The Permeation Of Relativism

When I was in high school and college we learned about the post-modern philosophy of relativism.  This includes statements like “to each His own” and “it works for me.”  The  American Heritage Dictionary defines relativism as "The doctrine that no ideas or beliefs are universally true but that all are, instead, “relative” — that is, their validity depends on the circumstances in which they are applied."


When applied to religion this leads to what’s to universalism, the “all roads lead to Heaven” doctrine.   Meaning as long as you have faith in some type of god you’ll make it in (assuming you’re generally a “good” person – as if we could even measure that, haha).


Ten years ago this way of thinking still seemed to be pretty liberal to me and only a minority of people I knew actually believed in these concepts.  But now, ten years later, I’ve been realizing how much more this type of thinking has permeated our culture and even the church.


You hear people saying things like, “My God…” and we see t-shirts that say “Jesus is my homeboy” (I think that is so funny).  We make God out to be smaller and foolishly inflate ourselves until we’re somehow on the same level as Him.


Even on doctrinal issues I hear things like, “For me, I believe you can lose your salvation” or the opposite, “I believe in eternal security so I know I’ll always be saved.”


What we don’t get is that either true or it isn’t.  It doesn’t matter what YOU believe, feel, desire, or choose!  We’ve lost the concept of truth.  Truth exists outside of our opinions or even knowledge of it’s existence.  The same is true about God.  He doesn’t need our faith or belief in Him to be who He is.  In fact, what we know of Him is still very limited compared to his infinite existance.  So, ultimately we also have a limited view of the full scope truth --- so what we DO know is what God has revealed to us.


The farther we get from this accurate concept of truth, the farther we get from knowing God for who He is, the pursuit of that knowledge, and the deserving fear and respect of His majesty.


In wanting to accept others, we tolerate their faulty beliefs as alternative possibilities, diluting and changing God’s words and the message He was left for us in the Bible.  God is “unchanging, unaffected by anything or anyone.  He doesn’t change with the crowd, go with the flow, or alter to please somebody else” (Giglio, page 68).


We don’t really know what infinite is all about.  We can’t put God in a box and we will never be able to completely define Him since our minds are finite.  Infinite has no boundaries or limits.  For example:  is God powerful enough to create a boulder that’s too heavy for Him to lift?  Or, “if God is all-knowing for all time then how come He created Satan?  Can He or did He create sin?


We must accept that there is mystery to the universe that we won’t fully understand on this side of eternity.  We must learn our place and trust our awesome Creator.


-Rich