Absolutes and absolutists


An unwholesome strain in present-day thinking maintains that there are no transcendent moral absolutes over human behavior, and no transcendent moral lawgiver. Things are right or wrong according to subtle contextualization, involving the circumstances and the participants. Moral questions are relative, nuanced, contextualized and largely theoretical. "True for me" might be different from "true for you."

Of course nothing can be done with that in a Christian context, for our God gives absolute truths, not sort-of truths. Attempts to be modern or postmodern with Christianity run afoul of its eternal nature. What is true can no more be altered by the spirit of the times or intellectual fashions of the day than the law of gravity.

True Christians, while they know there are absolutes, sometimes mistake what they are. For a while, Roman Catholics were absolutely sure that only their church was the means of salvation. Now, though, do Catholics think other Christians can be saved? Absolutely.

The cases are dissimilar, though, between a relativist and an absolutist, even when the absolutist is mistaken about something. These are not simply two different ways of being mistaken. That is because an absolutist who is wrong may at least recover his error, but while a person maintains that there are no absolutes he is always benighted. Without at least the idea that there are stars to steer by, the relativist wanders in darkness. That is a different matter to steering by the wrong star, which will at least get you somewhere. When you realize you have fetched the wrong coastline you can still turn around.

Because Christians are absolutists (in the sense noted) we can say we were wrong. Repentance is our specialty, and most of us have a lot of practice. We need to bring that talent to unjust things we in the separated churches have said or thought about the other churches, over the years. Sound right? Then let's get started.

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