R.C. Sproul

On the basis of personal whim, which reduces to arrogance.

And as a subtle claim of being absolute oneself.

When a person says there are no absolutes, he is really saying, I am the absolute.

Because if there are no absolutes, then any value that that person has, and all human beings have some value, can only be determined by his own subjectivism, which reduces itself to pure arrogance.

The reason why there can't be individual values is that there's no objective standard, there's no ultimate standard of value by which we can really determine whether something is objectively valuable or not.

And if we have no standard by which to judge whether things are objectively valuable or not, the only possible way we can talk about value is in a subjective way.

You become the ultimate reference point of the universe.

Now, if there is no ultimate value,

There's also no ultimate meaning to human existence.

People say, there are no absolute values, and usually the next thing that comes out of your mouth, we should do what we find meaningful.

As soon as you say there aren't any absolutes, and then most people turn around and say, well, then really the thing that we should do is that we should do that which is meaningful.

But as soon as they say we should do that which is meaningful, we are elevating the notion of that which is meaningful, even meaningful to us personally, as an absolute standard for behavior.

And again, that would belie the first assertion that there are no absolutes.

If there are no absolutes, then the standard of doing that which is meaningful to me cannot be considered an absolute.

Yet this is the kind of inconsistency that people live within once they reject the notion of absolutes because they can't stand the ultimate implications of such a statement.

If there is no absolute meaning, then any meaning that is meaningful in this world also is arbitrarily, capriciously, and subjectively affirmed.

But it can't be really objectively meaningful.

If there's no absolutes, then there can't be anything such as absolute truth.

There can't be truth with a capital T. Only truths with a small t. But how can a small truth, how can a particular truth be judged to be true if there isn't some kind of objective standard for truth?

And how does it usually function in this kind of a system?