Moral relativism is the idea that there is no such thing as Good and Evil. Things which I consider to be good might not be considered good by you, likewise with evil.
Everything is relative, morally. It’s a position typically held by those who consider themselves to be open-minded and tolerant. They wear their moral relativism proudly and enjoy using it as a club whenever someone questions their beliefs or behavior. In a morally-relative framework, Good and Evil are reduced to a series of differing opinions. This idea runs rampant in many parts of our culture today. It’s the predominant moral framework held by the ruling class in academia, the mainstream media, the entertainment industry, large swaths of the legal profession, and your garden-variety Facebook Philosopher.
Simply put, moral relativism is of the Devil. This is not hyperbole. From the earliest days of recorded history, we know that mankind once walked with God and spoke to Him without hindrance. Then the Enemy tempted Eve, who tempted Adam, who disobeyed God’s commandment, and got ejected from the Garden. In the process, mankind was granted the knowledge of Good and Evil as God said would happen.
What Satan didn’t expect was that this plan would backfire terribly. Having knowledge of Good and Evil did subvert the human race, making them rebels from their first breath to their last; but it also made Man keenly aware of his need for salvation. The knowledge of Evil did indeed create a hunger in the heart of every person, but having the knowledge of Good meant that we would never find complete satisfaction in our depravity.
After the Lord’s victory on the cross, Lucifer must have realized his mistake. Now the utter sinfulness of mankind was no longer without remedy. The captivity of sin was led captive by the Lamb of God and all of those men and women who yearned for a restoration of their relationship with God could have it, through the shed blood of Immanuel. The Enemy must have realized the inevitability of God’s checkmate, but remained committed to obfuscating the path to salvation for as many souls as would heed his influence.
The brilliant subterfuge of moral relativism proves the diabolical genius of the Fallen One. He could never hope to outmatch God Almighty, but he sure has done a number on humanity. Through moral relativism, Satan attempts to walk us back into the Garden of Eden without the need for atonement or reconciliation. Just as he orchestrated events to create the awareness of Good and Evil in Adam and Eve, he now uses moral relativism to erase that knowledge and lead us further into God-less complacency. If Good and Evil don’t exist, apart from the personal and social creation of their existence in our minds, then the concept of sin is meaningless.
If Good and Evil don’t exist and the concept of sin is meaningless, then the only purpose God serves is to harsh your buzz. There’s no need for a Savior, anyone can return to bliss, ignorant of Good and Evil, simply by freeing their mind from the shackles of absolute morality. If this sounds like Oprah, there’s a reason. Satan has lost the fight on the battleground of logic and reason. He’s decided to focus his attacks on logic itself, knowing that without the confines of reason, the human mind weakens and becomes more susceptible to subversion. So just as Oprah’s new-agers peddle The Secret, the college professors push moral relativism; both aimed at the same goal: willful ignorance of the reality which binds us, in favor of the surreality which excites us.
The consequences of this shift are immense. Forgetting for a moment the eternal ramification of turning a blind eye to reconciliation through Christ, we are seeing precisely what happens in the temporal realm when a mind is stripped of all meaning and moral calibration. Shall we chalk it up to pure coincidence that the increased secularization of our society matches the explosion of asocial violence in our midst? There have always been horrific crimes, starting with Adam’s own son; the difference today is that it is our children who are committing these atrocities.
Witnesses to the recent horrific knife attack in Murrysville, Pennsylvania have described how the attacker was “blank faced” while slashing over 20 different people. His motive has yet to be determined. Our children have been ingesting the philosophic poison of relativism for generations now. Many of them are empty, aching with desolation and despair, possessing no moral inhibitions to prevent them from inflicting their pain on those around them.
We have a real opportunity to speak to the lost and rudderless generations around us. They may laugh at the antiquated idea of absolute morality, rooted in the eternal and unchanging character of God Almighty, but they also may seek to learn more about this Father Who breathed life and meaning into mankind and sent His Son to die on our behalf.
“If you neglect to instruct (your children) in the way of holiness, will the devil neglect to instruct them in the way of wickedness?” – John Flavel
