The Seduction of Relativism

Welcome to episode 70 of the Catholic Frequency Podcast. Be sure to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and the X social media platform. You can't judge a book by its cover. Things are not always as they seem. We've all heard these cliches, these famous sayings.

They're actually wise sayings, and they actually have a lot of truth. Right? Things aren't always as they appear. One of the things in nature that's like this is a flower, the oleander. It is extremely dangerous, even in very small amounts.

Every part of the plant, including the soft petals, the leaves, the stems, even the nectar, contains potent cardiac glycosides. These toxins can be severe, often fatal, to humans and animals. And people sometimes underestimate the danger because the flowers look very delicate, very beautiful. However, eating just one petal can be toxic to a child. In adults, ingesting a few petals or leaves can cause serious symptoms or death.

There have been documented cases of people actually dying that used oleander branches as skewers for their barbecue or drinking water in which oleander flowers had been floating or making tea from the leaves of the flowers. But they look so beautiful. We have to remember that appearances can deceive us. What seems gentle or attractive can carry mortal danger. In Proverbs five, there's a warning to men that for the lips of a harlot are a dripping honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.

But in the end, she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps take hold on hell. Here's a man attracted to a beautiful woman. Sounds like a good thing.

Right? But here are the Proverbs reminding us of this this idea again, that just because something looks good or harmless or is pleasurable to the eyes, it is not good for you. We can recall the story of the Garden of Eden when Eve is looking upon this forbidden fruit, and she desires it. It looks good. The problem with our modern world is we are pursuing what looks good, what feels good.

We're basically in this unrelenting drive to consume everything that we think will satisfy our desires. Now in truth, they actually won't satiate our desires because we are eternal beings made in the image of God, but we're trying to satiate our eternal infinite need with finite pleasures that won't last. And there's a danger in that they won't last. They also will separate us from God for eternity, from the one person who can satiate all of those desires. Remember, at the well, the the woman at the well, when Jesus is having the conversation, he talks about he has a water that will satisfy.

In our modern age today, there is a very pernicious and dangerous thing, and it's called relativism. And it seems like something they might talk about, you know, at the seminaries, or or they might have remembered John Paul the second, the great pope, and now saint, warning about relativism, but it really doesn't I think for the modern man, nobody really thinks that it's dangerous or it's a threat in their lives. They're not even aware that they're swimming in an ocean of relativism. But relativism, let's face it, is attractive. Just like to a man who sees a beautiful woman, the harlot in Proverbs is attractive to the man.

Right? To the person trying to lose weight, the chocolate cake is attractive. One of the reasons that relativism is attractive is it seduces you. It presents itself as humility. Relativism presents itself as humble.

It refuses to impose belief on others. It appears tolerant. It lets everyone live according to their own, quote, values. Not virtues, which are always good, but their own values. Values are not a good thing.

Stalin had values. Hitler had values. Satan has values. It's what they value and want to see more of. It's what they hold most dear.

Virtues. That is what we should be pursuing. Faith, hope, and love, temperance, justice, wisdom, and fortitude. But relativism makes us go soft. It flatters our ego.

Relativism says, you know, there's no objective truth. There's nothing that's absolute. Truth, morality, and meaning depend on the individual or the culture or the moment. Feels very liberating. Relativism feels good.

Feels good that no one could tell you that you're wrong. No one could say you're doing something that's not correct. One of the reasons relativism is so attractive is that it removes guilt. If morality is relative, then nothing is intrinsically shameful. We think of shame as a negative emotion.

It is, but it has a purpose. Just like anger is a negative emotion, but it it has a purpose. Right? Jesus got angry. There there are times to be angry.

There's a time to be ashamed of your behavior, to feel guilt, and then to repent and turn away from it. But relativism removes that guilt. How many times have you heard someone you came across someone who used to be Catholic, and they said, I used to be Catholic, but I got away from all that guilt. I didn't like the Catholic guilt. Well, that might have been their conscience they were getting away from.

Might have been the voice of the Holy Spirit bringing conviction of sin. Relativism tells you that none of this matters. Don't feel guilty. It promises peace. Relativism tries to fool the world into thinking, if we all become relativist, then we're gonna get rid of all conflict.

Of course, that's a lie. Relativism goes hand in hand with greed and consumerism because desire becomes the only measure of the good. Let's talk about that that sentence one more time. Let's let me say that one more time. In our modern culture, desire is the only measure of the good.

Relativism causes us to be lazy. You might even say that it baptizes laziness. If you're a relative, well, there's no need to seek the truth, discern what is right, or convert from your wicked ways. Everybody's good. Live and let live.

If it feels good, do it. Relativism is very seductive. It also baptizes lust. There is no sexual act in relativism that's intrinsically disordered. Fornication, adultery, bestiality.

If everything's relative, nothing's off limits. It's also perhaps this is the most seductive aspect of relativism. It baptizes pride. It says, I am the measure. I decide what is right and wrong for me.

For at least two centuries, as modernism has enveloped every corner of Western society, Relativism has been spreading. Today, it dominates universities. It dominates the media. It dominates law. It started to dominate health care determining, well, human life isn't always precious.

Right? Euthanasia creeps in. Relativism rejects universal truth. Of course, this greatly accelerated in the nineteen sixties with the sexual revolution. If it feels good, do it.

Who are you hurting? Make love, not war. Right? Moral codes move from being absolute under relativism to here's a phrase you probably heard, social constructs. Everything becomes a social construct.

Morality, gender. Truth becomes reduced to a perspective under the dictatorship of relativism. Morality is reduced to a mere preference. I'd like mayonnaise on my hamburger, mustard on my hot dog. But there are some flaws in relativism, some inconsistencies that the relativists don't want to talk about.

Actually, relativism is self refuting because the statement there is no absolute truth claims to be absolutely true, doesn't it? John Paul the second warned during his pontificate that relativism leads us to nihilism. And when nothing is objectively true, then nothing ultimately matters. The modern world loves relativism because it proposes that it's going to bring us happiness, but actually it produces anxiety. Without objective meaning, people have to invent their own purpose.

Relativism is also very isolating. Without a shared moral culture, we're losing a sense of our common identity and community. The relativist will tell you that relativism is going to make love easier, more possible, but relativism actually undermines real love, authentic love, which requires objective good for the beloved. To love someone is to seek the objective good, not your desires, but their objective good. Relativism makes this impossible because there actually is no objective good.

Relativism undermines justice, and rights become whatever the majority or the powerful people say they are. We see this today. There are people in jail that shouldn't be. There are killers freed that shouldn't be because of cashless bail. There are criminals on the street that have murdered people that were arrested dozens of times before.

But with relativism, committing an act of murder can't be condemned as objectively bad. It's going to depend on what the life experience of the murderer was, the challenges they faced. There is no objective right and wrong. One of the biggest inconsistencies of relativism is that while it proposes to be tolerant, it's actually very intolerant of those who claim that there is absolute truth. For example, the relativist doesn't like the one holy Catholic and apostolic church and the truth that it proclaims.

We've talked a little bit about what it is, how it's inconsistent, but why is relativism deadly and dangerous? Perhaps the primary reason that relativism is deadly is it severs man from God, who is truth himself. I am the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus proclaimed in the gospel of John. To deny objective truth is actually to deny Christ. And so relativism makes the incarnation of God meaningless.

God entered history at a definite time with a definite message to save us from sin. But, in the mind of a relativist, sin doesn't exist. So, relativism makes the cross of Jesus Christ pointless. If truth is relative, there is no need for redemption. Thanks, but we don't really need that.

If we don't need that, we don't need the sacraments. It's not grace we're receiving, but a subjective feeling. Relativism destroys the conscience. The voice of God becomes reduced to the opinions of others around us. The family, of course, is the foundation of our civilization, but relativism attacks the family, attacks marriage and sexuality.

They're all matters of preference. Relativism justifies abortion. It's deadly for a baby in the womb. Relativism justifies ending a life if someone is elderly based on the quality of their life, not that that person is made in the image of God. By relativism, people justify the insanity of transgenderism.

Again, biological sex is treated as irrelevant or even oppressive. Relativism weakens evangelization. After all, why proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ if all religions are equally true? If Islam is true, if Judaism is true, if Hinduism is true, if Buddhism is true, if Christianity is just one of many highways to God, why do we need to proclaim Christ? Why do we need a church?

Relativism makes a false promise. It promises happiness. It promises self empowerment, but, actually, it delivers slavery. It baptizes sloth so that you become a slave to your passions. What does the Catholic church say in response to relativism?

Well, in the document De Verbum, which is a Vatican II document, the Church teaches that absolute truth is revealed by God. Sacred scripture, of course, is inspired and teaches us objective truth. The Catholic response to relativism includes this idea of natural law, that it's written on the heart of every human. To be Catholic is to recognize that moral absolutes do exist. The 10 Commandments are not suggestions.

They are commandments. In pope John Paul the second's encyclical Veritas Splendor or the Splendor of the Truth, he says that certain acts are intrinsically evil, regardless of intention or circumstances. Again, there is absolute truth. We've all heard that expression, The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The Relativist wants you to focus on intent and not result.

The Catholic response to relativism also tells us that human dignity is absolute, and that's because every person is made in the image of God. The Catholic church tells us that sin is real. It's an objective offense against God. But part of the good news that the Catholic church proclaims as an absolute truth is that grace, of course, is real. We can objectively participate in God's divine life, primarily through the sacraments.

In the Catholic response to relativism is the idea of the four last things: heaven, hell, death, judgment. Heaven and hell are real, eternal, objective destinies. You are going to heaven or you are going to hell. Your decisions influence your final stop. As Christians, we believe that truth is not a concept.

Again, it's a person, Jesus. The martyrs died for Jesus. They died for objective truth. They didn't die because they had some personal opinion. They absolutely believed and went from being cowards at the crucifixion.

They wouldn't come to be with Jesus, to later, after his death and resurrection, having incredible heroic virtue. They didn't just believe Jesus rose as an opinion. They knew it. They saw him. St.

Thomas Aquinas tells us that truth is the conformity of the mind to reality. So the relativist is not actually in reality. They're actually in some form of delusion. St. Augustine has a famous quote that our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, the unchanging truth.

The relativist will tell us that happiness will come to us when we pursue every desire we have, and we have unlimited choices. But Saint John Paul the second said, freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought. Benedict the sixteenth warned that charity sometimes can be divorced from truth. And he said, without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. The three great transcendentals in this world are truth, goodness, and beauty, and they're interrelated.

And the catechism tells us that truth is beautiful and liberates. As it says in the Gospel of John, only the truth will set us free. Now, we see how dangerous relativism is. We understand how the church opposes it. But how do we as individual Catholics combat relativism?

Well, we do it one step at a time, one day at a time. It begins, of course, with a personal conversion to Jesus. And it has to be a daily battle. Frequently reading the scripture, frequently receiving the sacraments, which strengthens us in objective grace, study the lives of the saints, study the catechism, spend time in prayer. The Christian can never compromise on the nonnegotiable truths.

Life, from conception until natural death. Marriage, a bond between one man and one woman. Religious freedom. We have to trust in the Holy Spirit, because as we try to fight relativism, we're not going to beat it on our own strength. One of the great theological virtues is hope.

Trust, that God will work all things out over time. After all, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church, which is built on the rock of truth. Relativism may be loud. It may be drowning out the truth today in the world. But relativism is temporary.

Truth is eternal. Every era in history has a challenge. Perhaps our dominant challenge is relativism, which is really part of this greater scourge on civilization called modernism. Relativism will pass away. The word of the Lord will remain forever.

Our task is not so much success, but our task is fidelity. Fidelity to the truth. Thomas Aquinas says, the purpose of speech is to tell the truth. We should speak as if our words convey reality, because they do. We should guard our lips and our tongue to say things that are true.

Even the white lie takes us down a road that we might not come back from. When we do all these things, when we hope in God, when we conform our minds to reality, relativism loses its power over our lives, our families, perhaps our workplaces. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth who guides the church. Relativism will eventually fade into the dustbin of history, and the truth, who is Jesus Christ, will triumph.

To him be glory and empire forever and ever. Amen. Thanks for listening to episode 70 of the Catholic Frequency Podcast. Be sure to follow us on YouTube, on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify. And if you like our work, you can support us financially.

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