Meaning, quite simply, that if you're letting the culture decide what's right and wrong, well, cultures change. More than that, if you think that fallen, sinful humanity is going to come up with an acceptable moral code, you really should dig up a history book.
Moral relativism is a farce, though not often a funny one. Those it makes use of today, it may well turn on tomorrow. The one that makes his or her own morality is also free to change that morality, and who can say they cannot?
Well, someone will. Because the farce behind moral relativism is that people will be allowed to choose their own moral code. They won't. Those who support the voices of opposition when they are at the bottom, will be less welcoming to them when they are in the position of power.
Either man will submit to God, or man will create gods. History shows us how that works out.
3 comments:
I see a significant difference between "letting the culture decide what's right and wrong" and being a person who "makes his or her own morality [and] is also free to change that morality". Discussed here, in part: Understanding individualism and collectivism
Interesting article.
First, I fall pretty firmly on the individualist side. A person is not a mere cog in a wheel, as far too many utopians make the individual person. Yes, there is also community--family, society, the chess team, what have you, but the individuality of the person should not be lost or sacrificed for the community.
As far as "letting the culture decide what's right and wrong", the truth is, a culture, any culture (I would also add sub-cultures, too, which may not have been clear in the original statement) will decide that it accepts or doesn't. There are always rules, there are always behaviors that are acceptable and not. The question becomes, "What is the basis for determining right and wrong?"
How, for example, does a moral relativist decide questions of right and wrong? There are ways, I know--what actions create the most happiness, which cause the least harm, which seem right at the time, no doubt other ways that I'm not listing here. But what is absent is any kind of absolute standard. All we are left with is, essentially, our own judgments, along with what we want to be right.
If you're interested, here's something you may want to listen to. It's mostly about the church, but it's also about how a form of anti-individualism has come into the church. It's titled "Resistance is Futile: You Will Be Assimilated Into the Community"
http://www.fightingforthefaith.com/2012/05/resistance-is-futile-you-will-be-assimilated-into-the-community.html
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