Chapter 1: 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.
Chapter 2: 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.
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Chapter 3: 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. But if there's one absolute, then there can't be no absolutes.
There can't be none and one at the same time and in the same relationship. So we see also an irrational notion contained immediately within the statement. The statement itself is formally and analytically invalid. But it's not enough simply to point out the formal absurdity of such a statement.
At a practical level, we have to go beyond that and deal with the notions that lead up to such a statement, there are no absolutes, and get a feel for some of the cultural movements that are related to it. And also to ask the question, how can a Christian respond to the statement, there are no absolutes? The first thing that I think we need to do
when we're confronted with those who make such claims that there are no absolutes, is to force them to see the real and full implications of such a statement. Most people today, in their life and worldview under which they operate, are eclectic. They are selective. They are inconsistent. They are confused. Eclecticism is confusion in the final analysis.
I don't know anyone who's really eclectic, who's been able to work in an eclectic framework in a framework of consistency.
And what I mean by eclecticism, of course, is you take a little bit of truth from this system, a little bit of truth from that system, a little bit of truth from another system, a little bit of truth from still another system, and try to live in the tension of this kind of tossed salad, smorgasbord perspective of truth.
Well, what's the basic motivation for that kind of a construction of a worldview? What is usually behind that kind of perspective?
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Chapter 4: How do skeptics view the concept of absolutes?
Everything is in a state of transition. There is nothing permanent, nothing ultimate, only transitory mutations change. So we have no absolute being. What else must be faced? What about absolute value? Huh? There can be no absolute value in terms of that which we value because there are no absolutes.
So if there's no ultimate value, if there's no value in the sense of capital V-A-L-U-E, then the next implication is can there really be secondary values? If there's no such thing as absolute value, Singular. Can there be values? Plural. Wouldn't seem logical. Certainly not absolutely.
Anything that's called a value or considered to be valuable can only be done so on an arbitrary, capricious, and subjective basis. 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.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of claiming there are no absolutes?
We ought to send our ships into uncharted seas. We ought to seek to become the ubermensch. He's constantly giving those kinds of ethical injunctions to other people. But he has no basis whatsoever to say I ought to do anything. If there are no absolutes, the word ought must lose its meaning and it loses its force. There can be no such thing as a categorical imperative or a particular imperative.
The imperative must be removed from the language and it must be removed from life. Because I have no right to say to any other person that they ought to do anything if there are no moral apps. Understand that. This is the problem, the dilemma of the humanist who wants his cake and eat it too. The humanist and the relativist lives on borrowed capital. They live on borrowed capital.
Humanism is so attractive to the Christian, why? because it extols many of the same and similar virtues that Christianity extols. They're concerned for justice. They're concerned for peace. They're concerned for the dignity of man. They're concerned for such virtues as honesty and integrity and industry, et cetera, et cetera, love, charity, long suffering.
And the humanist says that he's for the well-being of mankind. And at the heart of the humanist manifesto is a strong affirmation of the dignity of man. The absolute then becomes the welfare of man, the dignity of man. But if there is no God,
If there is no ultimate purpose, no absolute purpose to human existence, no absolute value to human existence, no absolute meaning to human existence, how can you possibly assign such a magnificent word as dignity to man? I beat this drum all the time, but see, this is the fatal weakness with the humanist who wants to seek the dignity of man, that dignity is inseparably related
to the question of origin and destiny. Here's the difference between Christianity and all varieties of humanism, whether they're pessimistic forms of humanism or optimistic forms of humanism. Here's the basic tension, that in the Christian faith, man's origin is seen in light of an absolute being
who assigns to man an absolute value, who gives him an absolute destiny of purpose, who gives him an absolute framework of ethics in which he is to live out his existence, so that man himself is not an absolute being, but a dependent being, a created being, a finite being, he gets his dignity and from his relationship to the one who is absolute in being and value and meaning and truth.
That is to say, man's dignity is real according to the Christian faith, but that dignity is derived and dependent upon the one who stands alone in the context of intrinsic dignity so that man's origin is in the hands of one who exists in intrinsic value, meaning, truth, being, and dignity.
And his future is designed and determined by the one who exists in the context of intrinsic dignity, value, being, and meaning. So that from a Christian perspective, man's origin and his destiny are rooted in dignity. And it is easy for us to see why we can assign such a concept as dignity to man right now.
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