R.C. Sproul

We have life, and we have it forever, and to miss that is not only to be mistaken, Jesus said, but to be greatly mistaken.

My prayer, dear friends, is that that mistake may never be found

The primary reason in my opinion why man does not desire to affirm the existence of God is because he understands that if he affirms the existence of God, he is then immediately thrust into a situation of moral responsibility.

What I want to look at briefly is the very common objection to Christianity.

It's not so much an objection to the Christian faith as it is a defense mechanism used by other people to offset the claims of the Christian faith.

And that is the statement that you've all heard many, many times.

There are no absolutes.

The reason why that particular statement has been problematic vis-a-vis the Christian faith is because the Christian faith is a faith that professes confidence in absolutes, absolutes with respect to being, absolutes with respect to value, absolutes with respect to meaning, and certainly absolutes with respect to ethics.

and to commandments and there i think is the real rub there's the real clash between the believer and the unbeliever dostoevsky's famous statement if there is no god all things are permissible that thesis that conclusion is understood clearly by modern man the primary reason in my opinion why man does not desire

to affirm the existence of God is because he understands that if he affirms the existence of God, he is then immediately thrust into a situation of moral responsibility.

And if we can eliminate absolute being, absolute value, absolute meaning,

we can eliminate absolute truth and absolute ethical demands, then I am liberated in the final analysis, in the fullest sense of liberation from any ultimate responsibility for my life.

The statement, there are no absolutes, proceeds from a philosophical basis of anarchy.

It has much in common, of course, with existentialism, and we'll examine that in a moment.

But let's just look at it for a second.

There are no absolutes.

Reminds me of the kinds of statements that we read in the period in Greek history between the impasse that was reached between the great philosophers Parmenides and Heraclitus and

in the age of sophism and skepticism that preceded the revival of metaphysical inquiry under the leadership of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.

The old skeptics, the classical Greek skeptics, made such statements as that, that there are no absolutes.

I can remember one by Gorgias who made the statement that all statements are false.