Relativism in an Historical Perspective

Relativism has been a long time in the making. A logical consequence of Plato's dualism, relativism has as its foundation the inability to realize any absolute truths because of a the gap between the "real" reality, and the "perceived" reality. A more recent, and much more directly influential dualist is Descartes. He, along with Luther, Bacon, and other "modernists" who stripped the gods and higher authorities of their inherent acceptance by the general population, aided in the development of modern relativism. Humanism from the renaissance helped shift people's minds onto the importance of humans, and along with the modernists, created an individualistic, god rejecting society.

Descartes' famous statement "I think, therefore I am" is one of the most obvious examples of how this paradigm shift began. Descartes goal was to discover what ultimate reality was based a skepticism of everything. He attempted to prove that the reality that we are currently experiencing is actually "real" and not a dream, or a lunatics fantasy. His doubt and lack of assumptions reached from his own existence, to the existence God. His first conclusion is the above statement, which means that since he doubts his existence, it cannot be denied that "something" is doubting, so it must be him. So from the knowledge that he exists, he eventually proves the existence of God and the rest of reality. The paradigm shift here, is that prior to Descartes' era God was the only "given"; all reality was derived from knowledge of Him first, humans included as part of what God created. From now on gods were not a "given"--man became the starting point for epistemology.

The next major paradigm shift crucial to relativism was headed by Kant. Kant was disturbed that philosophy had not yet been able to prove that reality as we perceive it is actually real. Descartes claimed to, but his claim is as a corollary to the acceptance of the God he proved to exist. Most thinkers after Descartes feel his logic breaks down when he leaps to proving God, therefore everything following that leap is void. From the basis where Descartes left off, that we definitely exist, Kant set out to prove the rest of reality. Kant also ended up with a dualism, which he termed the phenomena and the noumena. The phenomena is what we perceive reality to be after it has past through our imperfect senses (eyes, ears, etc.) and our imperfect thought processes. The noumena is "real" reality. Kant's discussions are difficult to undermine and are accepted by most thinkers as quite logical. From here Kant went on to state that the noumena can never be truly known, we can only know phenomena, and no person's phenomenon are the same. Even if one were to actually perceive noumena, no one would realize it was "real". From this we expand to say no one can ever truly, fully know any absolute truths, or ultimate reality (this includes God/gods). Hence, ethically, no one can ever truly, fully know good from bad. Kant skirts this by devising his "Categorical Imperative" which validates ethics, and allows the world to continue as Kant's era has known it.

As with Descartes, thinkers have found that at a certain point Kant's logic breaks down. The Categorical Imperative is the point for Kant. Accepting the philosophical logic so far, but rejecting the god and ethics defenses to this point, philosophy attempted to sustain an orderly society by trying another route to prove ethics. Much time and controversy passed, but the next paradigm important to relativism is post-modernism. This concept, heralded by Nietzsche, is the logical consequence of philosophy up to his time. Post-modernism has been described as a rational attack on rationalism. Nietzsche is known as the anti-philosophical philosopher. What we have reached is that philosophy cannot answer the questions it was created to answer, such as: What is man's purpose? What is reality? etc. Humans and logic are not capable of solving our problems, contrary to the modern worldview. This view was upheld by events like the Russian Revolution, WWI, WWII, and ideas like evolution, quantum physics, behaviorism, etc.

This feeling of universal chaos and meaninglessness had to be filled in order for life to continue. This void for many was filled by existentialism, the final paradigm resulting in relativism. Existentialists accept the chaos and void of meaning held out be the universe. The "out" here is similar to Descartes' reasoning. Since we exist, and we can perceive and understand the concept of chaos, we also have the ability to create a non-chaos, and a non-meaninglessness. The existentialists goal is for me (as subject) to create order and purpose in the universe (as object).

This leads to two results relating to relativism. The first is solipsism "the affirmation that each person alone is the determiner of values and that there are thus as many centers of value as there are persons in the cosmos at any one time" (Sire, p.116). The second is that if "we create value simply be choosing it and thus 'can never choose evil,' does good have any meaning" (Sire, p.117). These two results of existentialism are as I see it, the final steps for relativism, and in fact are themselves relativism.

There are two types of relativism today in American culture. The first is cultural relativism. This is a development from anthropology in the study of other cultures. Here relativism is defined as "internal" relativism in a book entitled Relativism, Knowledge and Faith. The author admits the philosophical breakdown of "external" relativism, which I call ethical relativism, but defends "internal." This is what he says:

Internal relativism grows out of the investigators attempt to "get inside" the strange culture, or historical period, or person (which he is studying), to such a degree that the strangeness of the customs and ways of thought of the subject is overcome. The perspective from which the strange culture views reality gradually becomes a perspective which the investigator himself can assume, and as he is able to do this with increasing sympathetic sensitivity, he actually begins to apprehend the norms recognized from that perspective as norms, in other words, in terms of their very normativeness. Instead of being concerned simply with what other people say they value and think to be true (as in the case of external relativistic theories), the attempt is make actually to assume so completely the perspective and outlook of the position being investigated that the very "oughtness" of the norms experienced by those who live within the perspective is sympathetically experienced as "oughtness" by the investigator himself. (p. 15)

He precedes this with a defense of relativism in general. He gives four main arguments by opponents of relativism, countering each, but conceding on the last point. This point is the question of "is relativistic theory able to account for itself as knowledge? . . . is it able to account for the claims to 'truth' and 'validity' of its own position?" (p. 9). He attempts a defense, but admits the point is won by the adversary as it relates to external relativism. Internal relativism, however, is immune from this attack based on the epistemological argument that comprises the rest of the book.

The most interesting thing I found in this book is that the author states the case of the opponents as absurd, though the statement was actually prophecy. He says that the fears of relativistism's opponents that the tenants of internal relativism will become the ethical norm for all societies are extremist fears with no basis. The statement made in this book, published over thirty years ago, is a statement of fact about society today. One could say that the condition of ethics today is not internal, but external relativism, in actuality I find no practical difference between the two. Both say there is no absolute truth, and I do not have the right to make judgments about other people on ethical issues. True, each person's ethical choices are his alone to make, but there are philosophies that claim to know absolute truth. A true relativist would have no problem with this claim, as long as this claim were not imposed on other people. I accept this restriction, and find it to be Biblical. I cannot force another person to believe in God, and not even God himself attempts to do so.

The problem is that the relativistic expression in America today has shifted towards intolerance. No longer the acceptance of everyone else's values as worthy because created by that person, we now have moved to a feeling of there is no absolute truth except the belief that there is no absolute truth. No morals are enforceable, with the exception that no morals are enforceable. What does this mean, and what can a Christian do? A Christian has the right (and responsibility) to preach the Good News about the Ultimate Reality of YHWH, and the redemptive power of Jesus Christ. Though as a society we don't like to admit it, people do have evil tendencies, and people have an innate lean toward feeling guilt for "sins." Converse to this evil and guilt are also joy and peace. Each of these is nonsense in a world without the concept of "bad," and bad is nonsense without an absolute truth.

There is an alternative to an anarchistic society, or a fascist society, contrary to popular belief. The option most viable for us is proposed by Raimundo Panikkar. His guidance is directed by the feeling that

. . . religious dialogue has often been frustrated by an unwillingness to maintain one's own position in all its integrity, in all of its claim to absoluteness, while allowing others to do the same. (Gorday, p.1150)

Panikkar's option is a mutual respect of other beliefs, while still being able to hold that though their beliefs are important to them, they are still wrong. He believes that Jesus' claim to be the only way to God is true, though he can learn truths in other religions. The practice of Christianity is not perfect, so is not absolute truth, but the Christian God is absolute truth. He may choose to reveal himself in the practices of other religions--truths that can lead them to Christianity, but truths that modern Christianity may have lost.

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOURCES CONSULTED

Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987.
Gorday, Peter. "Raimundo Panikkar: Pluralism Without Relativism."
Christian Century 106, pg. 1147-1150: Dec. 6, 1989.
Kaufman, Gordon D. Relativism, Knowledge and Faith. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
Moore, Peter C. Disarming the Secular Gods. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1989.
Sire, James W. The Universe Next Door. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988.
Wells, Ronald A. History Through the Eyes of Faith. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989.

Feel free to e-mail me at webmail@jeramyt.org

"Open your eyes. Don't let your mind tell the story here." Tonic, 1996