Speaking on the state of education in one of his daily podcasts, the redoubtable Albert Mohler noted that students today want to be affirmed rather than taught.(i) Rather than teaching timeless universal principles of knowledge and wisdom, education has morphed into a social exercise seeking to protect students from being challenged by truth. The priority in education has increasingly focused on the emotional state and well-being of the students. No longer do students want to participate in discussion and debate about competing ideas, seeking to hone their intellectual skills to discover truth.
The root of this regression in academic rigor is the ubiquitous denial of God. If there is no God who is the source of transcendent absolute truth, there is no transcendent absolute truth. This is a foundational premise of atheism.
Globally over the past two hundred years, atheism has been the fastest growing worldview.(ii) Atheism asserts that each person is the determiner of truth. This is called relativism.
Relativism posits that truth is dependent on mankind. Belief in transcendent absolute truth, however, presumes that such truth exists independent of mankind. Transcendent absolute truth is created by the transcendent, eternal, all-powerful God, who is the Creator of all. Adherents of relativism assert that there is no transcendent God; therefore, there is no transcendent absolute truth.
If the epistemology of the world is increasingly given over to relativism, what is the purpose of education? Historically, one of the seminal axioms of education is the existence of transcendent absolute truth defined by the Creator. Furthermore, it was assumed that the Creator was the God defined by a Christian worldview. This God revealed his transcendent absolute truth in both Scripture and creation. Consequently, formal education was historically developed by Christians for the purpose of knowing God and how he wants his creatures to steward his creation.(iii)
As the cultures of the world increasingly embrace atheism and reject a Christian worldview, it is not surprising that some disciplines, such as philosophy and education, abandon the premise of transcendent absolute truth. Such disciplines, a priori, embrace relativism.
Acts 8 records the story of two first-century people who did not think like twenty-first-century relativists. Both Simon the magician from Samaria and the eunuch who was the treasurer from Ethiopia believed in transcendent absolute truth. Though the men were quite different in their socio-economic status and ethnicity, they both embraced transcendent absolute truth revealed through Scripture.
Simon was confronted by the apostle Peter about the truth of his depraved condition as revealed in his wrong motives. Simon’s response exhibited humility toward the transcendent absolute truth of his sinful condition. He asked the apostle Peter to intercede for him, seeking God’s mercy and forgiveness.
Likewise, the Ethiopian Eunuch, though a prominent economic and political leader, humbled himself by seeking to worship the God of the Bible and engaged in seeking to understand the transcendent absolute truth of the Bible, which he clearly viewed as authoritative.
These first-century men received revelation of God’s transcendent absolute truth and humbled themselves before God. Today, however, the revelation of God is increasingly disdained by mankind. Failing to acknowledge this revelation has led mankind to disconnect from God and presume to invent their own truth.
Romans 1 explains that, when anyone honestly looks at creation, there is an irrefutable revelation of God in creation that cannot be denied. This revelation is cogent. Those who deny it are deceived and know they are deceived.(iv) Denial of the transcendent absolute truth of God in creation is willful deception; it is suppressing the truth—clear revelation—of God in creation in unrighteousness. This deception is globally systemic today. The consequence of this rebellion against God and his transcendent absolute truth will be judgment.(v) The apostle Paul explained that this judgment will be manifested in two ways—deranged thinking and unnatural sexual relationships, such as, homosexuality.
Currently, the denial of God and his transcendent absolute truth is so pervasive that deceived mankind is given over to the deception of relativism, perhaps more startlingly than at any other time in history. Consequently, unlike first-century citizens such as Simon and the Ethiopian Eunuch, who embraced transcendent absolute truth, the citizens of the world are regressing into relativism under the euphemism of progressivism. This is deranged thinking—part of the judgment of God on those who suppress the transcendent absolute truth of the transcendent absolute God of Scripture!(vi)
Denial of God’s truth is not only toxic in education but also in economics and the workplace. The development, production, and distribution of products is foundational to economic enterprise. Profitable economic enterprise presumes the existence of timeless universal principles to understand the science behind technology and develop the organizational systems to use it for the betterment of mankind. Without God’s principles, technology and healthy organizations are impossible, which means healthy economic enterprises are impossible.
Pragmatically, relativism fails, but more importantly, relativism is inconsistent with a Christian worldview that is rooted in the intelligently designed universe of a sovereign, intentional, strategic Creator. Relativism is based on the presumption of atheism and its seminal value of randomness. Randomness cannot explain an orderly predictable universe that is the requisite backdrop for human flourishing.
Relativism denies transcendent absolute truth, which means it denies timeless universal principles. It therefore denies the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and, indeed, all science. Relativism cannot explain the marvelous technological advances that mankind enjoys today, much less the existence of an orderly universe.
Anecdotally, I was trained as a scientist, based on the predicate of timeless universal principles. Furthermore, my experience as a consultant in business and economics has also required the assumption of timeless universal principles. Without these transcendent absolute principles, scientists cannot function, and consultants have nothing to offer.
There can be only one credible explanation for the marvelous orderly universe that is the context for the existence of mankind—an orderly Creator who has created this existence based on his transcendent absolute truth. Of all the worldviews that are embraced by mankind, only Christianity provides a worldview based on such a Creator and such truth.
Given this truth, economic enterprise must be rooted and grounded in an epistemology based on timeless universal principles that emanate from a Creator who is the source of all transcendent absolute truth. Relativism cannot explain the universe that is the context for mankind’s existence. To assert relativism as truth is to reject the truth of God in unrighteousness, the consequences of which will be judgment on mankind. The apostle Paul made this clear.
May the twenty-first-century citizens of the world repent from their presumption of relativism and embrace transcendent absolute truth as taught from a Christian worldview.
