Matt Capps Culture, Life, Media and Technology, Personal, Philosophy, Thoughts

A Thought on Media Technology and Human Relationships

While in college, I took a class on ‘Popular Culture’, the class filled one of my sociology requirements. One of our texts for the class was a book titled Media Society. In this book the authors made an obvious but profound observation on the effect of media on social situations; they wrote “One important characteristic of media technology, is that it is usable by almost anyone with access to it; it does not require elaborate technical knowledge on the part of its users. The significance of media technology, as a result, is far reaching.”

The authors continue, “the social significance of media communication is that it differs substantially from unmediated face to face interaction…when we take a sociological look at media technology, we are asking how these technologies shape the ways we interact and communicate with one another.” Let’s think about the significance of media technology for a minute.

Almost everyone can use what they called ‘media technology’ (the internet, television, ipods), but have we given serious thought to the implications of these devices if gone unchecked? We need to become what Neil Postman called ‘great noticers’. If we stop and think about it, a live internet/television feed of an event (that can be hundreds or thousands of miles away) is an astonishing manipulation of time and space. We can “be there” without being there.

You can literally live one block away from the a football stadium, not be watching or listening to the game, and someone who lives across the country can know the outcome of the game before you do. Physical distance becomes irrelevant. Why does this matter? Beyond football games, think about your relationships with friends and family. How many of us keep up with friends or family via facebook or myspace. How many of us opt for a computer camera or instant messenger for having ‘face to face conversations’ because it is more convenient. Sure, for some of us we have too because of physical distance reasons. But others, the cost of gas is no excuse for disregarding the importance of quality personal time with the ones we love.

Back to facebook and myspace, the whole concept of ‘virtual community’ suggests that relationships no longer need to be geographically based. While technology has radically changed the way we understand the ‘meaning of distance’, it should not radically change the way we engage in human relationships.

We often talk of the possibilities that new technologies create, the awesome powers of new machines, but rarely do we consider the social implications of such things. We should not only be asking ‘what can technology do for us, but what should we do with technology?’ Yes, these technologies are easily accessible for most of us, but we need to be ‘great noticers’ of its effects, the results are far reaching.

Matt Capps Life, Philosophy, Religion, Thoughts

An Interview with Bruce Little (PhD) on the ‘Problem of Evil’

There seems to be a renewed interest in the ‘blog world’ on issues dealing with evil and suffering. So I decided to contact one of my former professors, Dr. Bruce Little, and ask him if he would be willing to answer a few questions regarding his “Creation Order Theodicy.”

Bruce Little presently teaches at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, NC) where he serves as Professor of Philosophy and Director of the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture. Dr. Little received his Bachelors degree from Baptist Bible College of PA, a M.A. in Apologetics and a M.R.E. from Liberty University, a D.Min from Columbia Biblical Seminary, and a PhD from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In Dr. Little’s book “A Creation-Order Theodicy” (University Press of America, 2005) he presents a theodicy from a moderate libertarian position. This basically means that he does not believe in radical freedom. “I think man’s choices are limited and/or influenced by God’s providential ruling, physical limitations, and antecedent events and choices.” I thought it would be interesting to hear his thoughts, and responses to a few questions.

What is a theodicy, and why is it important that pastors think through the issues of evil and suffering?

A theodicy is a way of explaining the ways of God regarding the matter of evil. I served as pastor for over 30 years and that is where I first started thinking deeply about all this. In fact, I did not know that it was called a theodicy in those days. I realized that people need answers regarding the reality of evil and suffering in this world. Furthermore, those answers had to square with what I had just preached on the Sunday before. The problem is that at once when we suffer we wonder why God did not protect me from it. In fact, maybe I had even prayed that He would, or I have been good, why did this come to me. But, the tension comes because we believe God is all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful and that He is the sovereign of Creation, yet His creation is riddled with evil and suffering. So, as a pastor we need to have answers that not only answer the cry of the heart, but the objections of the non-Christian. The argument from evil is probably the most often heard objection to believing there is a God. Maybe at first the individual simply needs for you to pray with them, weep with them, listen to them, but in the end, they will want answers to there legitimate questions about God and evil. If Christianity is a superior belief system to all others, then we must have an answer at this most important point.

For me, the hardest part of constructing a Theodicy is dealing with the question, “if God is all good and all powerful why is there so much intense, unequally distributed suffering of innocents”? In a situation of pastoral counseling, how would you approach such a question?

You are right; this is the great question, especially suffering of children. In pastoral counseling, I think the approach is that we confront people with the reality that we live in a fallen world, one that is out of joint. It is not as it was intended to be. There is a lot of evil and suffering in this world because nature is out of joint and moral agents choose to do evil things that bring suffering. These are not things God planned or caused, they are, in light of Genesis 3, the result of man’s disobedience in the Garden. So, I have, over the years, pointed people to God, His comfort, His mercy (II Cor. 1:2-5) and His sufficient grace (II Cor12:9) in their time of trouble knowing that He is sufficient. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in many cases He weeps for humanity for all its suffering as this is not the way it was intended. When I read the Gospels, I find Jesus, who revealed the Father to us, having compassion on those who suffered. The widow of Nain is such a clear example of this as no one asked Jesus to do anything—He was simply moved with compassion to raise the widow’s dead son. I have always tried to have them focus on the God who will never leave of forsake us, to know that He walks with us through the difficulty if we know Him, and to know that His grace can strengthen us to be a testimony in the midst of our difficulties. Many times, people think that the suffering has been allowed by God to bring some good to their live so they try to find the good. However, on many occasions that has led to bitterness because they never found the good. I am not saying that we may not learn valuable lessons in our suffering, but that does not mean that is why the suffering came to us. God may bless, but if He does, it is in spite of the suffering, not because of the suffering. In that case, we simply praise God for His grace. I have know a good number of people who spent time trying to find the good so they could still believe God and when they did not find it they became bitter towards God.

You make a distinction from speaking about the ‘Problem of Evil’ and the ‘Argument from Evil’, why is this important or even necessary?

I would say that it is important in formal debate or discussion within the academy. The reason is, that for the Christian, evil is not a problem in the sense that does not cause us to wonder whether God is there or not—so in that sense it is not a problem. What it is, is an argument by the atheist to claim that God cannot exist as the all-good, all-knowing, all-powerful God in light of all the evil. Some argue that it is a logical impossibility for God to exist, others argue that it is more probable that God does not exist than that He does exist. So, in that case I would make the point that we are dealing with an argument and then see if the argument wins the day. That is, is evil a defeater of the claim that God exists. Of course I think it is not.

The classical explanation given to answer questions of suffering and evil is that “God allows only that evil in this world from which He can bring about a greater-good or prevent a worse evil” (this is the Greater Good Theodicy). You devote a good portion of your book to refuting this argument. Why is it that this argument fails?

Well, this argument fails because it simply lacks biblical support in my mind. I know that many use Ro 8:28 as the grounding for this position, but when we look at the text the most it would say is that God works for good those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. This means that it would only be an answer for suffering of the Christian and further, I believe the context of the text limits it to only when one suffers for righteousness. This is what Jesus teaches in Matt 5: 10-12; Peter in I Pet 1:6-7 and so forth. So, I think that Ro 8:28 is insufficient for claiming what the greater-good theodicy claims. There are other verses, but I believe they fail to support the Greater Good theodicy. Other reasons it fails, I think, tend to be obvious once we think about it. For example: consider abortion (which I would call an evil). According to the Greater-Good theodicy abortion is allowed by God in order to bring about a greater good. If that is the case, then we should not stop abortion for in doing so the good God intended is denied, but we are called to stand for social justice and against evil practices. The same argument goes for prayer. Why we would pray for someone when they are terminally ill (it is allowed by God for a greater good). Furthermore, we must ask the question: “if God allows evil to bring about a good, is that good a necessary good? If it is a necessary good, then the evil that brings it is necessary and the only way it could be necessary is if God planned it. This makes God responsible for evil, something I think is clearly contrary to scripture because God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If on the other hand the good is not necessary then we are back to asking the question why the evil? In addition, if the good cannot come about except by evil, then God needs evil to accomplish something good which means there are certain things God cannot do, namely bring about the good without evil. I am doubtful that one really would want to accept that conclusion. Of course much more could be said on this matter, but I will let this serve as my answer at this time.

Dealing with the ‘Greater Good Theodicy’ we often hear arguments like “God allows the evil, because in the end his judgment of the wicked will bring glory to himself”, how would you defend your argument in light of this explanation?

Well, I say that God does not need evil to bring glory to himself—He will do that anyway. While it is true that in the end, every knee shall bow and confess Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father, that is another issue altogether. So I think the response fails to see that there is a difference in God receiving glory in the judgment and God needing judgment to bring Him glory. In addition, it is far better that God should be glorified by His people doing right as Jesus glorified the Father in doing the Father’s will. In my thinking, this response fails to understand the heart of God. Much of the evil that comes touches the innocent, so in this case, innocents suffer profoundly so that God can be glorified in judging the person who committed the crime—you know like raping a little girl and then burying her alive. Think of the multiplied suffering that caused for the little girl, her family, her friends, and her community—all so that God can get glory in judging the one committing the evil.

In ‘Creation Order Theodicy’ you put up an argument for ‘the best of all possible worlds’, some would say this is irrelevant in formulating a theodicy. Why is the ‘best of all possible worlds’ argument important to the theodicy?

In my mind, the best of all possible worlds is necessary to answer the question: “Why did not God actualize a world with less evil—a better world we might say?” Surely if that could have been done and all other things remained the same, God would be acting in a way less than what He was capable of if he did not do it. It is not just that He did less that what He could have done, like making another kind of animal, this acting in a fashion below His creative capabilities concerns the morality of God. That is, a serious indictment—God acting in a fashion that reveals an act not sponsor by His perfect goodness. Furthermore, but connected to this, is I think that the logic of a God who holds all His attributes in maximal perfection requires that in all things He does the best that is possible under the circumstances. Genesis 1:31 says that God saw that everything He made was very good. Very good by God’s standard is the best possible. If God does not do what is best in the actualizing of the world and yet He claims it is very good, then one wonders about the summary statement. In addition, if He does not do His best, then one could reply that He is morally delinquent for not doing His moral best.

In ‘Creation Order Theodicy’ you talk about a ‘two minds’ theory, could you explain that and what place it has in your theodicy?

By two minds, I mean two kinds of minds—real minds. We have the divine mind and the human mind. If the human mind is to function as a true mind, then it must have the capacity to think and to choose which means man must have what is called libertarian freedom. Otherwise man would just be a machine doing what he had been programmed to do, or man’s action being only the consequence of a series of causal events either mental or physical. But man is not a machine, he is a being made in the image of God. He is given commands and is expected to obey them, but with the possibility he will disobey them. If man chooses to disobey, there are consequences and he is held responsible for his choices. We must understand that we have a real person to person relationship with God, not just a personal relationship in the sense of a private relationship. We need to think about this deeply. It is amazing that man, because he has a mind patterned after God’s mind making it possible for a real personal relationship to exist between the divine mind and the human mind. But more than this, man is called to love God (Matt 22:37-39) which is the highest calling of humanity. You cannot love God without having the freedom to choose to love and this requires a mind, otherwise, it would be something else, but it would not be love. This is important to my theodicy as it places the problem of evil in a larger context, the context of creation, and the wonder of man having a real mind to which God can communicate and with which man can understand and respond either affirming or denying the truth God communicates. I would say that God respects man’s choices because He gave man his mind and because the consequences of man’s choices (good and bad) flow into history. We surely see this in Gen 3.

How does the idea of middle knowledge influence how we understand God’s providence and man’s responsibility?

Middle knowledge is a large subject, but in its basic form it affirms that God not only knows what man does or will do, God knows the choices man would have made under difference circumstances or in a different world. So, God saw all the possible worlds and then actualized the best of those worlds. So, in any world man freely chooses what he chooses. When God actualizes a world (the one in which we live), the choices we make in this world are free choices. Because God’s middle knowledge is active in which world to actualize, we know that this is the best of all possible worlds. However, because this is the world God has sovereignly chosen, our free choices are fixed and the end is assured as God knows the end from the beginning of this creation. God’s providence acts in this world, working with the choices of man assuring that the end will be as He has promised it shall be.

Do you have any forthcoming projects or work in this area?

Yes, I am working on a book which places the problem of evil in a much larger context. That means, as a part of our larger Christian worldview and how Christians understand better how to reach their culture.

Continue reading “An Interview with Bruce Little (PhD) on the ‘Problem of Evil’” →

Matt Capps Philosophy, Religion, Thoughts

A Plausible God?

Dr. Albert Mohler reviews Mitchell Silver‘s book “A Plausible God” today on his blog. Which is basically an “attempt to construct a concept of God that modern secular people will find plausible” (Self evident in the title). Mohler asks,

“What kind of god would be plausible in this postmodern age?  Taken by itself, that question represents the great divide between those who believe in the God of the Bible and those who see the need to reinvent a deity more acceptable to the modern mind.”

Read the article here.

Also of note; Dr. Mohler has three books being published this year. The first one, ‘Atheism Remix’ which has already been released, “explores the newest strain of atheism, its foremost thinkers, the cultural conditions that have bred it, and how Christians should respond.” Mohler also has two other books due out this year. “He is not Silent” where Mohler discusses preaching in a postmodern world, and “Desire and Deceit” about the “real cost of sexual tolerance”.

I agree with Piper when it comes to Mohler, “Albert Mohler is a steady guide, unremittingly clear-headed.”

Matt Capps Philosophy, Religion

David Wells on Contemporary Spirituality

David Wells has offered the Christian community a wonderful, thought provoking critical analysis of Christianity and our society in his book- “Above All Earthly Pow’rs”. Below I wanted to share a block quote, a quote that I think sums up, and sums up well, postmodern man’s attempt at spirituality.

“The contrast between biblical faith and this contemporary spirituality is that between two entirely different ways of looking at life and God. Nygren, some years ago, used the Greek words for two different kinds of love, Eros and Agape, to characterize these worldviews. The movement of Eros spirituality is upward. Its essence its drive, is the sinner finding God. The movement Agape, by contrast, is downward. It is about God finding the sinner. Eros spirituality is the kind of spirituality is the kind of spirituality which arises from human nature and it builds on the presumption that it can forge its own salvation. Agape arises in God, was incarnate in Christ, and reaches us through the work of the Holy Spirit opening lives to receive the Gospel of Christ saving death.” (159)

Matt Capps Philosophy, Religion, Thoughts

Religious Doubt and the Christian Faith

We as Christians rarely talk about doubt. I think this is a problem, for doubt is one of the defeated one’s oldest schemes. Be Honest with yourself, have you ever doubted your salvation? Have you ever doubted your calling? Have you ever doubted the existence of God? Have you ever doubted an essential Christian doctrine? I think doubt is a normal part of the human condition. Often times I find myself growing deeper in the faith when I am working through the darkness of doubt.

When talking about ‘doubt’, as Christians we need to begin this conversation at the very beginning of creation. It was in the Garden of Eden that the serpent used doubt as a tool to deceive the first man and woman, “are you sure God told you that?” Ever since the beginning we find different giants of the Christian faith in seasons of doubt (Abraham, Job, David, and the most notorious doubter, Thomas). Doubt is a universal symptom of sinful humanity, we doubt the truth, we doubt God’s promises, and we doubt God.

At the very core of doubt is the where we find eternal truth and our temporal human emotions waging war against one another. C.S. Lewis seemed to locate the struggle of doubt to the emotions, I think he might be right. No matter who you are, or what beliefs you hold about ‘reality’, human feelings will always assault your convictions.

It was C.S. Lewis who drew the illustration of uncertainty with having an operation; “when they have me down on the table and clamp that horrible mask over my face, a mere childish panic begins inside me” (Mere Christianity). The question might arise, how then do we put these ‘feelings’ in their proper place? According to Habermas, C.S. Lewis would have proposed a stepped process in ‘taming our unruly emotions’;

  1. “We begin by recognizing the role of moods and feelings. They can change on a daily basis and color how we view our beliefs.”
  2. We must daily practice the classical disciplines of the faith to be reminded of Christian doctrine (prayer, fasting, worship, and reading). “We must constantly review and keep what we believe before us”.

See, the point is not to convince yourself of something that is wholly untrue and bring about some state of self delusion. In reality it is the very opposite, to remind ourselves of what we know to be true, and bring our emotions in line with truth. Here is an adapted form of the process Cognitive Therapists usually promote;

  1. Identify an irrational belief. This is usually the foundation of a particular ‘religious doubt’.
  2. Remove that irrational belief by arguing against it, and reminding oneself with Biblical doctrine.
  3. Replace that irrational belief with the truth.

Gary Habermas notes that the key in this process “is tracing a bad mood or painful moment precisely to an image, concept, troublesome comment, or irrational belief.” When truth or fact enters the picture, emotions are usually revealed for what they are: in other words “proper thinking trumps undisciplined emotions”.

Matt Capps Arts, Culture, Philosophy, Religion, Thoughts

Heath Ledger, The Joker, and Christian Theology

I saw the ‘Dark Knight’ last week, and ever since seeing Heath Ledger’s Joker performance, a few things have been in my mind. Ledger delivered one of  the most chilling depictions of human depravity I have seen in a while.

The Christian doctrine of ‘depravity’ (The Greek word ‘porneria’, which can also be translated ‘corruption’) essentially speaks of humanities ‘active intent to corrupt or destroy’. This condition involves the concept of moral corruption and liability to judgment. (There is some debate among theologians over the proper quantitative word to be used in describing humanities depravity, ‘Are we totally depraved or radically depraved?’)

Either way this debate must take into account the fact that we were created in the image of God with the capacity for good, but every part of our being has been affected by sin (Rom. 7:18; Titus 1:15; Jer. 17:9; Eph. 4:18). Every person is sinful. It is this sinful nature that manifests itself differently in each individual person, yet all mankind is marked with the scars of sin.

Here is where ‘The Dark Knight’ comes into play, I was totally enthralled with Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker. Ledger took the character to a whole new level, a totally depraved psychopathic villain. The Joker lived to create chaos, and seemed to be enslaved with a thirst for gratuitous evil. Ledger perfectly characterized ‘the heart of darkness’.

Not only was Ledger’s performance Oscar worthy, the Joker completely stole the show. So I began thinking, why is it that this evil villain seemed so believable? Why is it that Ledger’s performance resonated so deep, so memorable? If there was ever a time when an actor blurred the lines between art and reality, it is in this movie. Ledger managed to convince me (at least) that he really was ‘that evil’.

I think Christian Theology can speak to these questions. It is much easier for a fallen human being to depict evil than good. This is not a knock on Ledger’s performance, but an observation of reality. Besides the fact that Batman sounded like “the spawn of Clint Eastwood and a Grizzly Bear” (this is pretty funny), the character was unrealistic, ‘too good to be real’. The Batman represented an ideal, just like other ‘super-heros’ who reach beyond the regular abilities of humanity for some ‘greater good’. Being that good, or standing for good in the way batman does is much harder when your life is on the line. As C.S. Lewis once remarked, “no man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good”.

The scary thing is that the Joker never did anything ‘non-realistic’ (I am speaking in terms of ‘the possible’). The possibility of sin and destruction are part of this created order. These realities are the horrible effect of the fall.

See, the reality of evil was not an ‘original thing’, (evil is not a ‘thing’ itself, but the depravity of ‘things’) but the possibility of evil entered created order when the first man and woman deliberately turned there backs on God. This is where the Joker hits home; he represents the darkness of the human heart in its most depraved form. If anything, this character illustrates our need of the Gospel, and sheds a whole new light on common grace. I am absolutely thankful that God has placed moral order in this world to guide our sinful hearts. But more than that, I am thankful that God has provided a way for righteousness through Christ His Son. This is the meaning of the Gospel, that all of us deserve death (from those who are as evil as the Joker, to those who ‘mess up’ every now and then…essentially we are the same), but Christ has provided a way to eternal life and reconciliation to God in the Gospel.

Matt Capps Media and Technology, Philosophy, Religion

Article in Collide Magazine

I recently had an article published in COLLIDE MAGAZINE, and it appeared in the July/August issue. This issue hit mailboxes on July 15. COLLIDE has recently placed the article on their web page!

Matt Capps Philosophy, Religion

A Thought on True Worship (Part 2): John 4:23-24

In John 4:23-24 Jesus is recorded as saying, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

What does it mean to worship in spirit and in truth? Well, first and foremost Jesus tells this woman at the well that ‘the time is now’. In Jesus we see the appearing of God’s definitive revelation. From this point on true worship will not be confined to any particular place, ritual, posture, or attitude. True worshipers do not worship with particular outward appearances, for Jesus true worship is a matter of spirit rather than physicality.

God’s essential nature is spirit. These words are not in reference to the ‘Holy Spirit’, Jesus is simply saying that God is spiritual rather than material. Carson notes, “in this context ‘spirit’ characterizes what God is like, in the same way that flesh, location, and corporeality defines the metaphysical properties.” (John, 225)

God is not bound by material places or things. It is necessary (‘must’ is emphatic) to worship God in spirit. In fact, Kostenberger argues that ‘spirit’ and ‘truth’ are governed by the same preposition, and therefore encompass the same overall idea (14:6, 14:17, 15:26, 16:13).

True worship is critically predicated upon accurate knowledge of the God being worshiped. Though God is spirit, He has made Himself known to all creation. In the same way that ‘God is light’ or ‘God is love’, He is also Spirit, and has presented Himself most fully in the life and work of Jesus Christ. Moreover, it is Jesus who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and enables/prompts humanity to true worship. Christ is truth, God’s word made flesh. In this passage Jesus announces to the woman at the well, ‘the time has come to truly worship because I am here’. True worship involves knowing the one true God, who has most fully disclosed Himself in Jesus Christ.

Matt Capps Philosophy, Religion, Thoughts

A Thought on True Worship (Part 1): Romans 12:1

In Romans 12:1 Paul writes “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

First let us establish that true Christian worship, as Ernst Kasemann once noted, “does not consist of what is practiced at sacred sites, at sacred times, and with sacred acts…It is the offering of bodily existence”. True Christian worship consists of offering the whole of self, the mind and heart, so that God would be glorified. This was made possible at the cross, where Christ offered himself as a sacrifice once and for all, thus opening up the way of true fellowship between God and man. The possibility of such a relationship  was, before the work of Christ, cut off at the fall.

The Greek translated ‘spiritual worship’ can also be rendered ‘reasonable service’. This ‘intelligent worship’ is reasonable given the mercies of God shown in salvation for all who believe. Thomas Schreiner notes that, the call to worship recalls a theme already introduced in Paul’s letter to the Romans, 1:25. From this observation we can conclude that the fundamental sin of man is ‘failure to worship’ the one true God. Therefore, those who seek to truly worship God live there entire lives so that he is honored and praised.

Moreover, this word translated ‘worship’ has a rich background in Greek and Hellenistic Jewish philosophy, possibly referring to the fact that God created human beings as having logos (reason). This ‘reason’ is one of the things we, as humans, have in common with God. Emphasizing ‘truly appropriate worship’, which involves;

1. The Mind: Seeing and Understanding how God has made Himself known in redemptive history (Through the Bible).

2. The Heart: Loving and Treasuring God for the sacrificing of himself (Christ) in your place, and opening the eyes of the redeemed to see the beauty of redemption (Spirit).

This is the Gospel, and the foundation of true worship.

For more on the Gospel of Jesus Christ, click here.

Matt Capps Personal, Philosophy, Thoughts

Morality in Postmodernity

I was thinking about the effects that pluralism have on morality this morning, and I must acknowledge that humanity is in need of universal truth. We live in an age where truth is subjective, where men and women do as they please, where ‘what is true to me, might not be true to you’, therefore there is no standard beyond the mere restraints of the criminal and civil laws which have been established.

But we are heading towards a day where law will become more and more elusive. Maybe to the point of such confusion that justice can no longer maintained.

I think you can read this excerpt from Bruce Little’s essay titled “Vital Cultural Issues and Necessary Virtues” and understand why I am making such a statement.

“It is clear by the discussion that one’s view of morality is bound inextricably to one’s idea of ultimate reality. If one’s philosophical commitments lead him to deny the actuality of the transcendent, then it follows he cannot affirm the existence of universals or absolutes. Moreover, if universals do not exist, then all there is, are the particulars, but in such a case, there is no objective way to assess the meaning of the particulars. Meaning must be derived from only the relationship of one particular to another. The end is, as Weaver suggests, that man is the measure of all things and, in the case of morality, all that is left is relativism. In this relativistic context, everybody’s moral views must have equal weight.”

How then can we know right from wrong, truth from error?