Within Christendom, the great sixteenth century cleavage between the Protestant Reformation and Roman Catholicism occurred here. The reformers contended that no one should claim authority above that of Divinely -revealed Scripture. They also denied that the accretions of tradition hold equal place with God's word. The secular world is a marketplace of theological variety, led in its thinking by relativism and pluralism. Standards of right and wrong, of morality, and of ethical behaviour are regarded as relative to the contextual situation.
Objective rule is replaced by subjective, self-centred choice.
Atheism and agnosticism exist alongside major religions and recent New Age groupings. Jesus is right. Food, material goods, pleasure, worldly success are not enough to make a fulfilled life. Even the secular humanist, crying out of the anguish of moral confusions and their horrible consequences, admits this. Man, the spiritual creature of God must be guided by the leading of his Creator, who alone knows what is best for His creation.