The “Rhetoric” of Relativism | Jayson M. Brunelle, MEd, CAGS | Homiletic & Pastoral Review
Relativism: (1) the wholesale philosophical rejection of the existence of any objective, absolute, or universal truths whatsoever (specifically referred to as cognitive/epistemological relativism or radical skepticism); or (2) the philosophical rejection of the existence of any objective, absolute, or universal truths which are distinctly ethical or moral in nature, thereby relegating all ethical and moral statements, propositions, and assertions to the purely subjective realm of mere opinion and personal preference, and, consequently, nullifying or rendering obsolete any basis for “justice” within society.
Said societies usually devolve into the most primitive of all social states, as the most fundamental human rights of the citizens who comprise the body politic are trampled upon by those powerful factions who, succumbing to a Luciferian blood lust for an ever greater power over their fellow man, become anxious to seize upon each new opportunity to exploit the vulnerabilities of the masses who are their socioeconomic inferiors. Thus, moral relativism, ironically, turns out to be the precursor and forerunner of dictatorships and communist-like police states. For, in such situations, as has been articulated by the great atheistic philosopher, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, “might is right.” Such has historically been the case, particularly as we look back on the rise of the communist, socialist, and fascist regimes that implemented the grisly pogroms of eugenic extermination of human persons, based upon an anthropologically materialistic, existentially nihilistic, anti-religious, morally relativistic, and ethnically narcissistic philosophy of life
These two philosophical extremes—Cognitive Relativism/Radical Skepticism and Moral/Ethical Relativism—have both been around since the time of the ancient Greeks and have, in recent decades, been promulgated by many in academia. This persistent effort to relegate objective, absolute, and universal truth and morality to the purely subjective and particularized realms of mere opinion and personal/cultural preference has trickled down into mainstream culture with devastating consequences. Having been adopted and promulgated by a significant number of leftist politicians, these “elected,” instead of relying on the sound, right reasoning of natural law ethics coupled with divinely revealed, Judeo-Christian codes of morality (i.e., the Ten Commandments)—for centuries, the moral and ethical foundation of Western Civilization—have taken it upon themselves to replace with the utterly erroneous, logically inconsistent philosophies of both epistemological and moral relativism.
The result of this “dictatorship of relativism” within our culture has had devastating effects on such fundamental issues as (1) the sanctity of innocent human life; (2) the sanctity of marriage between a man and a women; and (3) our God-given and constitutionally protected religious liberty to adhere to the dictates of our conscience and practice the tenets of our faith in the public square without fear of government censorship or persecution.
Never before, in the history of this once great nation, have such fundamental moral and ethical issues been so threatened.
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