tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931579729864611467.post1141453992344327174..comments2023-10-31T05:37:16.659-07:00Comments on A Guy in the Pew: Pew Research on Young White EvangelicalsChuck Blanchardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01417638725063186710noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3931579729864611467.post-17401308238551506602007-09-29T13:26:00.000-07:002007-09-29T13:26:00.000-07:00It’s often said that the revisionists have a low v...It’s often said that the revisionists have a low view of the authority of Scripture, which is true, but it’s more difficult to debate Scriptural interpretations than it is to expose problems in the area of pure logic.<BR/><BR/>What really offends certain Episcopalians about someone like Archbishop Akinola is that he affirms the falsity of someone else's viewpoint. It seems to them like the reasonable (and Episcopal) thing to avoid affirming that some viewpoint is simply wrong. They suppose that truth is subjective and, in taking this position, their claiming a dispensation for themselves they they’re refusing to any other view.<BR/><BR/>You don't have to affirm the authority of Scripture to see the logical problem here. Socrates exploded the fallacy of subjectivity for all time with the following question in the Theaetetus. Ponder his logic: "Since he grants that the opinions of all men are true, then would he not be conceding that his own opinion is false, if he grants that the opinion of those who think he is in error is true?"<BR/><BR/>We can acknowledge that perceptions may differ, but as Aristotle said in the Metaphysics: "Perception is surely not of itself, but there is something else besides the perception and that is necessarily prior to the perception."<BR/><BR/>This matter of objectivity versus subjectivity pertains also to issues of morality. C. S. Lewis put it this way: “We are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people get their sums wrong, but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table.”<BR/><BR/>We may not know even approximately the nature of the moral requirement in a given instance, and we must remain humble about that, but that doesn’t prove the nonexistence of the moral order. The danger all around us now is that people are forsaking any notion of objectivity in the moral area – even though there is unrecognized unanimity about morality in many areas. Rape isn’t moral wrong just because almost every thinks it is wrong but because, as Lewis said, there is a “real Right and Wrong.” It’s just as real as the multiplication table and the law of gravity. If there is something wrong, there has to be a right that is being violated.<BR/><BR/>If you’re talking with a revisionist or someone who isn’t sure, see whether this issue of subjectivity is lurking. You’ll probably find that they’ve never been presented with the ancient logic of how subjectivity refutes itself.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com