From: REXLEX@linac.fnal.gov
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Death of Absolutes
Date: 6 Oct 92 04:06:08 GMT
Organization: FNAL

"If I confess with the loudest vice and clearest exposition every portion of
the Truth of God, except precisely that little point at which the world and the
devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly
I maybe professing Christ. While the battle rages, there the loyalty of the
soldier is proved and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere
flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point."  (Luther)

     I'm sorry for requoting that again, it just that it is so true and so
applicable to what I am about to say.  The gospel doesn't change.  However, we
live in a fluid historic situation.  The only way to claim loyalty to Christ,
is to stand our ground, to be inflexible at the pint of battle during the
crisis/catharsis of our day.   It has been noted that during the time of the
Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian Theology the battle was around the person of
Christ and the concept of Trinity.  During the time of the reformation it was a
battle of restoring the Word of God back into the hands of the people, both
physically, interpretively and soteriologically.  Today we see the battle being
much more total.
     Today, the whole idea of thinking has put us standing on our heads.  The
change in thinking came on the wings of humanistic philosophy.  Prior to Hegel
or Kant, men had a concept of thinking that went something like this:  a cause
produced an effect that in itself became a cause that produced an effect...
Even up to Kant, this could be said, but after Hegel we see a radical change
take place in how man developed his methodology.  It has now become:  a thesis
that is set up against an antithesis which produces a synthesis which itself
becomes a thesis..........
     Because of this, instead of having an unbroken line of cause and effect
whereby one could deal with truth or error, or in the area of morals where we
could have right from wrong, we now have relativism with its and/both.  The
either/or concept of methodology of absolutism/fixed point is now dead for all
practical living. 
     I would be remiss if I didn't clear up a misnomer about absolutism and the
Christian.  When people begin to think in absolutes, there is a danger of
making everything absolute that we ourselves wish to be absolute.  Not
everything is an absolute!  I think we, as fundamentalist, have been poor in
our definitions because we have not been careful in pointing this fact out.  In
our battle against relativism, too often we have allowed nearly every area in
life to be governed as if there were a Scriptural absolute speaking at that
particular place.  It simply isn't so, and Paul points that out in his theology
of tolerance.  Also, we do not think our absolutes through.  Just becaue a
thing is morally wrong because God/Bible says it, does that mean we are to
harshly place that burden upon a society that does not, and can not live up to
the Xian ethic?
     Now, because there is this danger in absolutism, does it leave us only
with relativism?  If you say yes, then you have betrayed your methodology.  I
would say no, but in doing so I would hasten to add that we have a principle. 
Indeed, one must be careful not to extend absolutes in some sort of random way,
merely to see our own desires in our own way of thinking of them.  Whether it
is in economics or foreign policy in the arena of politics, we would say that
we are not reduced to relativism, whereby everything must be dealt with only
pragmatically and with no higher way of seeing way than pragmatism.
     Today man has given up the hope of producing a universal on the basis of
humanistic thinking.  So what really is the difference between the dialectical
mentality and that of the historic Christian?  The Xian view believes in
antithesis because there is such a thing as truth.  Functioning out of a
humanistic circle, whether in a secular philosophy or a religious theology,
there are NO absolutes, except those which men make.  (and this is exactly what
they accuse us of)  Some of those of the humanistic religious theology would
say, no you've made a mistake, we have the absolutes given to us in the Bible. 
Well, I then think its a matter of definition.  I would say there is no
difference from the humanistic theologians absolutes and those of the secular
humanist because I perceive this small point.  ("Here it is")  Just as the
secular humanist brings forth arbitrary absolutes, the net result of the
humanist theologian is the same as he only *allows* them to be absolute.  If
the humanistic theologian believes that society has progressed beyond a
particular absolute, then he merely reduces it or does away with it by his
arbitrary jurisprudence, thereby,  he too can only bring things together in
this dialectical concept and build from there.
     Christian thinking on the other hand,  has a basis for antithesis
beginning with what *is* there.  I would say that this does not begin even with
the Scriptures, even though the Scriptures speak to us.  Rather, antithesis
turns on something total and eventually we see that it is God and His nature. 
The Judaistic/Xian God is not synthesized  by the dialectic of: thesis 1)  a
loving God with no moral fiber and no moral character, and antithesis 2) god
being holy and therefore harsh and only justice and having no love.  Rather,
you have an antithesis against both sides and that is very much a different
thing.  Superficially it might look like a mixture.  It is not like making
concrete where you put in the ingredients and stir real well.  Both points 1 &
2 are a completely false thing of how God is and must be looked upon
antithetically.  
     Now you maybe thinking, "Does this really matter Rex?"  I think it does,
-big time because we're involving one's methodology.  If you just add together
#1 & #2, you only get the Greek concept of the golden mean, which is the heart
of Hegelism.  I think it is simply romanticism where you can put the 2 things
together and achieve the best result.  The Xian position begins that there are
absolutes.  The absolute existence of God.  The Absolute communication to man. 
We can know something more than just what finite man by himself can know.  We
can know a thing absolutely.  *We, with courage, speak equally against dead
orthodoxy as we do against no orthodoxy
     As I've noted elsewhere,  relativism has permeated western civilization. 
It s now that point of Battle of which Luther was speaking of.  This humanistic
philosophy has not only jumped across the Atlantic from its seed bed in No.
Europe, not only has it infiltrated  politics, the sciences, our education
system, our economics, having not only destroyed the base and the forms for
western civilizations freedoms (given by the reformation base) but it has now
at last, come into theology.  This theology is present in the guise of the new
mystic of Protestant and the RC progressives.  Being without content, it seeks
to manipulate, purely open to the authority.  Bishop Robinsons quaint quote
illustrates this when he said that love is enough and if you don't know what
love means in a situation -don't worry, the Church will tell you!  This isn't
progressive theology, this is possessive theology.
     To those of you who are insightful, do you not agree that this is really
frightful?  The doors are left wide open for manipulation by the authoritative
when the Xian concept of absolutes is done away with.  If this is true within
the Church, how much more true is it with in our post-Xian gov't and societies?
 Back to the church-  It is hard to conceive of anything that can't be brought
into this new circle of interpretation as in the example given by Bishop
Robinson.  PC(USA) gives an examples such as contributing to the Angela Davis
Defense Fund in the '60's.  Or closer at hand, their special report on human
sexuality.  All of a sudden, all things become permissible.  This is
frightening.  Truly frightening.  Though these things be totally opposite to
Xian morality, you can take them as far as you wish as long as you take a
non-contentful thing and wrap them in religious terms, rooted deep in the race
and therefore getting strong motivation, under *your definitions* and without
controls.
    The Scriptures present a different situation, however.  When Paul preached
we have the Bereans searching the Scriptures to see if it is so.  Here we see a
God ordained control as per example, yet given to us earlier in a more sure
defense is Christ's use of the OT Scriptures.  In relativistic theistic ethics
(RTE), you have the difficulty of having nothing really to point to when you
say a thing is "that way" intrinsically.  RTE must give rise to what ever is to
be, because of its confinement to the self imposed bond of the dialectic.
     We can think of John Hick and his book called "The Problem of Evil and The
God of Love."  Only a couple of weeks ago did I notice this in our public
library.  His last paragraph (I peeked) is most interesting:

"The alternate Irenian type of theodacy, has been more readily to say
explicitly that God, as the sole creator and ruler of the universe, bares the
ultimate responsibility for it [evil w/in the universe I think].  For there is
no one else to share the final responsibility and it is indeed perhaps
presumptuous as it is ineffectual for theologians to attempt to relieve God of
it by taking it upon man kind." 

To me this sounds much like it is rooted in eastern pantheism where good and
evil are opposite sides of the same coin.  Ying & Yang.  We have seen this
couched in the "Star Wars" trilogy in the presented concept of the force being
either good or dark.  Hinduism does this also in Shiva and its male and female
uniting to become neuter.  This is unthinkable to myself, and neither is it
acceptable to Christianity.
     I see 2 conclusions in all this.  
1)  Man has no real meaning because he doesn't achieve anything.  Its almost,
if not truly, a mathematical.  As soon as you have this concept of God of
infinity, then the particulars no longer have any meaning.  We would be naive
to deny that everyone's God has limitation -it is only a matter of what
limitations  you choose.  
  a)  The Pantheistic god is not limited in that it contains everything,
      yet it is limited because then it cant be personal (hence the "it").  
  b)  The Judaeo/Xian God is personal, but then He is limited in that 
      He does not contain evil.  You must decide.

2)  You have no real moral absolutes in the universe.

"Surely we must not lament the struggle of faith.  Pain, after all, is a sign
of life.  A God of love without law is no God, a dead God, just as life without
pain is not life but death.  A god who makes no demands is an abstraction, and
we do not need an abstraction in charge of the universe." (Jim Edwards)

    The new ethic of freedom without form effects both the secular and the
religious societies.  It is a subtle plan of attack against the Throne of
Heaven from the one who would rather "rule in hell than serve in heaven."

"Only those who obey can believe, and only those who believe can obey."  
(Bonhoeffer)

Rex