A Question of Absolute Truth

"Christianity does not have a monopoly on good deeds or forgiveness."

Indeed not. You and I have experienced people who claim to be "Christian" yet exhibit some of the most awful behavior. There are two important points about the Christian faith that need to be kept in mind:

1. Many who claim to be Christian are, in fact, not
2. True Christians are not perfect, and never will be as long as they draw breath on this earth

When I wrote, "if one doesn't believe in God, or an afterlife, or a day of judgment, then one can commit unjust acts in this life with the belief it will not matter," the point I was making was about the presence or absence of an absolute truth. Morality -- or, more critically, discernment of what consitutes "good" morality versus "bad" morality -- ultimately must be grounded in an absolute truth or authority. Absent that, one man's morality is no better or worse than another man's.

Atheists may very well be moral people -- good, kind and decent. But they are operating on a borrowed morality; or, more precisely, their notion of what is good and what is bad is borrowed. Determining what is good or what is bad is always an act of comparison against a standard. When the very standard comes into question, who or what resolves the conflict? To a Christian, the answer is "God and the Bible." To the Muslim the answer is "Allah and the Koran." To the Jew the answer is "God and the Torah." To the atheist the answer is ... what?

Romans 1:20 reads:

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." (NIV)

In other words, God has revealed something of himself in the very creative order of the universe. The same holds for basic tenets of morality ... is it not striking that every culture and every faith in this world holds to the same basic ideas about good and bad?

When the atheist performs a kind act, and knows it is kindness he is exhibiting, his notion of kindness is a product of God. God's law is written on the hearts of all men, whether they acknowledge God or not.

But let's set aside the question of whether atheists can be moral -- I concede that they can, provided it's understood that I argue their morality is not their own. The broader question is whether there's an absolute truth. Because if there is not -- if things are truly relative -- then there cannot, by definition, be any morality at all.

Imagine a world where there is no absolute truth, no absolutes at all, a world of pure relativism.

Note: there are many who believe that's exactly what we have, sadly.

Person A walks up to Person B. A slaps B across the face. B takes offense. A, however, feels quite good about doing it. Who's right? More importantly, why? More important still, if you wished to resolve this conflict, where would you take it? As C.S. Lewis once wrote, the very act of arguing with someone implies both parties in the argument appealing to a higher authority -- one is trying to convince the other that by that higher authority their position is correct. In a purely relativistic world, there can be no authority, since there is nothing on which to base the authority.

To wrap this up, my argument is not "Christianity vs. other faiths," my argument is about "God vs. nothingness." This is why I said that "if one doesn't believe in God, or an afterlife, or a day of judgment, then one can commit unjust acts in this life with the belief it will not matter." If no God then no ultimate authority, and if no ultimate authority then no ultimate truth. If no ultimate truth, then no morality. If no morality, then anything is as good as anything else. Unhinged from a framework of morality, a man can indeed do what he pleases with the belief that ultimately it will not matter.

Imagine that you woke up tomorrow and everyone on the planet was a committed, die-hard atheist. What kind of world do you think we'd have?