The Necessity of Objective Moral Truth

Perhaps you, like me, have seen or read with utter disbelief news reports in which a blatant and obvious lie is declared to be truth and fact. Maybe it was a reporter standing in front of burning buildings while touting the nobility of “mostly peaceful” protesters. Or perhaps it was a politician stating “hundreds” of unarmed people are gunned down in our streets each year because their skin is a certain color. Wherever we turn we see outrageous statements we’re told to agree with or suffer the punishment of a cancel culture.

Among the more disturbing justifications for this nonsense is the claim that each of us creates our own truth. The idea that something is a fact just because someone declares it to be so with conviction is obviously absurd but apparently backed up even by force of law by those who will sacrifice truth on the altar of popular acceptance.

C.S. Lewis wrote in “Mere Christianity” how universal moral truths were compelling evidence that played a role in moving him from agnosticism to faith in Christ. He noted that, with rare exception, a moral code seemed imprinted on humanity regardless of distances separating cultures. How could people groups with differing histories, traditions, levels of technological development and educations, arrive at a common set of laws declaring murder, theft, adultery, lying and activities many of us call sin be illegal or at very least frowned upon by such disparate people groups with no known previous contact with one another? Lewis concluded there must be a universal moral code embedded in humanity which, along with other evidences, led him to belief in God.

The argument that there is no such thing as absolute truth is self-contradictory. If someone says to me, “There’s no absolute truth,” I ask them to repeat and reaffirm that statement. Then I ask them if it is absolutely true that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Busted. And then I’m usually called a racist, bigot, homophobe or other disparaging term assigning me to the ranks of the deplorably unenlightened.

Absolute truth is essential. Without it, anarchy and relentless actions of self-interest are not only permitted, but encouraged. For example, moral truth instructs me that murder and stealing are wrong. Without it, there is no reason for me not to kill people and take their stuff. Without a universally accepted governing moral authority to which all are accountable, destructive and deadly selfishness are only logical.

The problem for many advocating doctrines of personal truth is that absolute truth necessitates a single arbiter of what is and is not true. The Judeo-Christian perspective calls that arbiter God. And God is decidedly unpopular in today’s spreading “woke” culture because He puts limits, in the form of universal moral codes that have served prosperous civilizations for centuries, on behaviors those creating their own truth are accountable to. In an age of relentless self-importance vilifying anything encroaching on self-esteem and happiness, a deity to whom all are ultimately accountable is inconvenient and upsetting. And that is a true fact.