The Myth of Relativism: Christianity in a Postmodern World

Editor Introduction: Postmodernism, The Church, and The Future

Professor Carter unpacks what relativism is to give us a better understanding of what postmodernism really is.

We are told frequently today that the great problem of the postmodern world is relativism. This problem is said to take two related forms: moral relativism and epistemological relativism. The first says that there are no moral absolutes, no fixed and eternal right and wrong. Something may be right at one point in history but wrong at another point in history. Something may be right for me and wrong for you or vice versa. We have to look at each situation, try to predict the likely outcomes and then make some sort of rational cost-benefit analysis before deciding what course of action is best to take in a given situation. The second, epistemological relativism, is closely related as the actual foundation of moral relativism. Epistemological relativism says that we as human beings simply cannot know ultimate or absolute truth. We are limited by our finite human reason and our inability to comprehend all the relevant facts simultaneously with the result that our knowledge of any given aspect of reality is always partial and limited. Therefore, we cannot have any absolute knowledge. Our very perception of the world inevitably shapes what we perceive and is never simply and totally equivalent to the way the world actually is.

We are furthermore often told that these two forms of relativism are the essence of postmodernism. Postmodernists, we are told, are those people who reject absolute truth and who deny absolute moral values. Once upon a time, Western society as a whole embraced absolute truth and absolute values, but now postmodernism has taken hold and begun to exercise a perverse influence. This is said to be the reason for so much of the moral decline that any observant person can see all around us. Western culture is in decline because of postmodernism, the essence of which is moral and epistemological relativism.

Christians, we are told on the other hand, are people who believe in absolute truth and absolute values. Christians join with other people of good will from all faiths and no faith who affirm that there are certain absolutes to which we all can hold, including a generalized belief in some sort of deity (Theism) and a natural law implanted in nature and conscience by the deity that we can all discover and obey by the light of reason and by the strength of our will as we seek to bow before the Deity and the Natural Law.

So, to sum up so far, what we have here is a story designed to explain the degraded and unstable state of contemporary Western culture. It is a story of two kinds of people: moral relativists and moral absolutists and the decline is said to be caused by the fact that gradually the former have displaced the latter from positions of cultural leadership. Western culture is declining into immorality, materialism, individualism, crime, drugs and sensual indulgence because of moral relativism becoming dominant. The problem is that Christians and their moral absolutist allies used to be in charge and now they no longer are in charge. The solution is to get out of our ghettos and get into society and infiltrate positions of power and influence as Christians in order to get back to a situation in which moral absolutism once again has control. This is what some people refer to as “the culture wars.”

Now what are we to make of this story? I hear more or less sophisticated versions of this story all the time from many different sources, but I’m afraid I have serious doubts about various aspects of this diagnosis and recommended cure for what ails the West. That the Western world is in a state of serious moral disintegration is not, let me hasten to say, in any serious doubt, at least as far as I am concerned. The economic injustice of two billion people living on less than $2 US dollars per day is an indictment of the apathy and selfishness of the West. The violence of abortion as a means of birth control, increasing tolerance of euthanasia, the death penalty and the readiness to resort to war to advance and protect the economic advantages of the West are a damning indictment of our so-called culture of human rights, which Pope John Paul II more accurately labeled a “culture of death.” The degradation of the majority of the population through sensual indulgence as seen in filthy and violent forms of entertainment, sexual promiscuousness and the breakdown of family stability is chillingly evil and betrays a self-absorption and immaturity on the part of adults that is frightening. Children are being abandoned by parents to an alarming degree as the parents seek novel forms of sensual pleasure and self-fulfillment even to the extent of failing to discharge the elementary human duty of raising their own children. And children are being shaped and formed by the violent, materialistic, promiscuous culture of Hollywood and the rapacious, predatory, and morally decadent culture of Wall Street in such a way that one almost despairs of the future.

So I agree that there is a problem. I agree that moral standards are low and going lower still with no end in sight. But is the problem moral relativism and is the solution moral absolutism? Well, let me come at that question from left field, so to speak, rather than head on. I doubt that there actually is any such thing as true moral relativism, at least as held by the culture-shapers and leaders of modern Western society. There may be a few muddle-headed, shallow thinkers who think they are moral relativists. These are the sort of folk who are absolutely certain that there are no absolutely true statements. It is rather difficult to know what to say to someone who makes such a blatantly and obviously self-contradictory assertion. How does one take that seriously? It is rather like someone saying that they are Blue Jays fans and that they always cheer for the Red Sox. You feel like replying, somewhat impatiently, “So which is it?” If relativism is true it also false to assert that relativism is true. So it is false and true at the same time. But that is just the point, the would-be relativist objects—relativism says that things are both true and false at the same time in the same way to the same people. But to say this is to affirm a contradiction and to violate the basic rule of logic—the law of non-contradiction. The law of non-contradiction says that a statement cannot be both A and non-A in the same way at the same time. Now, despite the fact that it is called a law, we know of course that anyone can choose to break it. Anyone can be self-contradictory and can utter a contradictory position. But once one does that, then one is shut up into one’s own self; one is confined to a little world with a population of one. This is called solipsism—the place one finds oneself when one takes a relativistic position and embraces self-contradiction. You can believe your contradiction, but you can never expect anyone else to join you in your belief because if two opposite facts can both be true in exactly the same way at exactly the same time for the same person, then anything is as likely to be true as anything else. So you have no reason to expect anyone to agree with you. Relativism leads to solipsism and only people who don’t think very clearly really embrace it.

But there is another reason for doubting that the leaders of our society—the media, politicians, business leaders, intellectuals, artists, scientists and so forth—are really relativists. All you need to do is to ask whether or not there is anything for which a person would be willing to kill or die for. This is a rather simple test, but it is infallible. Now, there may well be people around who are unwilling to fight to defend anything and they may be unwilling to die for anything, but such people are few and far between. If there is nothing for which you are willing to kill, then it may be because you are a pacifist and believe that following Jesus in the way of the cross involves repudiating all forms of lethal violence against the enemy. However, if this is your position, you must be willing to die for your faith because that is what taking up one’s cross and may very well mean. It certainly did mean that for the apostles and for many martyrs throughout Christian history.

When it comes to the leaders of contemporary Western society, I do not think that we observe people who are unwilling to kill or die for their ideals. When we look at the Pentagon, the White House, the Congress, the British House of Commons or the Canadian Parliament, what we see is people who are very much ready to resort to killing and, if need be, dying for liberty, democracy and other Western values. They appear very much to hold to these values absolutely. They are backed up by the population at large, as well as by the media, the entertainment industry and business leaders. Individuals may do everything in their power to avoid being personally placed in danger, but no one thinks that World War II was not necessary to stop Hitler. Or, to put it another way, does anyone seriously doubt the willingness of the Western world to fight back against any perceived threat from Islam to take over Western countries and impose Islamic law? In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, it has become increasingly clear that Westerners do see their civilizational values as absolute enough to fight and kill for—and even to die for. Some say that postmodernism died on 9/11, but I do not think that true relativism ever really lived. I think some illusions died that day and the dream of converting the whole world to a post-Christian, Enlightenment, worldview of humanism rooted in liberal individualism and capitalism did take a serious hit that day. It was made dramatically clear to all concerned that not everyone in this world today is prepared to lie down and let Western values triumph. So perhaps what died was not postmodernism or relativism, but a naïve faith in the inevitable triumph of reason, democracy, liberty and capitalism throughout the world, now that the Soviet threat has been vanquished.

Now, given what I have said, why then do educated and intelligent people claim to be moral relativists? This is a very interesting question, which has a fascinating answer, an answer that is rather simple once one sees it. Western culture has been passing through a period of transition during the past four centuries, a period often described as the rise of modernity. The Medieval Christendom that was shattered in the Reformation, and the wars of religion that followed it, has slowly died and been replaced by a new form of civilization based more squarely and firmly on classical paganism than on a synthesis of Christianity and paganism, as was the case in Christendom. Modernity is the age of the triumph of reason in public life and the relegation of revelation and faith to the margins of society—to the realm of the private. Modernity is the age in which Christianity has become narrowed down to becoming merely a consolation for individuals in private and occasionally, in times of crisis, a prop for the civil religion of the nation state in public. But the only public role allowed Christianity in the modern world is that of a prop for civil religion—a role of subservience to the nation state. The state, on the other hand, has moved from a marginal aspect of society in the Medieval period to center stage in the modern period. The state continues to take on more and more of the functions that a previous stage of civilization held to be the work of God.

The state is responsible for our security, our financial well-being, our civil liberties, and our welfare. If we are sick or poor or old, it is the state that steps in to provide care. The state makes laws; it does not simply recognize natural law and conform to it, the state rather literally makes law. By an act of the legislature something becomes legal or illegal and our culture is rapidly losing its ability to distinguish between what is legal and what is morally right and between what is illegal and what is immoral. The state is seen as the all-powerful benefactor of individuals and, as such, is owed our absolute obedience when a crisis situation arises. Modern, liberal, Westerners think it is natural, rational and perfectly normal to kill and die for the state. Why? It is simply because the state is the guarantor of our highest value, which boils down to individual freedom. We worship freedom by making it the absolute value. Westerners are not relativists, they are liberals.

But then why do some people insist on calling themselves relativists? Well, to understand that you simply need to ask yourself what is the best way to overturn a widely held consensus when you are a minority group. Is it to mount a heroic frontal assault on the social consensus held by the majority of people all around you? Or is it to start, rather, by raising questions, by expressing doubts, and by probing into some of the weaker points of the widely-held consensus? It is the latter strategy of course. If you want to overthrow a widely held consensus and substitute for it a new ideology, you start by questioning the consensus at points where reasonable people will be likely to admit that you may have a point. Once you succeed in convincing enough people that the present consensus is not perfect, you can gradually and slowly start calling for the toleration—not yet the adoption—but merely the toleration of your new, minority point of view. Once the alternative is established in the public mind as thinkable, you are well on the way to replacing the old consensus with the new one.

Now, what better way to attack moral certainty and absolute truth than by means of a “humble” relativism? This is a perfect strategy for two reasons. First, you are playing offence not defense so you are relieved from the burden of defending your own alternative ideology at its weakest points. You don’t have to be specific about what kind of social order you advocate—you just have to show that the present one is imperfect and, since every human social order is imperfect that is a manageable task. Second, moral relativism sounds very much like liberty itself. You are actually calling for the adoption of your highest value even when it appears that you are being open minded and only calling for the freedom of individuals to assert their own highest values.

Of course the clash with Islam makes this more difficult in one way; but it makes it easier in another way. The clash with Islam makes it more difficult for liberals to argue their case because the Islamic worldview says that justice and piety require entire societies to work together in a socially cohesive manner and that is a fundamental challenge to the corrosive individualism of the West. It challenges the West in a way that forces the real issues out onto the table—what if individualism and social justice are incompatible? Which do we choose then? Of course, this is not a dialogue in which Western liberals, with their religious commitment to liberty as the absolutely highest value, wish to engage. It has the potential to call the religious exaltation of liberty to the position of the highest value into serious question. But, since Islam is so different, so “other,” so medieval—it is easy to caricature and engage in a propaganda war. Since 9/11, we have been in a clash of civilizations and the clash is not one of dialogue, but rather one of propaganda and hostility. The real enemy, from the West’s point of view, is not Islam as a religion, but the challenge to individualism and liberty as the absolute value. So George Bush can claim not to be against Islam, but what he means is that he is not against Islam as a domesticated, privatized, modernized religion which functions to give individuals consolation in private and to prop up the nation state in times of crisis. But insofar as Islam insists on being a worldview, a politics, a way of life for an entire people, Bush must oppose it root and branch because it threatens Western liberalism.

Now there is a delicious irony in the West’s response to Islam. If we look at what has happened since 9/11 what do we find? Essentially, there has been a huge over-reaction and the bills are yet to come due. The rule of law has been suspended in order to fight terrorism. People have been held in secret jails for years without being charged with a crime, without any presumption of innocence, without due process and without respect for their legal rights. Now, if the terrorists did this, what would the United States say? It would say that this kind of behavior demonstrates why such people must be defeated. The privacy of citizens has been invaded by wire-tapping and spying. The use of torture has been condoned. Civil liberties have been ignored—both those of the terrorists and those of US citizens! Afghanistan, which had terrorist bases, was invaded, which at least made some sense. But Iraq, which had no involvement with terrorism, was also invaded, which made no sense at the time and still doesn’t. In short, the Western response to terrorism, led by the United States, has been to become more like the kind of society from which we supposedly need to be saved. This is extremely ironic.

If individual liberty is the highest good, why is individual liberty sacrificed so readily? When 9/11 occurred, it should have been regarded as a tragic and terrible criminal act committed by terrorists. Instead, Bush immediately used the language of “war” even though there was no state to declare war on. Why? 9/11 became not merely an excuse for invading Iraq, it also became the occasion to launch a new version of the “cold war,” that is, a open-ended, on-going rationale for a perpetual state of crisis. Who benefits from this situation? The military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us against needed a reason to resist budget cuts to the US military and 9/11 provided the perfect rationale. The state is strengthened by the threat to individual liberties posed by militant Islam. They speak a different language, they practice a different religion, they are far away—they are perfect candidates for caricature and propaganda.

So the ironic situation in late modernity—the period some call postmodernity—is that we have an ever-increasingly powerful state justified by its necessity to protect and extend the absolute value of individual liberties in the name of relativism. Are you confused? That is by design. You are not supposed to be able to think clearly. As long as you think that liberty includes the right to be a practicing Christian, you assume that you have a stake in defending liberty, democracy and the West. But you are not supposed to twig to the fact that modern liberalism is the successor religion to Christianity in the post-Christian West and that the modern version of liberalism is actually incompatible with Christianity. If you begin to think dangerous thoughts—such as the idea that Jesus Christ is Lord of all of life—you will become as much a threat to Western liberalism as Islam is. In the name of defending liberty, which is really just moral license, Christians are drawn into the clash of civilizations and end up fighting for a pagan god.

What is an adequate Christian response to these confusing times? I do not profess to have all the answers, but I do think that the first thing we have to do is to see through what I am calling “the myth of relativism” and see that Western modernity is a culture with its own unique values and beliefs. We need to understand that this culture is no longer Christian, if it ever really was in the first place. We need to see that the future of Christianity is not bound up with the globalization of Western individualism, democracy and capitalism; in fact, we need to see that Western liberalism is a rival faith to Christianity and the all-powerful state is a rival god competing for worship with the true God.

If postmodernity is the questioning of all moral and epistemological absolutes in the name of Western liberalism, then I do not see how we can see it as anything more than another stage of modernity. In true Orwellian fashion, it calls itself the opposite of what it is. One thing the Bible teaches us clearly about idols is that they always tell lies. Western liberalism and the state that guarantees it are both idols. If Paul the Apostle were listening to this conversation, his word for them would be “principalities and powers.” If liberalism is a “power” then the United States is a “principality” and together they challenge Jesus Christ’s lordship of this world. In 1989 Francis Fukuyama famously proclaimed the “end of history” and the triumph of global liberal capitalism over all historic rivals. September 11, 2001 is an event that has allowed Western liberalism to justify the continuation of its crusade against all rivals and even the acceleration of the spread of global capitalism in the name of individual liberties.

Christians believe that history is not over. Christians believe that global capitalism is not the kingdom of God. Christians believe that the state ought not to be accorded worship in the form of the sacrifice of our bodies for its defense as if it were Divine. Christians believe in the lordship of Jesus Christ and in the future triumph of his kingdom through supernatural means in the second coming of the Messiah. Christians believe that true freedom is found in obedience to Jesus Christ through which we are able to become what we were created to be. Christians believe that we are engaged in a spiritual struggle against the unseen forces of evil and that idols always lie and never deliver what they promise. Christians are called to faithfully worship God, live in obedience to Jesus Christ the Lord and be filled with the Spirit.

What is postmodernism? It is the intensifying of modernity and the attempt to overcome the final remnants of Christian belief and morality embedded in Western culture. Are postmodernists relativists? If so, they are only relativists when it comes to Christian truth, but not when it comes to the absolute value of individual liberty and the necessity of worshipping the state as the giver and protector of individual liberty. Genuine discipleship in the postmodern age will take the form, not of re-asserting absolute morality as the basis of society, but of re-asserting the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ for the church. Remaining faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ will require resisting the powers that seek to deceive us into worshipping them and this means resisting the temptation to utilize state power to further our goals. We cannot fight spiritual war with carnal weapons. In these days, the challenge is for the church to stand firm, resist the temptations and deceptions of the powers, and continue to give full and final allegiance to Jesus Christ alone. Let the church be the church. Let the church bear witness to Jesus Christ, the hope of the world and the Lord of history. As long as the church exists, creation is put on notice that the Lord is still Lord and intends to re-claim his own.

PR