Monday, May 23, 2005

To re-evangelize Christendom, Christ who is Truth must supplant the relativization of truth



Relativism 101: A Brief, Objective Guide
by Carl E. Olson
May 22, 2005

It is, according to Pope Benedict XVI, "the most profound difficulty of our time." Pope John Paul II said it is a leading cause for lack of evangelistic and missionary zeal. And the late Allan Bloom, author of the controversial bestseller The Closing of the American Mind, said it is the only thing that many university students believe in.

Defining Relativism

All three are referring to relativism, the belief that truth is in the eye of the beholder. Relativism insists that morality, cultures, and beliefs are all of equal value, meaning, and worth. It asserts that what is true for one person might not be true for another, and each person can decide for himself what is true, good, and right. Popular expressions of relativism include comments such as, "This is true for me–and so I believe it" and "What's right for you might not be right for me."

In his homily at the Mass preceding the conclave that quickly elected him Pope Benedict XVI, then-Cardinal Ratzinger said that "relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and ‘swept along by every wind of teaching,’ looks like the only attitude [acceptable] to today’s standards." He warned: "We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires."

Relativism comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. For example, cultural relativism holds that "truth" is merely the creation of a particular culture and what is "true" for for one culture is not necessarily "true" for other cultures. There is moral relativism, the belief that morality is a subjective social creation of a particular people in a certain time and place–and that morality can be changed as desired or needed.

Situational relativism asserts that what is "right" and "wrong" depends on the specifics of each situation–not upon objective, transcendent morality. And cognitive relativism is the philosophical belief that truth, rationality, and knowledge are relative–there is not such thing as objective, definitive truth.

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