Perhaps I was just having a bad day, but I recently took offense to a quote that was forwarded to me by the friend of a friend. It was supposed to be encouraging, but I wasn’t the least bit encouraged. It set me off. It dripped of the kind of harmful relativism that surrounds us, and rather than hit delete I decided to say as much.
As you likely know, relativism is the philosophical idea that holds that all points of view – i.e., all moral positions, religious systems, political views, art forms, etc. – are equally valid because truth is relative to the individual.
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The quote that set me off reads as follows:
Reality, God, divinity, truth , love are unknowable; that means they cannot be comprehended by the thinking mind. [This sets] at rest so many questions people have because we’re always living under the illusion that we know. We don’t. We cannot know. What is scripture, then? It’s a hint, a clue, not a description. The fanaticism of one sincere believer who thinks he knows causes more evil than the united efforts of two hundred rogues. It’s terrifying to see what sincere believers will do because they think they know. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a world where everybody said, “We don’t know”? One big barrier dropped. Wouldn’t that be marvelous?
My response? I started as follows:
Really? Reality is unknowable? Truth is unknowable? Love is unknowable? (You’re not sure of your wife’s love?) And by the way, how exactly do you know that you cannot know? You are sure that you can’t be sure? This fails Philosophy 101.
I went on to write:
And while I’m being surly, is the author of this quote advocating a collapse into full-blown agnosticism? I suspect not, though I cannot tell from this one quote… If all this guy is advocating for is bit more humility and tolerance, then advocate for that. But I hope you see that under the guise of humility he makes a huge, arrogant and (I think) a very irresponsible claim. Behind what he is saying is his belief that while others do not know the right way forward, he does – i.e., we would all be better off if we simply thought like he did.
Because this person was a follower of Christ, I added just a few other comments before I was done.
By the way, how does any of what the author is advocating mesh with Christ, who: 1) claims to reveal the Father; 2) and who tells us to have the faith of children?
Finally, I’m a little tired of the implicit assumption that religions are all the same and that religious conviction of all sorts is the source of the world’s most pressing problems. First, while many religions are superficially similar they are deeply different. Second, when they are enthusiastically embraced they lead in different directions. Yes, Christ’s followers have made a royal mess of things at times – e.g., the Crusades, Inquisition, Calvin’s decision to off Servetus, and the various wackos who have shot at abortionists all come to mind – but they were operating well outside of the teaching of Christ. They made a mess of things because they ignored the call to “love your enemy.” How do you advance the kingdom of the Prince of Peace by killing people? Do you know of any who defend the Crusades today? I imagine that you will respond, “Not so fast. The Old Testament has it’s dark texts. It’s no different than Islam.” I agree that there are some dark texts in the Old Testament. I have tried to address them from the pulpit at Christ Church. But, we are not called to follow them today. Do you know of any Christian Church in the world in the last several hundred years calling on people to go kill Muslims? I am very willing to concede that Islam is complicated. (I think – and pray – that there is a rising majority of Muslims standing against radical Islam. But: 1) there are way too many Imams calling for violence – according the last stats I saw, it’s about 17%; and 2) most of the Christian leaders I know who live in Muslim countries run scared of radical Islam and marvel at what they think is our naiveté concerning Islam’s agenda. I think it’s prudent to listen to their first-hand experiences and concerns.
And let’s not make this Christianity versus Islam – why not look at the other significant “faiths.” In my travels around the world – Africa, Asia, Central American, Former Soviet Bloc countries and Middle East – almost all of the aid (other than that delivered via The UN) comes from Christians. That is true even in countries like India where Christians make up well less than 10% of the population. (Have you heard of any great Hindu Hospitals? Buddhist Aid groups?) And these are not Christians who do not take their faith seriously. As Nicholas Kristoff (no friend of evangelicals) has written, this aid comes largely from evangelicals (who he thinks are idiots) because they do.
Again, maybe I was having a bad day and I should have just looked the other way. But this time I decided to vent just a bit.