Well, good morning and welcome. We are in the third week of our discussion of Christian apologetics. Our topic for today is the topic of relativism. We'll be taking a closer look at that. And as we do that, we will also be looking at how to begin defending our faith. How do we do it? So we'll be getting into that by way of example today. Let's start with a word of prayer. Father, thank you that you brought us together this morning as your people. We are grateful to be members of your household and adopted children in your family. Help us to have a firm grasp on the truth of your word and to be able defenders of it as we speak and witness to others around us, in our families, in our communities. And bless that witness by the power of your spirit. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. So, relativism. We're starting today with a warning. The warning is to beware of any word that ends with ism, ism. Because when we run into a word that ends with ism, We need to be aware that we're dealing with a philosophical system. Some kind of belief system. To help illustrate that idea, let's look at the contrast between rationality and rationalism. Who can help out with that? What do we mean when we talk about rationality? The use of reason, right? Just using reason as a means for understanding. On the other hand, when we talk about rationalism, what is rationalism? That's rationalizing. Pretty close. reason you arrived at the answers to all questions? Yeah, the idea of rationalism is that reason is the source of truth, the only source of truth. So there's a big difference between using our mind, using our powers of reason to think about things, but it's quite another thing to say that reason is the only tool that we have to determine what's true. So just a way of contrasting the difference between an idea like rationality and a belief system like rationalism. Now I gave you some more statistics this week. And these are from Barna's studies. 64% of adults and 83% of teenagers will say that moral truth is always relative to the person and the situation. 64% of adults, 83% of teenagers. And when you look at the results of the surveys by age group, what you see is that the younger you get, the more likely it is that someone is going to believe that truth is relative. And if that's a reflection of what the next generation believes and is going to carry into adulthood, that's a bad trend. If they grow out of it, then we can say that's encouraging. But if they're going to carry that mindset with them the rest of their life, then the trend is not positive. Another way to look at this is that only 22% of adults and only 6% of teenagers believe that moral truth is absolute. Those are pretty dismal numbers. So as we discussed last week, We live in a society that embraces this idea of relativism, that we can each just kind of make up our own idea of what's true, what's right, and what's wrong. Now, if we were to try to articulate the creed of the relativist, what is it that the relativist says? What's true for you is not necessarily true for me. Yeah, truth is an individual thing. It's completely subjective. It's based on experience. It's based on experience. It's based on we talked about pragmatism. What is it that works for me? What works for our why is not necessarily what works for me. So we may have two completely different versions of truth. What I've got here in your notes is kind of a twofold way of looking at it. One is just simply saying the truth is relative. The other is saying that there is no such thing as absolute truth. And what we'll do today is begin to look at that more closely and see what we can learn about that. How do we defend against those kinds of claims? Well, to get us started with that idea, the starting point of relativism is irrationality and or dishonesty. Irrationality and or dishonesty. Why irrationality? Because the claim that truth is relative isn't absolute. That's a good starting point, isn't it? When we say truth is relative, we're making a statement of absolute truth, aren't we? We're making a truth claim by making the statement that truth is relative which is, in fact, a self-contradictory statement. What about dishonesty, when someone says they're a relativist? Well, they're a relativist on the things that they want to be relative about. So they're not consistent in their relativism. No. Red lights are absolute to me. Yeah, red light is a form of absolute truth, but other forms are not so much. It falls apart when you punch them in the face and they say, why did you do that? Well, it was right for me to do that. Yeah. You just say, I felt like it. And I'm supposed to do what feels right. It was my greatest good. And you probably were doing them a favor. I'm not advocating that form of apologetics, by the way. But it does point out the silliness of that belief. Now, next in your notes, one of the most potent weapons in your apologetic arsenal is the law of non-contradiction. The law of non-contradiction. Can anybody give me a definition of what that is? A is not non-A. What Jim? A is not non-A. A is not non-A. Okay. What's another way of saying that? That's the philosopher's definition. Something can't be both true and false at the same time. Yeah, something can't be true and false at the same time and what else? In the same relationship. In the same relationship. So we have to have both of those qualifiers. At the same time and in the same relationship. And it's something that you take for granted, even if you've never heard it articulated as such and defined as such, it's something that you take for granted. You just know that from common sense and common experience. So that's something we'll be using extensively as we go through the remainder of our study this summer, is relying on the law of non-contradiction to help us figure out where are the inconsistencies in these competing worldviews. Now let's look at what are some of the kinds of statements that relativists make. I've listed a few for you there, and you may have some others that you can add to the list. First one there says, nobody can know the truth. Another one says, I can do whatever I want as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. Another one is, you can't tell me what to do. You can't impose your moral beliefs on me. And another one, you can't legislate morality. Are there any others that you'd like to add to the list before we look at these a little bit more closely? That may be true for you. True for you. That's another good one. Any others? It works for me. And that statement that it works for me begins that idea that we've already talked, and it's one of those isms, pragmatism. My sister and I saw an example of that on the way to church this morning. A car passed us with a bumper sticker that says, Try Jesus. So you try him, and if he works for you, great. If not, I guess you try Buddhism or something else next. Now, what's wrong with these kinds of statements? How can we begin to critique these things? Start with that first one, nobody can know the truth. How do you know it's true? To make that statement, you have to know everything. That's a good point, right? That's one of the problems that I point out with the utilitarian ethic. The only way that that is a practical ethic is if you know everything. You already know all the possible consequences for all time of every possible decision you could ever make so that you make the best decision. You have to be omniscient to be able to be a utilitarian. So in order to make any statement of truth, you've got to know something about truth and it just is a contradiction or an inconsistency if you try to make a truth statement that denies the existence of truth. Do you see that? Take a look at the next one. I can do whatever I want as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else. What's wrong with that statement? That's one way to look at it. How do you know? Again, that's a very powerful question when it comes to apologetics. How do you know? I've got that further down in your notes. The fancy word for that is epistemology. It's the science of knowledge. How do you know what you know? And so that's a very powerful question to ask when we're talking to someone and trying to witness to someone. Here's something that's interesting about that statement. Notice that it implies that there's a moral standard. What's implied by that statement? How would you articulate it? If you hurt somebody, it'd be wrong. Yeah, it's wrong to hurt someone else. That's an absolute statement, isn't it? That's wrapped up in that idea that I can do whatever I want to. You have to understand what hurt means, too, because the doctor hurts you, but he's doing it for you. And a lot of people have used that to say like Hitler, you know, you have to be ruthless to make the world a better place. So... Yeah, you can get into a means and ends kind of argument if you're not careful. That's what's dangerous about utilitarianism is you can justify just about anything by saying it's going to give us a good outcome. But yeah, how do we define what it means to hurt someone? The idea that there's good treatment and there's bad treatment. Again, there has to be a standard if we make those kinds of claims. How about this next one? You can't tell me what to do. There's probably some truth in that. I noticed, look at Dale's posture. You're not going to tell me what to do. And he's in bad trouble because he can't be able to do anything. And he won't have a job because he has to be able to relate to authority. So if he says he can't tell me what to do, either that or he's saying it just to one particular person that he doesn't like. So when you say that, you're making stupid mistakes. Yeah, one of the things we'll look for is at what points is someone being arbitrary. They're being selective in how they apply what they're saying. But this is a good point because We all have to live within some kind of an authority structure, don't we? I mean, is there anybody in here that can say, you have absolutely no authority over you? I don't recommend trying that with the policeman when he pulls you over. You can't tell me how fast to drive. Or the IRS. You can't tell me I have to pay taxes. Or your boss. You can't tell me I have to do this job over here. I don't want to do that. Or look at the places where they've pretty much lost authority, like Somalia or somewhere. Would you want to live there? Or that's what Francis Schaeffer used to say, that people will be willing to give up their freedoms in order to not have the chaos that comes from sort of anarchy. Anarchy. Yeah. What's left? If we get rid of authority structures, then it's anarchy. It's every man for himself, isn't it? And we'll look at the consequences of that in a bit. This next one is one of my favorite ones. You can't legislate morality. Say that again, Jeff. Every law does what? Legislates morality. Yeah, there you go. The idea is that every law tells you what you can do or what you cannot do, right? And then what else is behind the law? Somebody's judgment on what's moral. There's that. That's where the law comes from, right? There has to be some moral basis from whence the law comes. But there's something else behind that idea of the law. And I used the example of a traffic violation here a minute ago. The sign says, if you're right out here, the sign says speed limit 75. Okay? And you say, well, that doesn't apply to me. That's true for the state of Colorado, but it's not true for me, so I'm going to drive 100. And then the Colorado Highway Patrol pulls you over. Then what do you say? You can't tell me what to do. Yeah. I don't recommend that. I don't recommend that. Because the state of Colorado has what? Authority. Authority. There is authority behind the law to enforce it. It's not just words on a page, but there has to be an authority behind it. So there's an authority that establishes the law. There's also an authority that enforces the law. And we all live under some kind of authority structure like that. What's the definition of morality? Is that law? We could simply say that morality is what is right. Okay? that may or may not be coded in the law of your particular municipality. There are some people who say that, well, if we just stay within the boundaries of the law, we're okay. But the law is not necessarily the guide that we want to use for morality, is it? There's a lot that we can do within the law that is not proper. So the law is just one expression of morality. Not necessarily the best, but it is one. And again, it has to have some basis. It has to be founded on something. When Roe v. Wade did write an example of that, that's law. There sure isn't morality. Yeah. It's, quote, legal to have an abortion in the United States. There are very few laws that are more unjust than that. And it's interesting to notice, and we will probably dedicate one of our lessons later on to the question of abortion. But just for the moment, think about the conversation that's been in the news here in the last few days about the question of sex-selective abortion and how some cultures primarily from Eastern cultures, place more value on male children, and so they tend to have a disproportionate number of female abortions. And the question before us was, what are we going to do about that in the United States? And what did we end up doing about it? Nothing. Because what happens if you go down that road? What happens if you suddenly say, that it's wrong to discriminate against unborn females. Yeah, there has to be a basis for that, right? And if there's a basis for not discriminating against unborn females, then there's a basis for not discriminating against anybody who's unborn, right? So you're caught in a trap if you try to go down that way. So the abortion rights group like NARAL and Planned Parenthood are going to stay as far away from that sort of thing as they can because it's going to draw into a discussion they don't want to have. And that really is a war on women. Yes it is. That's a real war on women. And the numbers in China and I think India are the two places that primarily are doing this are staggering. I mean millions and millions, something like 10 million or more in terms of the disproportion of males to females because of sex-selective abortion. And then the question becomes, if you're one of those 10 million or so Chinese young men that have absolutely no opportunity for marriage, what kind of social problems is that going to create? Yeah, that's the unintended consequences of some of these so-called population control measures. So this is just a nonsense statement to say you can't legislate morality, because legislation is law, and law is an expression of morality, because law says, here are the boundaries of what you can do or what you cannot do, or what you must do. When they say that, they mostly mean sexual morality? That's usually what it comes down to, isn't it? So again, that's the way in which relativists tend to be arbitrary in the way that they're applying the relativism. Now let's look more closely at relativism. First of all, notice in relativism there can be no moral categories. There can be no moral categories. It makes no sense to talk about any kind of moral categories if you're a relativist. There's no such thing as right, wrong, good, evil, better, worse. Those are nonsense. There are also no moral imperatives. Moral imperative being what you can do, what you cannot do, what you must do, what you must not do. If truth is relative, then there's no such thing as right and wrong, good and evil. If truth is relative, then nobody can say what anybody can or can't do. It becomes just a matter of what do I prefer. I've heard it said that in the absence of virtue, we're replacing that now with the idea of values. So everybody has their own values. Virtue is something that's subjective. values to something that is whatever you want it to be. In relativism, there is no such thing as justice because there is no objective law. Remember, we've thrown out every standard that describes what's right and wrong. If there's no standard, there's no law, there's no such thing as justice. It's a moot concept. Justice is the idea that Someone gets what they deserve to get. If you're a criminal, you deserve to be punished, you get punished. If you're a good citizen, you get to remain free and act on your own will and so on. Next statement, relativism can make no claims at all because there is no standard that defines anything. And relativism refutes nothing. How can you refute anything if you're a relativist? Because truth is completely individual, it's completely subjective. What is there to refute? You were going to say something, Chris? I was going to say, oftentimes people don't make this distinction, but they'll say, might makes right, so on a community basis, there is vested authority to say what is relatively right or wrong, and anybody in that community has to subscribe to it, or suffer the consequence, or not be a part of that community. So that's often how it gets defended. It's still relativistic, it's not absolute, but there is what is the collective good, or who has the power to decide. Something that really grates on me is to hear our country referred to as a democracy. We're not a democracy. If we were a democracy, what would happen? Chaos. Everyone would directly vote, decide. Yeah, 51% of anybody could do whatever they wanted to with the rest, right? 51% of the majority could say, well, this is a democracy and we've got a majority here and so we're just going to line everybody else up and shoot them. Why not? 51% agree that's the right thing to do. Democracy degenerates into tyranny. And so our founders were careful not to establish a democracy. We're a republic where the idea is that every human being, every citizen, has certain inalienable rights. That no matter how many people say maybe a 99% majority, 99% majority cannot overrule the rights of the last 1%. Big, big difference. But we tend to degenerate the conversation into something of a democracy. Maybe you've heard the You know, different statistics quoted about the beliefs about homosexual marriage and so on. Look, if that just boils down to a simple majority vote, then eventually we're going to lose. If that's what determines whether something like homosexual marriage is the right thing to do, then they can just keep fighting because eventually they're going to win. They're going to get that 51% they need to win. It has to go beyond that. If it's just a matter of opinion and trends and whatever is culturally cool at the time, that's a very dangerous place to live. So, the idea that relativism reviews nothing. There's no point for a relativist to argue about anything because what would be the point of them trying to get you to change your mind? you're entitled to believe whatever you want to believe, regardless of how different it may be from what that person believes. So, all views must be treated as equally valid. And notice that a consistent relativist would even have to allow for moral absolutes, for someone to believe in moral absolutes. A relativist says, I don't believe in absolute truth. A Christian comes along and says, I do. And from the relativist standpoint, the relativist should say, great, that works for you, this works for me, everything's cool. That shows you the rationality of their perspective. How so? Well, if you make a claim that there is truth, it goes completely against what they have to say, but they aren't required by their They don't have any grounds for arguing against you, do they? No. It's kind of interesting as you begin to look more closely at these kinds of things to see how little there really is to it. Now, we did mention last week there's a tendency for a relativist to be arbitrary at this point and say, no, no, you can believe whatever you want to, but you can't believe in absolute truth. Right? That's the one position that's not acceptable in the relativist worldview, is a position that says there is something that is true for everybody. Because they know it's at the core of that absolute truth as well. Yeah, what is it? Well, Christ. And so the starting point for relativism is a denial of what? God. Yeah. It's saying to God, no, no, you're not going to tell me what to do. I'm going to determine truth for myself. Does that story have a familiar ring to it? Sounds a lot like the Garden of Eden, doesn't it? Where God says, okay, here's what is true, and Satan comes along and says, oh no, that's not what God meant. And then Eve is put in this precarious position of trying to discern who do I believe. Do I listen to what God says? Or do I listen to what the serpent says? And you know that didn't turn out very well. And notice that lies are easier to accept when they're packaged in what? There's got to be some truth in there to make it sound legitimate, right? It has to sound reasonable. And of course, what could be more reasonable than doing what you feel is right. Now, we talked about this. Nobody is a consistent relativist. Relativism is merely the justification for excusing certain kinds of immoral personal behavior. And my proof of this, mine is a little bit more gentle than the one you suggested a minute ago, is to try stealing the wallet of a relativist. The relative that says, truth is relative, I can believe whatever I want to, then say, great, give me your wallet. What's he going to say at that point? No, why? Suddenly, there's a standard, right? There's a standard that says, I have a right to keep my private property, you do not have a right to take it from me. So there's an objective truth now that applies to both of us. And notice what the relativist is doing at that point in time. Suddenly, he's forcing his belief system on you. He's saying, no, no, you are not allowed to believe that it's okay to take my wallet, you can't. So there's a trap there, isn't there? I think there's a scripture about getting, the wise getting caught in their own snare. If a relativist attempts to argue that absolutes are not allowed, he's simply being arbitrary. He's just being arbitrary. Next, the ultimate consequence of relativism, and this has already been mentioned, is that might makes right. If truth is relative, then Frankly, this is how I put it, whoever has the biggest gun wins. Right? Because who can say otherwise? It just comes down to brute force, doesn't it? So if we go down this road of relativism, we're going down a road of anarchy, but what does it end up being replaced with? Tyranny or totalitarianism, isn't it? Now this kind of observation is called the reductio ad absurdum argument. I'll write that down for you. And that's a Latin expression that simply means reducing something to absurdity. In other words, you take someone's position, you take someone's worldview, and you drive it as far as you can go to its consequences, and then you look at what you've got when you get there. And if you get something that's absurd, then what do you have to say about the worldview where you started? The premise is wrong. Yeah, it's invalid, because it leads to an absurd result. Now we're going to get a little deeper with this one. Relativism does not contain the assumptions that it needs to have any intellectual standing. And to illustrate that, if relativism were true, then we could not even communicate. How could we communicate if all truth was relative? I hear some noise coming out of your mouth, but I have no idea what that means. It means something to you, but I don't know what it means because I don't know what it means to you. There's nothing objective, right? In something as simple as communication, we're relying on an assumption that we have a shared understanding of what words mean. So we're able to communicate ideas. If relativism is true, open the window and throw that one out. Now I'll touch again on a couple of points that we hit upon in our first couple of lessons. The next one has to do with tolerance. Tolerance is a form of relativism that requires us to repudiate moral standards of behavior and subsequently embrace behavior that we used to consider inappropriate. What did we say about tolerance last week? What's notable about tolerance? It's not tolerance. It's not very tolerant, particularly when it comes to anybody who makes claims of absolute truth. So again, part of what's happening, and I pointed this out before, but I'll continue to emphasize this as we go through the discussion this summer, we have to notice how words are being redefined. how words are literally being hijacked and redefined in such a way that if we're not aware of it, if we're not aware of how the words are being redefined, when we try to have a discussion with someone, we are guaranteed to lose. Because whoever controls the definition of the words is the one that's going to win the argument. I'll just redefine the word to mean whatever I want it to, and I win. So we have to be aware of those kinds of things. Look at it this way from the standpoint of tolerance. Just ask a simple question. Is there any reason for us to have to tolerate wrong behavior? I mean, right behavior. Would we ever have to tolerate right behavior? I used to use the example of nobody says, I tolerate chocolate ice cream. You love it. delight in it, you know, whatever. The point of tolerance is that there's a difference. Differences. Otherwise, if there's not differences, different possibilities on thinking about issues, then there is no call for tolerance. It implies differences. I think I made that point here. Notice that tolerance comes to us as a form of absolute judgment against traditional morality. So again, it's got something absolute that's wrapped up in it, doesn't it? But there's a big difference between saying that I prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla ice cream versus saying that homosexual marriage is wrong versus one man and one woman. Not just a matter of preference, is it? Another one that we talked about Here I'm calling it the social version of relativism is multiculturalism. The idea that all cultures are equally valid. And so as we pointed out earlier, this idea that you have Eastern cultures that place more value on male children, they're bringing their cultural values over to the United States now and saying to their abortionist, if it's a girl, I want it dead. That's a cultural value. And what are we supposed to do? Multiculturalism says it's all good, right? You can't say it's better or worse than the way we believe. It's just different. That doesn't go down very easily, does it? It just doesn't make sense. The government, or at least the Air Force, is calling that diversity now. Yeah, that's another one. We haven't really touched on that one, but diversity is another one. And it's one of those academic words, it's one of these academic values that's being imposed on us, the idea that regardless of where you come from, whatever you believe, whatever your values are, you bring that into the mix and somehow that makes us better. But what if you believe it's wrong? Does that somehow make us better? Does that make a stronger team to have somebody who believes something that's not true and wants to bring that to the table? That's another word that's been hijacked. It is. Absolutely. So multiculturalism says all cultures are equally valid, and just for illustrative purposes I put in here, even the culture that would slit your throat and drag your dead body through the streets. How can we say that's wrong? It's just different. See how crazy that is? In some ways. in some ways that's a reaction against the church, the Christian community, because we have sometimes been guilty of saying, you know, our culture is the right one, and instead of, what we're supposed to be doing is conforming our culture to kingdom culture, and we should all be doing that, but sometimes we're blind to where, you know, we, like when missionaries would go over and like Hudson Taylor dressed as a Chinese. And most of the Christian community said, that's wrong. You should dress like this. This is the right thing to do. But they're confusing what you might call, like you said, preferences. Sometimes we've said things that aren't absolute are absolute. So we, as the Christian community, have made mistakes in talking about these kind of things, and so we've confused the issue. Yeah, and where you see that is, you see that creeping in as legalism, right? Where we're starting to impose our own ideas of what is right and wrong, that go beyond what Scripture says. That was one of the big problems that Jesus had with the Pharisees. It's saying you impose your traditions on men as if those are God's law and they're not. So we see that in many kinds of denominations. It might be something that says, well, if you join our church, you have to sign a statement that says you're not going to drink and you're not going to smoke and you're not going to dance or da da da da da. Do yourself a favor and don't join that church. Or at least don't sign that statement. So that's going beyond what's necessary. There are cultural, sure, there are different ways of doing things in different cultures. And part of the challenge is discriminating between what those cultural preferences are and what we can't compromise on, what is not open for debate. Now next, there's something that came out of literary criticism about 50 years or so ago that is another flavor of relativism. It's called deconstructionism. I gave you a little bit more space to write that one down. It's because your writing is relatively large. So deconstructionism is a literary version of relativism because its proponents claim that words have no fixed meaning, which leads us to the conclusion that textual interpretation is impossible. So we can read someone's book and we can see the words on the page, but we have no idea what the author meant because we don't know what meaning he assigned to the words when he wrote the book. Now what's the Redactio Ad Absurdum argument for deconstructionism? Including our own books? Yeah, if it's true then nobody's words mean anything to anybody except the one who says it and so there's no way to communicate anything. So a consistent deconstructionist would keep to himself and sit very quietly and wouldn't try to say a word because he would know that his words have no fixed meaning and nobody else is going to understand what he's saying, right? How would you characterize the opposite of that, where a literary commentary on a book comes up with, well, this is what the author meant. When he ever said that, that's totally, great gatsby, the green line on the dot means hope. I'm like, well, did Epscott Fitzgerald say that? In an interview, anywhere? Where'd he come up with that? I got that one wrong. I guess so. It's another example of us trying to be subjective, right? We're wanting to interpret something according to what we're bringing to it rather than what it's saying to us. How do we do that with respect to the scripture? We try to interpret it based on what our culture is today rather than what it meant when it was written. Yeah. So instead of looking at what God's word says, we look at what we want it to say. Projection. You even see that with different interpretations, I mean different translations. There are some dangerous translations out there because the translators have an agenda and they may be working from the original Greek and Hebrew text but they're writing their own agenda into that translation. Here's how I've heard this work out. Some years ago, I led a pro-life group down in East Texas. And so there was a lot of banter back and forth between our folks and the local newspaper, and in particular one of the local columnists who was a Christian. She was a member in good standing at the big Baptist church downtown, but she was an advocate for choice, quote-unquote, pro-choice. And one of the things that she said one time in one of her columns, which incidentally was subsequently stated by the pastor of that church in a column that he wrote, is something like this. Well, we know what the Bible says, but we don't know what it means. Yeah, that's what our reaction should be, right? Huh? But that's a reflection of this kind of deconstructionist mentality. I can read the words that are on the page, but I really don't know what it means. Well, in some regards they're a little bit accurate, if the Holy Spirit is not guiding their reading of Scripture. I mean, I'm being a little bit... Yeah, and there are passages that are mysterious, meaning that we don't have a full understanding of what it means. But how is this being used? How is that excuse being used? To reinterpret the passages we don't like so that they agree with what we want to believe. I had a co-worker some years ago, and we were in a discussion, and just to kind of give you the context, his wife at that time was the senior pastor of the other Presbyterian church in town. You know which one I'm talking about. So needless to say, his views were probably going to be a little bit skewed. And one day we were having a discussion about the Bible and he made the statement, he says, well, I believe the Bible was inspired by God, but it was written by men who make mistakes. And I wasn't clever enough at the time to do this, I wish I had. But I felt like later I said, you know, what I should have done is I should have taken a brand new Bible and a highlighter and put it on his desk and say, Jim, when you have a few minutes, would you please go through this Bible and highlight all the passages that are wrong so I'll know what to look out for? Right? Now if you say that there are mistakes in the Bible, what kind of a dilemma does that put you on? Who decides? Who decides what the mistakes are. Actually, I don't know if that's true. What standard do you use to judge the mistakes if the standard for truth has errors in it? The scripture is the sole standard that we should have for determining truth in spiritual matters. Well, I think we do have to admit that we might be wrong about something. The issue is that there is a meaning and it is the truth, I might be mistaken in my understanding. Right. There's a difference, yeah. There is an objective meaning to the text. And the challenge for us as interpreters is to understand what that meaning is. Not to take our meaning, our biases, our prejudices to the scripture and say, oh, well, Paul didn't really mean that when he said that he doesn't allow women to be an authority over men in the church. That was just something that was true 2,000 years ago. That doesn't apply today. That was a cultural thing. That's being what? Arbitrary. So we see this tendency towards relativism spilling over into the church. Even within the visible church, there are many people who will not affirm the Bible as the sole authority or the sole source of moral truth, or even the existence of absolute moral truth. That's a little bit scary. We're not seeing it in conservative reform circles presently. They will say that's your interpretation. Which removes the objectivity of the statement itself. It's a nightmare. It's a slippery slope because where do you stop? If we start down that road, where do you stop? There's no getting off point, is there? You're going to have to ride that one all the way to the bottom. And that's one of the reasons why I take such a strong stand on the interpretation of the creation account, six-day creation. Because if you start to compromise on that, if you compromise the first two chapters of the Scripture and say, oh no, no, no, we can't believe that, science has disproved that. And we will talk about science this summer, I promise you. If we say that science has disproved the first two chapters of Genesis, then why should I believe any of the rest of it? Right? If God starts out his holy book with a lie, why should I believe anything that comes later on? So we have to be careful of those slippery slopes. Now I've got for you, I've summarized in four points here, what we've gone through in the notes, in the process of our discussion. Four simple tests that we can apply to any worldview, philosophy, or religion, what have you. The first one is, at what points is it irrational? Look for the logical inconsistencies. In my advertisement for the class this summer, I made the comment that the Christian worldview is the only worldview that is rationally consistent. There are no contradictions in the Christian worldview. There are paradoxes, there are mysteries, yes, those are different categories, but there are no contradictions. God is not illogical. Every other worldview does not pass that test. There is no other worldview that is logically, rationally consistent. What's the difference between a paradox and a contradiction? The distinction between a paradox and a contradiction. A contradiction is two things that cannot be true at the same time and in the same relationship. A paradox is something that appears to be a contradiction, but it's not. There's something that's missing. So we may come across paradoxes in the Bible where you go, wow, that's confusing, that sounds like a contradiction. But if we understand that there can be no contradictions in scripture, then we know that there must be some additional information that resolves that paradox. We may not know it yet. Yeah, it may be hard for us to discern. Because as finite creatures we have finite knowledge, finite understanding. So, this will be one of the most valuable weapons for you in your defense of the faith. When you're talking to somebody who doesn't believe what you believe, just look for the rational inconsistencies. And watch them start to squirm when you point those things out. The next one, and we've talked about this a couple times, at which points is it arbitrary? You don't get to be arbitrary. You don't get to say, well, I just believe this because I want to believe it. That's arbitrary. The third one is what are the logical consequences? That's the reductio ad absurdum argument. And then the last one is considerably more difficult to get a grasp on, but it's an important one, and as we go through the summer, we'll try to unpack this one a little more. What are the preconditions for intelligibility? In other words, what do we have to assume in order to be able to argue anything? In order for us to have a conversation, what's necessary for us to assume? Yeah, we have to have a language where we have common understanding of what the words are. What else is necessary for us to have a discussion? Truth. Yes, that's not what I'm getting at though. What do you mean? Rationality. I'm just kidding. Right? If we don't understand anything of the context of your origin, we don't know where you're coming from here. I'm just fishing. Trying to get you to stretch a little. Somebody might get it. Ask the question again. I forgot it already. The existence of a God? Well, and that's the presuppositional argument. The presuppositionalist says that without the God of the Bible, we can't argue anything. We have no basis for assuming the laws of logic. We have no basis for assuming the reliability of sense perception. We have no basis for assuming the uniformity of nature. So we can't know anything if we don't start with the assumption that there is a God who gives us these tools, the tools of logic, the tools of language. And that's why they call it the preconditions for intelligibility. How can we understand anything? If we don't have that foundation, then we can't understand anything. We can't communicate anything. And I can promise you that most people don't have any idea what that means. Even PhD scientists who sit up at Harvard University and pontificate about their particular worldview. They have no idea about this. And this is where you're going to have the advantage. because you'll be able to ask the kind of questions that expose that whatever it is they believe, they don't have a basis for making the claims that they're making. This is the way Bonson puts it. He says, we have to recognize that when we're arguing with the unbeliever, that the unbeliever is using our worldview, he's using the Christian worldview to argue against us. He's using the assumptions that are built into the Christian world in order to argue against us. So, for example, we raised the question a couple of weeks ago about the problem of evil. The unbeliever will say, well, what about the problem of evil? If God is good, why doesn't he do something to stop evil? Well, if he doesn't do it, then he's either not good or he's not all-powerful. And that would be the kind of argument that you might... But your response from a presuppositional standpoint is to say, how are you defining evil? Because if you don't believe there's a God, then there's no category of evil. There's no such thing as evil. Stuff just happens. It happens for no reason. There's no meaning to it. There's no right. There's no wrong. There's no good. There's no evil. There is no category for you to argue against the Christian worldview from your worldview. So those are the kinds of things that we'll be looking out for. Where is it that These other kinds of competing worldviews are using the borrowed capital of Christianity to try to argue against us. There was a case back some time ago of where a young kid got into an electric substation. There was a big sign on there that said, do not enter. But I don't know if he understood what that meant or what. But anyway, he got in there. And they're ruling in favor of him, this kid. even though they had a sign up, a warning sign, that says, don't enter. I suppose he can come back and say that he either didn't see it or he didn't understand it. And somehow or another got around the fence to get in there, as if the fence wasn't communicating something. So we touched on the idea of epistemology, that's merely the science of how we know what we know. That gives us a powerful question to ask, how do you know? And it's a good question to ask, and as Christians we should be able to answer that question. If we don't have any basis for knowing what we know, then we're in trouble. Here's another question, and we'll be unpacking this as we look at other worldviews during the summer. What is the underlying faith commitment of a relativist? Atheism. Yeah. Draw that out a little more, Frank. They have to know everything. They say that there is no God, so they think that they know everything. Okay, so to say that there is no God, you either have to know everything so that you know, both in the physical and the metaphysical realm, that there is no God, or be what? Irrational. You have to assume it. You have to assume it, right? If you can't prove it, You have to assume it. And that's the point. That regardless of what your worldview is, I don't care if you say you're scientific or you're rational or whatever, you have a faith commitment that underlies that worldview. Most people do not see it. They don't think that. Scientist says, no, no, I'm relying on the data. Whatever I can measure, whatever I can test, that's how I know what's true. I'm just relying on the data. Scientist has a bigger faith commitment than we do. He just doesn't know it yet. And part of our job as apologists is to show that to him. A couple of passages in Scripture to point you to. First question is there, what did Jesus teach about truth and error? Was he kind of wishy-washy about truth? You know, it's kind of a contextual thing, and how does it make you feel? No. This is one of his discourses with the Jewish leaders. Let me start in verse 39 of chapter 8 in the book of John. They answered him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you are doing If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did. They said to him, We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God." Very clear contrast between truth and lies in that passage. Is there a third category? Did we miss something? Where did Jesus get the truth from? What was the source? From God, right? If it doesn't come from God, where does it come from? Yeah, and what does that reduce down to? Just whatever you want, right? Either God determines truth or I determine truth. And if I determine it, then I can make up whatever I want to. Isn't that nice? Another passage I'll point you to very quickly. The Bible says that having rejected the truth, man's thoughts become futile and his heart is darkened. Man's thoughts become futile. The intellectual would claim that he's being rational, he's got a good reason for believing what he believes. The Bible says what? No. In fact, the Bible is saying that he's self-deceived by thinking that he's got a grasp on the truth. He's rejected the truth as the starting point. Let me take a look starting in verse 18 of chapter 1 of Romans. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Now stop and think about that. What is that assuming? There is truth, yes, and what else? They can be known, and what else? Because before they can reject it they have to have what? They have to have it first. So they have to know the truth before they can reject it. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things." What's our default setting? Idolatry. Replacing God with something else. Final thoughts or questions about relativism? Does that help you think more carefully about what relativism is and give you an idea of how to approach someone who embraces relativism as a worldview? I hope that's the case. We'll continue to develop these ideas as we go through and look at some additional topics this summer. Let me close in prayer. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that your word is truth, that we can fully rely upon it. I pray that you would empower us by the spirit of truth to understand what your word says so that we may be faithful witnesses. Help us to be skillful in our understanding of other worldviews and to be able to use the tools that you have given us to refute those other worldviews, to tear down those strongholds, and to give an answer to the one who asks. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.