Religious Pluralism & Moral Relativism
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In the book of the Bible, Judges, you have a long history of Israel where there was no king. And all there was, was a certain group of judges that came every once in a while when Israel rebelled and did wrong things and a judge would come and then eventually, Israel will repent and then get in a right relationship with God. And then eventually, they’d go back and commit wrongdoing again. And eventually, a judge would come.
It was just this vicious cycle of Israel doing all these wrong things and then repenting and going back and forth. And the very last chapter in the very last verse of the book, which is Judges 21:25, it says, “In those days, there was no king in Israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” That’s moral relativism. That’s exactly it. Because when there’s no king, there’s no standard of morality to be provided by the king.
And so everybody just does what is right in his own eyes. When there’s no God, there is of course also no standards to live by. And of course, the sad thing about it is that many Christians who proclaim to be followers of Jesus Christ, live like there is no God. Sure, they go to church, they worship Jesus. They pray, but they live like functional atheists because they think morals are relative. In fact, every study shows this. This is an older one, but all of them show this. A 2002 Barnett study showed 64% of Christian adults said moral truth is subjective and 83% of Christian teens said moral truth is subjective.
Do you see how relativism has not just impacted the culture, but is also influencing the church, greatly. To the point where most Christians are now saying, “Oh yeah, what’s right and what’s wrong is up to each individual. It’s subjective.” Or it’s up to each culture or whatever. This is really tragic. So, I want to teach you, guess what, a tactic to help you respond to both religious pluralism and moral relativism. And this tactic is called Taking the Roof Off. And it’s based on a principle and logic known as Reductio ad absurdum. Does anybody know what that means? It’s Latin, but I bet someone, yes sir, could figure it out.
That’s right. Reducing to absurdity. And so what this tactic does is, it takes advantage of the fact that a lot of people’s views or a lot of ideas can be reduced to an absurdity. They have absurd conclusions. And of course, if they have absurd conclusions, we can ignore the rationale that leads to those conclusions. So, let me teach you how this tactic works. And then I’ll give you a couple of examples of what this looks like.
There’s three primary steps to Taking the Roof Off. Here’s the first step, adopt a person’s view. In other words, just for the sake of argument, say, “Okay, let’s just say what you’re saying is correct.” You’ve probably heard yourself say that at one point or another. And then, here’s the key point, say, “If what you’re saying is true, what logically follows? Let’s take your idea for a test drive and see what results from your line of thinking. Does it lead to some ridiculous, absurd conclusion? And if it does, then we can reject the rationale that leads to that absurd conclusion.”
And then, the third step is to simply ask a question that, here’s the key point, graciously exposes the absurdity of that view. And why do I emphasize graciously?
That’s right. We are ambassadors for Jesus Christ. So, we’re not trying to make people look stupid. They might feel that way. We can’t help that always. But the point is, we want to guide them to the truth while remaining gracious and charitable. So, you don’t want to think of obnoxious examples to expose the absurdity of their view, although that might be possible.
Now, in case you might be thinking, “Man, I’m not sure I get this tactic,” let me assure you. All of you know this tactic already. I’m going to prove it to you right now. Imagine the hypothetical situation between a father and his daughter. And the daughter has just started smoking. So, the father comes to his daughter and says, “Honey, man, why did you start smoking?” And she says, “Because all my friends are doing it.” And what’s the father going to say?
That’s right. “If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do that too?” Now, what the father has done is, he’s just taken the roof off. He’s just done a reductio ad absurdum. So think about it. Think of those three steps. The father says, “Okay, let me just adopt my daughter’s viewpoint, just for the sake of argument. My daughter’s viewpoint is this. If my friends do it, I’m going to do it. Now let’s see what logically follows? Well, that would mean that if my daughter’s friends all jumped off a cliff, then she would jump off a cliff. Well, that’s absurd.” That’s right. And so is the rationale that led to that absurdity. So, you all recognize that’s probably the right thing, the father to say, because you know how to take the roof off. You know how to show that the logic here leads to an absurdity. Jesus Himself, actually uses this tactic as well.
In Matthew 12, he’s just healed a demon possessed man. And of course, the Pharisees and the other people who are opposed to him think he’s possessed. He says, the text says this, “But when the Pharisees heard it,” that he healed a demon possessed man, the Pharisees said, “This man, Jesus, cast out demons only by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.” And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Wait a minute. Any kingdom divided against hisself is laid waste. And any city or house divided against itself shall not stand. And if Satan is actually casting out Satan, well then, he’s divided against himself. How then, shall his kingdom stand?” In other words, Jesus does the same thing. He says, “look, okay. Let’s just say what you Pharisees are saying is true. That I’m the chief of all demons and I’m casting out other demons.”
That’s how this is, the whole thing is working. Well, what would logically follow? Well, that would mean that Satan is divided against himself. If you had an army of tanks and instead of the army of tanks attacking the enemy, they turned towards one another and just shoot at each, shot each other, what would happen? They’d have destroyed themselves. They’d be defeated without one shot being fired from the other side. And so Jesus says, “This makes no sense. If it’s really me, Satan, casting out other Satanic beings, well then, Satan’s divided against himself. He would have no kingdom that stands,” but Satan’s kingdom does stand. So, that’s absurd. That’s right. So is the rationale that led to that absurd conclusion. See, even Jesus came to our website and learned this tactic and used it with the Pharisees. I’m just kidding. It was Peter who did it actually.
No but, this is the reason why the tactic works because it’s just a principle of logic, of basic reasoning. It’s an unavoidable, timeless principle. And so, all we have to do then is to apply it to other challenges that are raised against our worldview. So for example, with the issue of relativism, how would we take the roof off moral relativism? Well, remember, moral relativism says what’s right and wrong is up to you, is up to each person. So, we want to adopt a person’s rationale. If somebody says, “Hey man, don’t judge me. That would be your morality, don’t force it on me. What’s right and wrong is up to each person.” I get it. Let’s adopt their view. Let’s just say, they’re right. That what’s right and wrong is up to each person. Can anybody think of some absurd conclusion that results from such a belief system? Yes?
I’m going to steal your wallet or whatever, steal your money. That’s okay with me.
That’s right, exactly. I could steal your wallet and that’s okay. You can’t say there’s anything wrong with that because what’s right and wrong is up to each person. I think that’s okay. You might think it’s wrong, but who are you to judge?
That’s right. That’s absurd. That’s right. It’s absurd because the rationale, what’s right and wrong is up to you, leads to that absurd conclusion. And by the way, when you want to make this point, sometimes you can make a statement of an example like that. But the best thing to do is to actually do something. So, here’s what I’ve done in the past. And here’s what you can do. If somebody says, “What’s right and wrong is up to each person,” just walk up to them, grab his smartphone and just walk away with it. What are they going to say? “What, you can’t take my phone.” “Why not?” “Because it’s mine.” “So? I’m taking it.” “You can’t steal it though.” “Well, that might be your morality, but don’t force your morality upon me. Who’s to judge? That may be wrong for you, but that’s not wrong for me.” It just shows how absurd this is.
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