VIEW
Truth Café
Mark Linville on the Campus Coffee Shop as the First Casualty of Relativism
It is sometimes said that ours is the postmodern age, and this is often taken to mean that civilization has outgrown the benighted and oppressive notion that there is such a thing as truth. Visit a major university campus (and stray far enough from the science buildings) and the relativists may be seen grazing in "immence herds," as the orthographically challenged explorer Meriwether Lewis might have put it.
Eavesdrop in a campus coffee house (especially the one closest to the Religious Studies department) and you may pick up snippets of conversation confirming the identity of the species. "But truth is merely a social construct, tethered to our linguistic practices," insists one. "All metanarratives are transparent attempts at political domination and oppression and must be deconstructed!" exclaims another. "Truth is whatever our colleagues will allow us to get away with saying," declares a third.
In such a context, to suggest that any worldview or religious belief is simply true or, worse, false, is, as philosopher Keith Yandell put it, about as welcome as a temperance sermon in a local tavern. To claim that the practices of some foreign culture are immoral is like showing up at a black tie affair wearing a tank top and boxers.
But, despite appearances, I suggest that the relativist, like the unicorn and the griffin, is a mythical creature. As with fairies and poltergeists and UFOs, there are many rumors of his existence, but never has there been a confirmed sighting. There is, quite simply, no such thing as a relativist.
The Mythical Creature
One reason, of course, for his non-existence is the utter lack of a natural habitat. The Shangri-La of novel and movie fails to be listed in any travel brochures, and, similarly, relativism fails to make the list of plausible but competing philosophical positions. But at least Shangri-La might have been an actual place.
Travelers to Shangri-La discovered a hidden land full of wonders, but square circles were not counted among them. The land is conceivable; square circles are not. To invite one's readers to imagine the truth of relativism is to expect them to conceive the inconceivable. Relativism is false and necessarily so. It is one of those obliging views in philosophy that make their own refutation a simple matter.
The argument for this conclusion is familiar. Our would-be relativist tells us that all truth claims are relative to the perspective from which they are made. Thus, for example, the bald assertion "God exists" must be qualified. We must not say "God exists," for this is (in postmodernist terms) an illegitimate "metanarrative" we cannot impose upon others who may have their own preferred metanarratives. Rather, we should say, "God exists for Christians," leaving it open also to say, "God does not exist for Buddhists."
Once we have learned this simple lesson, it might occur to ask our instructor how we ought to apply this to relativism itself. May we say, simply, "Truth is relative"? Or is this, too, an illegitimate metanarrative? Must we qualify this statement as we did the others and say "Truth is relative for relativists"?
Mark D. Linville is Professor of Philosophy at Atlanta Christian College and author of Is Everything Permitted? Moral Values in a World Without God (RZIM Critical Questions Series). He and his wife Lynn have four grown children and four grandchildren, and live in Fayetteville, Georgia, where they attend the Christian Church.
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