguna Niguel, CA 1:00 p.m. Topic: Mormon Evangelism Training Contact: (949) /3 Alan Schelmon STR SPEAKERS SCHEDULE JUNE 20, 27 North Coast Church, Vista, CA 7:00 p.m (4 week course) Topic: Understanding Islam Contact: (760) As additional dates are scheduled, they will be posted on our web page at

6 Relativism RESPONDING TO RELATIVISM DVD (DVD???) $24.95 or VHS (VT108) $14.95 Greg Koukl and Frank Beckwith Responding to live clips of students on campus challenging the notion that truth can be known, Greg and Frank offer cogent defenses for the concept of absolute truth against the fallacy of moral relativism. 1 hour, 19 minutes (Includes a leader s manual for small group training) RELATIVISM: FEET FIRMLY PLANTED IN MID-AIR (BK125) Retail $14.99, STR price $13.49 Greg Koukl and Frank Beckwith Many Christians are concerned about the tide of moral relativism that is rising steadily in our country. And rightly so: Relativism affects our education system, the legal system, and how people think about everyday issues. Yet little has been written on the topic outside academic circles. This void is filled by Frank Beckwith and Greg Koukl, who analyze relativism and present strategies to defend the belief in moral absolutes. Using a commonsense approach, Koukl defines relativism, traces its growth over the past few decades, and critiques the logical inconsistencies to which its supporters are led. He then presents a case for moral objectivism. Beckwith, building on Koukl's foundation, evaluates the influence of relativism on issues including abortion, homosexuality, political correctness, multiculturalism, and tolerance. In each of these areas, he provides compelling arguments for thinking people. Following in the tradition of C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, Relativism is an important guide for those who are concerned about intellectual issues that challenge the Christian faith. RELATIVISM Greg Koukl, 2 CDS (CD119) or tapes (AT119N) & study notes $12.95 Greg exposes the myth of moral neutrality and the myth of "tolerance". He provides compelling arguments refuting the notion that morality is purely an individual matter. 2 CDs (CD119) or tapes (AT119N) & study notes $12.95 Tactics TACTICS IN DEFENDING THE FAITH Mentoring CDs 5 CDS (CD238) or tapes (TS149) Greg Koukl Tired of finding yourself flat-footed and intimidated in conversations about your fiath and values? Want to increase your confidence and skill in discussions, no matter whom you re talking to? Then Tactics is for you. Learn the techniques Greg Koukl has taught thousands of others that will put you in the driver s seat in every exchange. You ll learn specific skills to help you: Initiate conversations effortlessly Stop challengers in their tracks and turn the tables Graciously and effectively expose faulty thinking Maneuver through mine fields Present the truth clearly, cleverly, and persuasively. You don t need to hit home runs. You don t even need to get on base. Just getting up to bat engaging in friendly conversation will do. And Tactics will teach you how. All you have to do is listen while Greg walks you step by step through the material as your personal tutor. Soon, your conversations with friends will look more like diplomacy than warfare. And you will be stronger and better equipped to skillfully present your faith and their reasons why Jesus Christ is the answer. TACTICS IN DEFENDING THE FAITH Interactive Manual (CD???) pdf on CD over 100 pages $15.00 Train your small group using this manual. To order, please check the resources you would like on the enclosed card and send with check or credit card information to Stand to Reason, 1438 East 33rd St., Signal Hill, CA or order online at

MORAL RELATIVISM. By: George Bassilios St Antonius Coptic Orthodox Church, San Francisco Bay Area

MORAL RELATIVISM. By: George Bassilios St Antonius Coptic Orthodox Church, San Francisco Bay Area MORAL RELATIVISM By: George Bassilios St Antonius Coptic Orthodox Church, San Francisco Bay Area Introduction In this age, we have lost the confidence that statements of fact can ever be anything more