 What were our three key words last night for those of you that were here? There were three words. What were they? Yes youth Trump's Wisdom, yes, you nailed it. Absolutely Syllagism Syllagism Syllagism. What was that Syllagism? Not ah I tell you I know it every time you're just anxious to hear that ah premise one It is wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being premise two Abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being. What's our conclusion? Therefore? Abortion is wrong and we talked about how that Syllagism keeps you on message people bring up all kinds of side issues that have nothing to do with the central argument And by having a Syllagism you can bring it back to the question What is the unborn and by framing the debate around that question? We bring clarity people will bring up back alley abortions forcing morality. Oh, that's just your religious view Oh, you don't respect women. Oh, you want a war on women? Oh, you don't trust women and the list goes on and on none of which Have a thing to do with the morality of abortion The morality of abortion starts with the question. What is the unborn and we spent last night defending that Syllagism with science and Philosophy and we gave you a one minute Soundbite for when Aunt Betty shows up at Thanksgiving next year and she wants to know why you're pro life And she's going to be ready to really give it to you in between bites of turkey and stuffing and you're going To say to her in under a minute Aunt Betty I am pro life because the science of embryology teaches us that from the earliest stages of development you Were a distinct living and whole human being and not only that Aunt Betty There's no essential difference between that embryo you were and the adult you are today That would justify killing you back then differences of size Level of development environment and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying you could be killed then but not now That little sound bite is not going to cause her to fall on her knees at that moment and confess that she is now pro life By the way, there is no sinner's prayer for converting to the pro life position What will happen though is You will put a pebble in her shoe Have you ever had a pebble in your shoe is Greg Coco points out a Pebble in your shoe will wear on you and wear on you until you deal with it and what we're doing is giving people something to think about We aren't going to worry about whether we close the deal We're going to give them something to think about that's going to rattle around in their head and not be easily Dismissed so that's what we covered last night today We're going to do three things First we're going to look at the biggest objection to the pro life view and in fact I think it's the biggest objection to Christianity in general today that being the concept of relativism And I'll talk about why that view is prevalent and why it doesn't work and why it should never silence you as a Christian Then we're going to look at reproductive Productive technologies. This is not something you hear talked about in Christian circles very often But I'm telling you we are doing our fellow brothers and sisters of disservice if we haven't thought through these things biblically We're going to talk about technologies that allow couples who are struggling with infertility to have children And we're going to talk about are those okay. What's the fence posts? We should draw around them Then we're going to talk about one that will be relevant to all of us And that is what do we do when we approach the end of life either our own or more Recent or more Likely to happen in the near future to us to a loved one. How do we approach that? How do we deal with questions about is it okay to withdraw treatment? Is it ever okay? To withhold food and water Is it okay? To dial up morphine to control pain even if that might seem like it might hasten death We'll look at that and then we're going to end the day and what will be The fuzziest part of our time together I'm real clear on all the other stuff Our last session the reason why it's going to seem a little fuzzy The Christian community is still trying to catch up and think through this and that has to do with the whole topic of Biotechnology is specifically biochemistry. What what are we to think as Christians? About Treatments that not merely repair the body But enhance it What do we do with that and what about the whole transhumanist movement that is trying to take human nature and Leapfrog it forward in the evolutionary cycle Guys like Gregory stock and others who were writing about this We'll talk about that and there will be a little bit of that where we're going to be scratching our heads saying I don't know that I fully know what I think on this Be patient with yourself We're all scratching our heads on some of this because we're still learning what's out there And we'll go through it and give you some notes that will help you through it. All right Tell me the difference between these two claims Chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla Statement to it is wrong to torture toddlers for fun Statement one chocolate ice cream is better than vanilla Statement to it is wrong to torture toddlers for fun. Is there a difference between those two? What's the difference between them one's opinion one's fact what else? One's a preference. Okay, one is moral the other's not okay. I saw another hand over here All right, I didn't see a hand Anybody else difference between those two claims When I said chocolate was better than vanilla some of you got fire in your eyes, and you were thinking them are fighting words Let's go right now. I could just see it When I claim That chocolate is better than vanilla by the way, that's a lie. I don't believe it, but I'll just use it for the illustration When I claim chocolate is better than vanilla. I'm making a claim about likes and dislikes. I Am not making a claim about what's right and wrong regardless of likes and dislikes I'm telling you what's true for me the subject. So it's a subjective claim a claim about me the subject that may not be true for you But when I make a moral claim, I Am not talking about what I like or prefer. I'm talking about what's true and right regardless of my preferences My father-in-law is 82 He buys Corvettes quite regularly by the way, he skis he serves he rides horses, and he doesn't just ski he races I mean, he's insane He just bought a new vet. I know where the keys are to it I'll be out in California soon enough and I would like to go charging up PCH in that new 2016 vet and that thing that's he's got the you know the nice Near he's 500 horsepower under the hood. I mean it's a screamer I'm not gonna do that though. Why not I'd like to but I won't tell me why because it would be wrong Unfortunately, we are part of a culture that doesn't know the difference between a claim about likes and dislikes and a claim About what's right and what's wrong. They confuse preference claims with moral claims Let me give you an example Have you ever seen this bumper sticker? Maybe you have Don't like abortion question mark Don't have one. Have you have you seen that sticker? Yeah What does that bumper sticker do to the pro-life argument think about our syllogism? It's wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being abortion intentionally kills an innocent human being therefore abortions wrong What does that bumper sticker do to our truth claim? Changes it from a truth claim to what a preference subjective one exactly Try this Don't like slavery. Don't own a slave Don't like spousal abuse. Don't beat your spouse. Is that gonna work? No, it's not gonna work at all But yet when it comes to abortion people take our moral claim and change it to a preference claim Pope Benedict put it real well He said that in the 21st century We suffer under a dictatorship of relativism and if you can tolerate a Presbyterian who attends a southern Baptist church interpreting the Pope. Here's what he meant Our culture has become so permissive You can marry your canary if you want to But the minute you claim your moral or religious view is true with a capital T. We are not going to tolerate you Theologian DA Carson calls this the new tolerance and here's what Carson means This is from his book the intolerance of tolerance The old view of tolerance went like this. I think you're wrong Your view makes no sense to me, but I respect you as a person You are free to take a seat at the table and get your view out there like everybody else gets to do I Tolerate you as a person, but I don't tolerate all ideas is being equally valid now as Christians Can we buy into that view of tolerance? absolutely Here's the new view of tolerance says Carson the new view of tolerance is this all ideas are equally valid and If you say differently, we will not tolerate you Why is the coexist bumper sticker on every other car you see today? Do we need a coexist bumper sticker in America? No, you don't you know why because you don't get killed for believing the wrong thing Do you? You know where you need a coexist bumper sticker? I ran Saudi Arabia, that's where you need it So what is the point of that sticker? It's not the old tolerance. It's the new tolerance all religions are equally valid all religions are equally true That's what it means to be tolerant Now folks, I don't I'm gonna assume there's no Flaming atheists here today, but if you were one you could refute that coexist sticker You don't even have to be a Christian to refute it. Here's why Is Greg Coco points out when you die You either go to heaven Go to hell Go to purgatory Get reincarnated or rotten the grave But you're not gonna do them all at the same time. Are you we know for a fact that all religions can't be equally true but relativism Demands that we view them that way So let's define relativism and then I'll give you some more examples of it relativism is the belief that right and wrong on religion or ethics is Either up to the individual or their society Writing wrong is up to the individual or to his society There are no overarching Principles that we're supposed to get in line with you just have personal preferences or societal agreements That's relativism I'll give you some examples of it Two years ago. I was a very naughty boy I left church before the sermon and I I think I had a good reason You don't know this about me, but I have this thing when I buy new clothes I can't wear them until they've been washed about 20 times. They itch they feel just bad on my skin So all my t-shirts are threadbare All the most comfortable clothes I have have been just obliterated in the wash cycles and I was wearing a newer shirt and It had not gone through enough cycles and then what happens is once they feel comfortable to me I get them all starched up and they look real nice and they feel fine Well, this shirt wasn't cooperating and I'm in Sunday school dying. I said to my wife you go on to church I'm going home. I'm gonna change clothes. I'll come right back. Well, I got home and I decided well I'm already here. I might as well check a football score God will forgive me and I turned on the TV and I got Fox News and they were talking about Tiger Woods You're aware of Tiger Woods challenges in his marriage They were doing a panel discussion and here was the topic what does Tiger Woods need to do to Fix himself given his marital infidelities The first panelist said something like well, he's got to get in touch with his core values If he can center himself on his core values, then he'll be all right. I'm like get in touch with his core values That's why he's twisted right now. They're bad. He doesn't need to get in touch with him. He needs new ones Then the next guy think it might have been Bill Kristol said well, he needs some I think you need some couch time Then they came to Brit Hume. Do you know who Brit Hume is? Now I want you to get this Brit Hume is on a panel where he's been asked To weigh in on what Tiger needs to get fixed. All right. He's been asked to comment on it He didn't impose it. He was asked Here's what Brit Hume said Tiger Woods will recover in his golf game But he's not going to recover in his personal life if he doesn't reject Buddhism Which can't save him and turn to the God of Christianity who alone offers forgiveness and reconciliation outside of that I don't see how he recovers What do you think happened within seconds on the blogosphere? How dare Brit Hume claim his religion is better than Tiger Woods How dare he be so intolerant nobody said Tiger Woods is wrong about Christianity Here's the historical reason why he's wrong. Here's the theological reason why he's wrong Here's the philosophical reason why he's wrong. No, they just were mad that he claimed to be right. Say hello to the new tolerance This is precisely what D.A. Carson was talking about precisely there Is a singer some of you have heard of him by the name of Nick Cannon. Does that name ring a bell at all? He's a rapper 10 years ago He wrote a song called can I live? It's about his own mother She was 17 and pregnant in the abortion clinic ready to abort him and at the last minute she walks out at age 17 and Nick thinking back on that wrote a song as if he were speaking to his mother from the womb And it's a pretty compelling tune Go to YouTube and check it out not now, but when you get home tonight if you want to live you will not do it now In this song though, there's a line That got a lot of people angry Here's the line Mom I Hope you make the right decision and don't go through with the knife incision Yeah, whoa How many people do you think confronted Nick Cannon and said well You're really wrong about the nature of abortion. It doesn't dismember a living human being did anybody challenge him that way? No, what do you think they were angry about? That he claimed to know what the right decision was Hello new tolerance Hello Relativism and this is what you and I face. So let me give you the Three types of relativism you'll encounter in the culture will then look at how we respond to it How do we respond to it in a way that won't trip us up the first type of relativism? You're going to encounter is what we call society does relativism and this comes from the book by Francis J. Beckwith and Greg Kokel called relativism feet firmly planted in mid-air great title Here's what we mean by society does relativism you the Christians say well, you know what? There are objective moral rules. We ought to pay attention to and Your secular friend says well, what do you mean? Cultures don't agree on what's right and wrong why some cultures say you can have five wives Some say you can have only one. What do you mean? There's objective moral rules How can there be objective moral rules when people disagree on what they are? That's known as society does relativism now a couple of things to know about this we mentioned one last night How does it follow that because people disagree? Nobody's right Did they once disagree on the earth being flat around? Yes, did they once disagree on slavery? Yes, did they once disagree on women having the right to vote? Of course Did it mean there were no right answers? Of course not So the fact that people disagree doesn't mean anything other than they disagree but CS Lewis makes another point He says cultures don't disagree as much as you think they do Yeah, there may be culture that says you can have five wives your culture says you can have one But no culture says you can take any woman you want and force her to be your wife There's another point Lewis makes Sometimes the disagreement is not over morals. It's over facts Do any of you listen to Dennis Prager on the radio? Do you know that name? Can I encourage you to start listening to Dennis Prager? He's on it noon nationally He's on at the same time that you get rush and I forget who else but Dennis Prager is easily the most thoughtful guy on radio He's not a believer. He's a conservative Jew But I will tell you if you want to learn to think start listening to him and Dennis and I once had an exchange on the issue of abortion And I want you to determine if you think our difference was moral or factual Dennis believes That all humans have dignity that's intrinsic because they bear the image of God Do I agree with that statement? Of course however Dennis believes that early first trimester abortion Is probably not impermissible It's probably okay Is that a moral dispute between us or a factual dispute? It's actually factual. Here's why Dennis does not believe the early human being in The womb is in fact a human being He believes it's sui generis. It's some other kind of thing now that flows out of his Judaism Now he's factually wrong on that, but what's the nature of our disagreement moral or factual? Factual so there isn't a moral difference between us We actually agree on the moral principle all humans have value because they bear the image of God We disagree on the facts not on the moral principle Everybody clear on that and oftentimes people point to all these cultural differences that in fact many of them are not moral differences They are in fact Issues of fact that we're disagreeing with big difference But there is also a problem here If society does Relativism is true Then whatever a society does We can't really judge it and that leads to our second form of relativism You'll encounter known as society says relativism. This is simply the French social contract There's no God. There's no church that's above us. We just get together in this room We form a social contract. We decide what's right and that's what's right No, no objective principles Do you recall the Prime Directive any of you Trekkies that are listening to me right now? What is the Prime Directive that? Do not interfere with an alien culture and of course what is Captain Kirk always doing interfering which makes the show interesting When the Nazis were called into trial at Nuremberg at the close of World War two You may recall what their defense was the world court Was holding them accountable for their crimes against humanity and The Nazi officers tried to float an initial line of defense It didn't work, but they tried it. It went like this We were following orders according to what our culture said and The court at Nuremberg said nope, there's a law above your law That's not gonna fly But they tried to float the idea that we Westerners had no right to judge their German culture because we were not part of it They had a right to determine their own culture No one should interfere with it That society says Relativism, but I think you can begin to see the flaws with it already If morality is reduced to what society says can there be such a thing as an immoral culture? No Jews have their culture Nazis have theirs. We have ours. We don't judge By the way, if society says relativism is true What happens to moral reformers like Jesus of Nazareth? Martin Luther King jr. And Gandhi. What are they by definition? Evil That's right evil. Here's why What did southern cultures say about segregation and racism in the 50s? That that was okay, right? In fact, it was mandated. We had separate fountains for whites and blacks You didn't eat at the counter if you were black. We all know the stories What did Martin Luther King do about that? challenged it if Society sets what's right and what's wrong and Martin Luther King goes against that. What is he by definition? Evil, but do most people see him that way today? No, how about Jesus of Nazareth did he go against his culture's morality? Yeah, like kicking dudes out of the temple claiming to forgive sins Challenging the entire Political apparatus of the temple system, you know when people tell me Jesus never got involved in politics They have no idea of what first century Judaism was about the temple was a very political animal and Jesus went right at it So the idea that if you challenge your your cultures morality with moral truth if Morals come from that society you are by definition evil Then there's a third kind of Relativism, it's called I say relativism. You've all heard this one. How are you to judge me? Don't you impose your morality on me? How dare you? You're judging me, right? In other words, I say relativism Says morality starts with me and only me and you have no say over what I perceive to be right. What's so ever? If that's true, there can be no such thing as an immoral individual So there's your three types of relativism. So what are we going to do about it? How are we going to respond to this? Well, I'm going to give you some tools for dealing with it The first thing to recognize about relativism is that it's self-defeating now I know it's early some of you the coffee is still kicking in but I want you to see if you can perceive the problem in the statements I'm about to make. Are you ready? My brother is an only child So you're going that's really cool. Was he on Oprah? I Can't speak a word in English. I'm really surprised that isn't resonating. But anyway, let's go on You're in rare form as usual Don't take anybody's advice on anything There is no truth The magic are gonna win the NBA championship. He said no, just kidding. Now what what's wrong with each of those statements? The minute I say them there what? They're falsified My brother is an only child. What does that make me? I can't speak a word in English. Well, I just did I'm in rare form as usual if you need help on that You're in the wrong seminar and don't take anybody's advice on anything Including that you see the problem, right? They literally self-defeat in fact, I Was in a friendly discussion on social media Yesterday afternoon and this atheist guy jumps in trying to attack me real quick and it attacks No, not take me attack a friend and he said all beliefs are just superstitious And I'm reminded that body python seed in the holy grail. She made She's a witch. She's a witch. How do you know she's a witch? She made a new town to me. Well, I got better You know, I mean this guy fight five second later. He posed beneath that oops. I should have said that should I? All beliefs are superstitious Including that one you see the problem This was Dr. Phil a few years ago in one of his major books. He writes. I'm trying how we how we put it um All truth is a matter of perspective perspective including His truth if so, why should I care? See it's all self-defeating. I'm a Dodgers fan This has been painful for a lot of years and it's really painful this year because I thought we had a good team and Right now. We're so bad that if Clayton Kershaw isn't pitching we basically lose but in 1996 When my oldest boys were six and five respectively I had a friend who had season tickets to the Dodgers and he would take His family except on Friday nights and Saturdays He was seventh day Adventist and they don't they they observed the Jewish Sabbath So they don't go to ball games on on Saturdays so he would give the tickets to me and We were going down the Golden State freeway and at the time I had a 1986 Ford Taurus that had two bumper stickers on it one said we can do better than abortion the other said some choices are wrong Just thought-provoking White pickup truck gets right up on my bumper. She's riding my bumper She's in her late 20s early 30s honking her horn at me flashing her lights. I could tell she didn't like the stickers She finally goes out and passes me and as she does she extends a certain part of her physical anatomy Northward to let me know how she felt about those stickers Tyler who was five at the time says something like look daddy She loves Jesus like we do she's pointing to him. I said no, she's not son Let's talk about this when you're 50 and then she cut in front of me and here's what her bumper sticker said Celebrate diversity. I want to I'm just gonna let that hang out there for a minute. She saw no contradiction between Her bumper sticker that said we ought to tolerate everybody's view And her unwillingness to tolerate my view This is what I mean when I say relativism self-destructs We're gonna put a quote up on the the screen for you here in just a moment Let me tell you what this quote is when it goes up there. Don't start reading it yet There was a pro-life group that took their display to the University of Maryland a few years back This is called the genocide awareness project It's a group that's led by Greg Cunningham and the Center for bioethical reform and what they do is they go on college campuses with huge panels depicting abortion and each panel Well the entire display would be from this floor to your ceiling. That's how high they can stack it up Now I want you to imagine 30 signs stacked two stories high in the middle of the quad at The local University which by the way they have taken it to this campus. I believe Imagine that and these pictures are airbrushed. There's warning signs saying if you don't want to see the pictures don't Don't walk this way Of course, what does everybody do? They're gonna come see the pictures This guy whose quote we're gonna put up from the school newspaper University of Maryland was really ticked at the display and he tried to play the tolerance card I'm gonna have you read it buddy up with one or two people if there's somebody left out pull them into your group You can do three if you need to but what I want you to do, please be careful. Do not read this looking to refute Everything the guy is saying I'm not looking for you to do that I just want you to make note where his argument literally self-destructs and I want you to look for little words that give you a hint that his argument is Self-destructing because one of the points we're gonna drive home this morning is that virtually every time you're in a conversation with a relativist Almost every paragraph. They're refuting their own argument And there's a word you began to listen for that will tip you off that that's what's happening And you will see it and a few like it in this quote. We're about to look at so are we good to pull that up at this point? All right Can everybody read that is that readable? Okay, what I'd like you to do is Just you can read it out loud or read it to yourself But get with someone after you've read it and I want you to just kind of write down The words that let you know that something's not quite right here that this thing is self Refuting and then I'll pull you back to hear what you got to say All right scholars Help me out here. Where is this guy going off the rails? by literally Having his argument commit suicide. Give me some examples I've just seen something gruesome awful Repugnant, but I think we should be free to choose it. Okay. All right fair good. What else? Abortion is a horrible act that should only be reserved for when the health of the mother is in danger or when the Circumstances of impregnation were brutal. I think he needs a little grammar help there. But anyway What do you see about that? What's the? Go ahead. Okay, so he's claiming that Morality must be kept personal That he wouldn't impose his view on others But what is the purpose of this editorial to do what? Tell everybody who disagrees with him that they are Wrong Yes, I don't know moral rules, but here's one you denied me what I'm deserved as a homosexual Correct. Would that be a fair way to okay? Yeah agreed. What else? Okay, if I were in a book giving away mood, I would give you one But that's my morality and I'm not going to impose it on anybody else now. Um, you're exactly right You're precisely right. Whatever you hear a relativist use the word must His argument is imploding There are no moral rules. Oh, but here's one you must be tolerant Says who? Is that true or just your view? You see the problem we run into here. Yeah, what else did you pick up out of this? You're all very smart Yeah, he liked to hedge by saying I feel I would never do this Yeah, trying to make it subjective while all the while trying to smuggle in moral rules To this whole thing Did you catch how we use the word universal? These are truths. I believe our universal How can a relativist even make a claim for universal moral truths? Where does that come from? And then I love this I have developed an unwavering Uncompromising belief that personal morals must be kept personal because no matter how strong my beliefs are I would never have my moral convictions pressed upon another person and I am going to write an Editorial in the paper to correct all of you who think differently Yeah, this is the self-refuting nature of relativism and Now you know why it barks so loudly There's a saying in law school that goes like this if you have the facts Pound the facts if you don't have the facts pound the table and do it loudly There's a lot of table pounding going on here with people shouting. You can't force your view I need my safe space and all the while they are correcting those of us Who they think are? wrong By the way friends as Christians We aren't Imposing our views on anyone. You know what we're doing We're proposing our views in hopes that our fellow citizens will vote them into law Which is exactly how a constitutional republic like ours is supposed to function So the idea that we're forcing our views is simply false We're proposing our views not imposing our views second problem with relativism It can't say why anything is right or wrong mother Teresa She liked to help people ate off Hitler Well, he liked to kill them Who are we to judge? They just had different preferences That's not gonna work is it Third problem You've never met a relativist who actually lives that way You've never You just saw an example CS Lewis said the very man who tells you there is no right and wrong will complain if you cut him off in line He'll say these words. That's not fill in the blank Fair and Lewis asked a great question. Where does this notion of fairness come from? How do you get fairness in a world where there's no standard that we judge ourselves by and By the way, that was the thing that haunted Lewis and drove him toward theism That he couldn't make sense of that He had this sense of fairness this sense of right and wrong, but he couldn't make sense of it with his atheism and That was one of the things That drove his curiosity toward theism and ultimately Christianity this whole moral argument All right So relativism fails because it's self-refuting can't tell us why anything is wrong including intolerance And you've never met anyone who actually lives as a moral relativist In fact the next time someone says to you you shouldn't force your views on me You're going to have a two-word response and by the way you learned it last night Well, no also one word response. I know there's no truth, but I'm sorry. We got to draw the line on that one When someone says to you you shouldn't force your views on me, you're very sweetly going to say as Greg Cole recommends Why not or what's wrong with that? Any answer they give you will be an example of them doing what? Imposing their views on you Why not? What's wrong with that? And by the way, if you ever press the hot button issue of a moral relativist, they will become a moral absolutist very quickly very quickly All right, a couple of things just on the side notes here This is extra credit what I'm about to tell you so you if you want to just check out you can do that All right It's the only time I'm going to tell you to check out but you have my permission to totally ignore what I'm about to say to you For the next three and a half minutes. All right How did we get to this point where our culture is where it is today? It's very easy to think That we as Christians have so utterly failed the pro-life movement has utterly failed abortions been with us almost 50 years We haven't made enough progress. We're just failing right? No You've got to understand how we got here if you look at the the history of moral knowledge and You start tracing it from the Old Testament to where we are now You see a profound shift from moral realism the belief that morals are real and knowable to moral non Realism where people think it's all up to us So let me just give you the very quick gallop through history in Old Testament times Morals are real and knowable. They are objective and they're grounded in God's holy character But not only that they have a very useful application. Some would call it a utilitarian application God is holy. He gives his people rules, but he tells them if you do this, you'll live choose life that you may live Then we come up to the Greeks. Did the Greeks believe in objective morality? Yes absolutely Aristotle Plato Plato said morals are grounded in the ideal world of forms Aristotle grounded it more or less in in man's rational nature, but then you say, okay fine. What about the New Testament is Our morals still real and knowable in the New Testament. Yes Jesus of Nazareth shows up on the scene the Apostles show up on the scene, but here's where it gets really interesting In New Testament ethics, we don't do the right thing just for duty's sake Rather through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, we become more Christ's like day by day as we grow in our Sanctification we're justified in an instantaneous act of God Granting us pardon because of Christ and declaring us justified in virtue of Jesus, but Sanctification continues over time and and we don't do that in our own power The Holy Spirit gives us power to put off the old man put on the new man put off the deeds of the body We shouldn't be doing and put on the good things we ought to be doing the fruits of the Spirit for example These are things the Holy Spirit enables us to do then We get to the Middle Ages thinkers like Thomas Aquinas Did Thomas Aquinas believe in objective morality? Yes He did Now he differed from the Protestant reformers. He put a little too much confidence in man's ability To figure out right and wrong on his own. I get that but he still believed in objective morality There had not been a huge cultural cavity develop Then in the 16th and 17th centuries Everything falls apart. I know I'm covering this in rapid light warp speed But I just want you to get the big picture so you don't get discouraged along comes David Hume manual Kant Hobbes and others and Here's what they say If you can't taste it touch it feel it see it or hear it. It's not real All truth is reduced to what can be measured empirically through the five senses Can morals be measured through the five senses? No So what just became a morality it got moved from the truth column to what? preference passions Emotions but certainly not true with the capital T and certainly not real Then it gets worse Along comes the post-modern turn at the start of the 20th century All truth gets reduced to a matter a personal perspective or language community Hence full-blown relativism Now why did I just go through that extra credit? Here's why It's real easy as Christians to get discouraged and look at the culture around us and say oh man It's going to hell in a hand basket. Why 50 years ago everything was great. Look where we are now No, 50 years ago. These ideas had just not had the tidal wave break on the culture like it is right now What we're seeing with gender confusion marriage confusion abortion confusion human nature Confusion is all coming out of what we saw happen when the empirical shift happened and later the post-modern shift That's just all breaking in on us to where now We have a culture as dr. William Lane Craig points out that will accept truth in the hard sciences, but nowhere else In other words, they're phony relativists. They claim to be relativists, but they actually still want it when it comes to the hard sciences That's your culture. That's my culture One last thing then we'll take a break Let's say you get asked to Comment on gay marriage Somebody wants to hear from you and let me just pretend that you're in a classroom and you know the professor Really wants to nail you on this. He doesn't think like you do. He's hostile to your Christian worldview He wants to nail you on gay marriage by painting you to be an intolerant bigot. So we think he singles you out in class Okay, Rhodes Miss Rhodes, what do you think about gay marriage? He knows what you believe He's absolutely tried to set you up Here's how you're gonna reply. You're going to very nicely Say the following before you answer You know professor Smith, I'm going to answer your question, but before I do I Want to know if it's safe To give my view or are you going to judge me? What just happened? If he unloads on you now The tolerance card just got taken away from him. I Want to know if it's safe to give my view or are you gonna judge me for having a position different than your own? Those magic little words. Is it safe to give my view? Are quite helpful when you are dealing with a steamroller who isn't interested in rational argument only in shutting you down Now one last thing that will come up There will be people who say well even your Bible doesn't believe in objective morality because I can point to places in there where It appears that God's people were relativists for example Pharaoh tells the Hebrew midwives kill every male child Do they do it? No They hide them Pharaoh gets wind of it eventually calls him in Says um, didn't I ask you guys to like kill those Children do you remember how the Hebrew midwives responded? They said get this. This is just hysterical. Well, you know, we meant to but these Hebrew women They're really robust and they get birth so fast. We couldn't do it Can I translate this for you? They lied through their teeth There's a knock at the door It's World War two you're hiding Jews the Nazis want to know are you hiding Jews you're gonna tell them the truth You're gonna lie, aren't you? Does that make you a relativist? No, it does not and here's why let's say you have two moral truths that collide Right here. Okay. They've hit. It's right to tell the truth We should tell the truth But in this case if you tell the truth evil people kill innocent people Here's what happens and here's what the Hebrew midwives did and by the way the scripture says that the Hebrew midwives Found favor in God's eyes. So let's be clear that God was not displeased with this Two moral truths collide You give greater moral weight to the greater moral truth in That case that doesn't make you a relativist because you're acknowledging that there's two objective truths You're not saying there is no truth. You're saying two of them are colliding I give a greater moral weight to the greater moral truth in this case That doesn't justify you lying to your boss because you're late for work It means in that case only when you had two moral truths collided You give a greater moral weight to the greater moral principle. Is everybody clear on what I'm saying here and That is why I don't use the term I'm not opposed if you want to use it, but I generally don't use the term absolute morality I use objective morality Because if it's absolute you can never override it So I'll say objective morals grounded in the character of a holy God and It is God's will that we give greater moral weight to the greater moral truth When in those rare cases were called on to do that because they're colliding