In Defense of Relativism

[Joey Aszterbaum]

While surfing the web I came across this audio of a pastor criticizing the so-called 'emerging church'. I found his arguments to be serious, earnest, passionate...and misguided.

It's very easy for Christians in America to see our culture's increasing relativism as a threat to the faith. Is this because our faith has always been based on objective truth? Or is the concept of 'objective truth' a way of thinking that is relatively new...a way of understanding based on philosophies taught by men during the age of enlightenment, in particular Rene Descartes, who taught that the world's mysteries would be completely revealed using science, math and the rational mind.

One way of summing up the concept of relativism is the 'claim that humans can understand and evaluate beliefs and behaviors only in terms of their historical or cultural context'. In other words, you only know what you know and don't know what you don't know because the people around you know what they know and don't know what they don't know...and what we know and don't know keeps changing.

The radical relativist says 'All truth is completely subjective.'
To which the objectivist laughs and says 'That statement is itself an objective truth claim!'

And he's right. But that isn't because we can know anything objectively. It's because the objectivist philosophy permeates our culture in such a way that it's difficult to escape using ordinary language.

We are not God's objects...we are God's subjects. In other words, while certain things are absolutely true, we have no absolute access to that truth. We are trapped by our own cultural, historical and experiential lenses...and from a state of total or relative depravity that comes with being a human in a sinful world.

As the Apostle Paul said, 'We see dimly.'

That doesn't mean the truth doesn't exist. It just means that we are not that truth and we can't understand it flawlessly, having 'cataracts' of personal and cultural 'defects'. Let alone capture it and dominate it in some type of scientific reduction. That's not bad news or bad theology. It's just humility. It requires trust rather than certainty.

The root word of relativism is the same as that of 'relation', 'relate', 'relative'. We are 'relatives' of the Truth...being adopted as co-heirs of God. Little brothers and sisters to the Son of God. The Truth is not an object, either. He is a person. That we 'relate' to.

We don't all relate to Jesus in the same way.

And that is exactly what we would expect from a creative God.

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Further reading:

The Resurrection and the Postmodern Dillemma, N.T. Wright

A New Kind of Christian, Brian McLaren

[Matt Burger]

To state that we can't know anything objectively is to also make an objective truth claim. That's the point of relativism vs. objectivism. Relativism can't make any certain claims for the exact reason that such is self-defeating. At best we can only say we are limited in what we can know. The real debate marshals forward, in the long run, to how do we know what we know? What finally pushes the scales and makes the difference between what we accept as real and what we prove to be a lie? We find that there are things of which we can without a doubt be certain--not in the sense of "predict the future like God" certain, but certain nonetheless. And sometimes that is completely subjective.

[Joey Aszterbaum]

Now it's all so perfectly clear!

N.T. Wright and Stanley Hauerwas are great critics of postmodern 'epistemology'.

Wright considers himself a 'critical realist'.

I think that's what you're getting at?

[Matt Burger]

Well...I'm fairly certain that were I to board a plane on Emirates from L.A. to Dubai we wouldn't crash. There's a long list of reasons. On the other hand, I knew the day my dog Shadow was going to die that he was going to die. I don't know how I knew; I just did. VERY subjective, but I knew. Same with housing, of all things: I knew there would be a turn around event this October back as far as when I first enrolled in the program of which I told you. I didn't necessarily WANT to believe anything would happen either way; I just knew. Same with a few other things that I've just "instinctively" known. And that isn't always a good way to live ones life: almost on a whim--but one learns to listen for the fine distinctions between whim and gut-level knowing (which might be just the unconscious interaction of enough broad-based and varied experience to be able to call some of these nuances with a high degree of accuracy. For example--and sorry to drag this parenthetical out--when I was in Bible college my roommate Jerry and I started playing this game by which we tried to guess what time it was without looking. We got so good at it we began guessing the time to within a minute and even began to shoot for the seconds. I know--it's sick, but it is a good example of this sort of thing).

I also believe that many of the scientific theories doggedly clung to by scientists and the public at large (who always get the perverted story from the "drive by" media) will someday be seen in a larger context and that context will tweak with those theories severely. Perhaps they'll even find a way to turn lead into gold (a vague reference, but I think you get that one). ;)

Now when it comes to how relativism relates to the emerging church (not "emergent" as the speaker from that link says) I would have to say that relativism probably isn't the cause so much as the Restoration movement itself. A return to the Bible as the unique source for life and doctrine necessarily involves some sloughing off of traditions whose meanings have long since been lost to the historical contexts from which they were forged. This doesn't mean we ought think that the Bible's contents themselves are, then, only relics of the past which need to be reinterpreted in light of our post-modern era, but it does mean that we ought to discuss firstly where the locus of meaning lies. Does it lie with the author? Does it lie with the audience? Does it lie with each individual recipient throughout history?

We were taught in our school that Bible passages really had a limited meaning and that meaning was derived from what we called the Author's Intended Meaning, or the AIM of the text. I suppose if others were to read what I just wrote and say, "Matt means by this...," then we would probably want to ask me if that's what I meant. I'd probably be a little uncomfortable with some fool that said, "Yes, that might be your intended meaning, but I see another meaning that makes you say something you never meant that actually contradicts what you were trying to say in the first place."

When we look for the Bible to speak to us today, we need to respect the meaning that was originally sent to the original audience. We ought also look at what affect that message had on the original audience. Then we have to do the even harder work of applying those texts to today--which also requires us to "exegete" our culture. Eldon does a very good job of this: He understands our times and he understands the principles of scripture. I think his sense in which verses ought to apply to New Covenant people could use some polishing ( ;) I love you, Eldon! ) but overall, he is good at applying scripture to now.

So the objectivist is most comfortable with the interpretation of scripture: what is and why.

And the relativist is most comfortable with the application of scripture: the so what. In light of what we've studied, how can we apply it now?

If what I've written makes no connected sense, then it is likely because i"m really tired and i have music on in the background, so i take a second to sing along some (can't not sing along to enter the worship circle)