by Bill Nugent
Article #52
Radio commentator Sandy Rios of Concerned Women for America received the following rebuke from a listener who said: ” I don’t appreciate what you said about the gay, lesbian and fetish communities…… My parents raised me to decide for myself what is right and wrong.”
The listener seemed to defend homosexuality and then stated that she was raised to decide for herself what is right and wrong. The concept of deciding for one’s self what is right and wrong may sound open minded but on closer examination it is really illogical. Let me explain.
The brightest intellectual lights all down through history have maintained that right and wrong are not arbitrarily decided upon but rather are discovered. We must discover the moral law which is above man’s law.
True open-mindedness means one searches for truth. The person is open to discover truth and does not naively claim that he or she decides ultimate truth for one’s self.
The matter of ultimate right and wrong (also called absolute truth) is of crucial importance the foundation of any society. If each person arbitrarily decides what absolute truth is then we have social chaos, moral relativism and no real basis for law and government.
The ancient Greek sophist philosopher Protagorus (c.485-411 B.C.) wrote “man is the measure of all things.” This is just another way of saying that each man decides truth for himself. Pre-Socratic Greece was chaotic as a result. It was Socrates (c.469-399 B.C.) who countered the selfism and arbitrariness of the sophists like Protagorus.
Socrates, a man who had no Bible but did have the light of conscience and nature, was able to see that there is a moral law above the self. Socrates saw that there is a moral imperative or moral archetype that is above humanity.
Socrates’ famous student, Plato (c.427-c.347 B.C.) wrote about the “unmoved mover,” an obvious reference to God who is the source of all moral wisdom. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were wise but they lacked God’s direct revelation (the Bible). They had no concept of the sacredness of human life and therefore social injustice permeated their writings. The Greek culture that they so profoundly influenced was orderly but was also brutal in many respects.
The Greek experience did tend to prove that God’s truth can — to a degree — be discerned from nature alone. The Bible in Romans 1:20 teaches that God’s wisdom and moral laws are embedded in nature and revealed by nature. This is the concept called “natural law.”
The Bible itself, on the other hand, is God’s direct verbal revelation of truth to humanity. The Bible is called“propositional truth.” The Bible is absolute truth articulated in clear language and is “a light that shineth in a dark place” (2 Peter 1: 19). The God who created us loves us and has instructed us on how we must live. The Bible is the absolute truth for which we have searched.
In our own times postmodern philosophy predominates. Postmodernism is the notion — that we discussed earlier — that each human self decides his or her own truth. Postmodernism is essentially a return to pre-Socratic sophism. Postmodernism is a return to Paganism. This is why Pagan customs such as child murder (abortion, infanticide in partial birth abortion), homosexuality, adultery, fornication, etc., are gaining acceptance in western civilization.
Bible prophecies foretell the breakdown of civilization in “the last days” (2 Tim. 3:1). This social breakdown just prior to the second coming of Christ is prophesied in Matthew 24:1-14; 1 Timothy 4:1-2 and 2 Timothy 3:1-9. Revelation 13:1-18 foretells the rise of a tyrannical dictator, the antichrist, who will oppress humanity in the last days.
The stage is being set, the signs are everywhere. Jesus invites each of us to receive the forgiveness that He purchased for us when He died for our sins and was raised from the dead for our justification!