Are There Absolutes?
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Why do people deny the existence of God?
Why do people so vehemently deny the existence of God?
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.
Moral responsibility, that's what they're afraid of. Christians believe in absolutes, moral absolutes, ethical absolutes, and an ultimate being, the one who is the standard of moral perfection. Welcome to Renewing Your Mind on this Tuesday.
What is the relationship between morality and the existence of God?
I'm Nathan W. Bingham. This week, R.C. Sproul is helping us to think rightly about many of the objections that come to Christians and come against the Christian faith. It's a series recorded with a group of students at the Ligonier Valley Study Center, and a series that hasn't been featured on Renewing Your Mind for almost two decades. It's a great joy to be able to go back into the archives to feature some of these classic messages from the early days of what has now become a global discipleship ministry. The refrain from the world today is, well, that's your truth. There's a widespread denial of absolutes. So, are there absolutes? Here's Dr. Sproul.
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.
What does R.C. Sproul say about moral absolutes?
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. And of course, if all statements are false, then what does that say about the statement, all statements are false? If all statements are false, then the statement, all statements are false, is false. So then not all statements are false, right? And that's the same kind of a thing that immediately comes into your mind when somebody makes the nonsensical statement, there are no absolutes. If there are no absolutes, then the statement there are no absolutes is not an absolute statement. But you see, the statement there are no absolutes is a universal negation in terms of logic, and it is an absolute statement that there are no absolutes.
So that can't be true. If there are no absolutes, there's at least one absolute, namely the absolute that there are no absolutes.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
Why do people deny the existence of God?
0:00–0:43
2
What is the relationship between morality and the existence of God?
0:43–4:03
3
What does R.C. Sproul say about moral absolutes?
4:03–8:41
4
How do skeptics view the concept of absolutes?
8:41–14:53
5
What are the implications of claiming there are no absolutes?
14:53–26:13