Truth exists
Any other premise is self-invalidating. Take, for instance, the thought: Truth does not exist. Is that a truth? If so, then truth exists and the statement is refuted.
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Can we find some middle ground between the two opposing premises that "truth exists" versus "truth does not exist"? Perhaps a kind of balance that would satisfy everyone? How about this one: "Truth might exist." This appears more open-minded but it doesn't help much. Why? Because the premise is stated as truth. If it is true that truth might exist, then we have established the existence of a truth. Thus, truth does exist.
A labyrinth of self-contradictions greets us the instant we adopt any other premise than TRUTH EXISTS. Trying to make sense out of anything else is like chewing gristle. The more we chew, the tougher it gets. We just can't swallow it.
Rarely do people blatantly say, "truth does not exist." But we frequently encounter the related premise of relativism, which is the same thing stated in another form: "Truth is relative to the individual."
The relativist insists that when a person claims to have perceived a truth, he is really observing a process going on in his own mind, not objective reality. But this amounts to the same thing as the premise that "truth does not exist", and is just as easily refuted.
If truth is "relative to the individual", then what about the truth that truth is relative to the individual? Is that an absolute truth or a relative one? If it is absolute, then there exists a truth that is not relative to any individual. If it is relative, then the premise has no absolute validity and we can ignore it.Thus, anyone who uses the stock phrase, "That is true for you", is simply spewing nonsense syllables into the air.
Some relativists assert that reality itself is just a state of mind. Reality is altered or controlled by our state of consciousness.
Relativists are sometimes unaware that this happens to be the basic premise behind occult mind science, which has been known to cause severe mental and personality disturbances in some people. Nevertheless, this kind of thinking thoroughly permeates our culture.
The entire educational system, from grammar school through college, is rife with it. It forms the basis of today's media, movies, and cartoons. These show heroes altering reality by mind power and just believing things into existence.
No one can logically sustain the notion that truth is relative. It contradicts itself by its very nature and needs no furthers refutation.However, this doesn't mean that further refutations don't exist. Though relativism dispatches itself, like the proverbial snake that bites itself and dies, there is another way we can kill. It is this: Before a person begins to reason about any philosophy whatsoever, he must accept logic as an absolute. That is, logic must be accepted as a valid criteria for the evaluation of truth.
Not only must this be accepted, it must be accepted absolutely. Failure to do this deprives one of any right to reason about anything, or to use logic as valid grounds for stating conclusions, regardless of what the philosophy might be. If anyone wishes to question this he must do so without the assistance of logic.
The relativist crashes into the wall of reality
Is it absolutely true that reason is valid? If so, then an absolute truth exists. If the relativist balks at this, then he denies himself the right to use reason as a means of validating his philosophy.
The only way a relativist can be consistent is to keep his mouth shut and avoid thinking. Or, if he does think, he must be careful not to consider any of his conclusions as having absolute validity, including the basic premise of relativism.
In fact, he is deprived of the right to even consider it absolutely true that his conclusions are not absolutely true!
Relativism is so far from reality that anyone who attempts to follow the premises to their logical conclusions could be a danger to himself and others. After all, a driver who imagines that an automobile bearing down on him is not really there unless he believes it is so, should not have a driver's license.
I would hate to be a passenger in a vehicle driven by a consistent relativist. Even worse, he might imagine himself to be a bird on no other grounds than that thinking makes it so. This in itself is not harmful unless he tries to fly off a building. If he is not restrained, his philosophy could be short-lived.
The only reason most relativists are not incarcerated is because they have enough sense to make no attempt to live consistently with their philosophy.
In a college psychology course I learned that schizophrenia is defined as a separation from reality. The schizophrenic is characterized by a dogged refusal to recognize any discrepancy between his state of mind and reality. Curiously, this is precisely what consistent relativistic philosophy asserts about the relationship between mind and reality. It refuses to recognize any distinction between reality and our perception of reality. In practical terms, this means not only that psychologists are disqualified from being relativists, but by that they must also classify relativism as a form of schizophrenia .
If relativism is correct, the patient has just as much right to declare the psychologist insane .
If this conclusion is irrational, I would like to see the exact point at which the irrationality occurs. But if my reasoning is sound, then either relativism is a mental aberration, or schizophrenia is a philosophy.
Truth is absolute
When we say then that truth is absolute, we mean that truth is independent of human perception for its existence. By truth we mean of course, that which exists whether we perceive it or not. Having established therefore a that reality doesn't depend on our perception of it, we can draw a number of other conclusions about truth.
First, since truth is absolute, it must also be universal. Since truth is independent from human perception, then it doesn't matter whether the perception of one individual is in question, or millions. It is independent in either case since the grounds of truth is reality itself and not our perception.
For example, it was once universally believed that the earth was flat. But this was a unanimous misperception. The world was as round then as it is today.
Another example: It is true that at this moment, you are reading this.
Whatever is true, is true universally, although people's perception of that truth may vary.
But remember, we are not talking now about human perception. The nature of truth, not a human ability, is the only issue. At all times in a discussion like this, we have to be careful to make that distinction. Obviously people do not perceive events the same way. But this doesn't change the nature of the event. When we are talking about perception, then we can discuss who is perceiving the event most accurately.
But this is different from a discussion of the event itself.
Since truth is universal, it is applicable to every individual in the world. A fact is a fact, regardless of who perceives it .
Truth is eternal
Example: It will forever be true that at this time you were reading this article. This will a real event of the past, tomorrow, as well as a billion years from now.
Sometimes relativists use examples from science to attempt to refute this.
They refer to various theories that were held as fact for centuries which have since been proven wrong. Copernicus theory astronomy was disproved by Galileo. Newtonian physics has been overthrown by Einsteinian relativity.
But of course, this is another failure to distinguish between reality and perception of reality. No scientist today would ever say that in Copernicus' day the sun revolved around the earth. That's why any such examples can be thrown out of court as evidence.
The same is true with relativistic attempts to point out the differences in divergent cultures. It makes no real difference whether it is one individual misperceiving reality or a whole society. Error is error.
If, for example, God exists, then atheistic societies are in error. But if God does not exist, then theistic societies are in error. Since God's existence is not dependent upon human perception or belief, one is right and one is wrong. One would think that this is too childish to bother to mention. But for the relativist, it is too deep.
Truth is universal
By this we mean that truth is independent of anyone's perception for its existence, is valid for everyone in the world whether they know it, like it or not, and all of the above is true forever. While modern relativists decry this conclusion, they have never been able to show how it can be logically refuted.
Having established the nature of truth, we can now turn our attention to a related and very important matter: Morality.
Can a logical connection be shown to exist between the nature of truth as absolute and the premise that morality is absolute? I think so.
Further, it is not difficult. We need only to point out that telling the truth is a matter of morality. If otherwise we would have to say that lying has nothing to do with truth.
If there exists an inseparable link between truth and morality, as in the example of lying, then whatever is true of truth must also be true of morality. Moral relativism dies on the same knife as did philosophical relativism. Absolute, universal and eternal moral laws therefore exist if absolute truth exists. This means that some things are always wrong regardless of whether anyone likes it, believes it, or not. This means that some moral laws are applicable to every society on earth regardless of whether their culture recognizes them or not.
Finally, moral truths must be eternal. The absolute and universal nature of morality can never change. It does no good to say "the times have changed". Time may change, but truth and morality logically cannot.
Again, we are not talking about human perception here. Ideas as to what is right and wrong vary considerably between individuals and nations. This in itself cannot be used as evidence that morality is relative to those individuals or cultures. It could only mean that some individual or cultures are more right morally than others, since, as we have shown, both truth and morality must logically be absolutes.
In this discussion of relativism, we have to make a couple of important clarifications. Just because we have shown that truth and morality must be absolutes does not in itself mean that anyone in the world knows what it is. Speaking from a logical perspective, without regard to observable facts, we could say that it is conceivable that nobody in the world knows what the truth is about anything including morality.
Obviously, observable and verifiable facts exist or we could not draw any conclusion about anything, or even think and live. But, this article is not about everything.
I am not even attempting to show what the truth is about anything or what is right or wrong in any context. I am only attempting to show the inherent irrationality of all forms of relativism whether philosophical or moral.
Further, I am not denigrating the value of human perception. I'm only showing that truth is not dependent on it for its existence. We must maintain a certain faith in the correctness of our perceptions of reality or else we could not think with enough certainty to even be able to live. Not an absolute faith, of course, because we have all learned by experience that we make mistakes in our perceptions. The magician makes his living on this fact.
Anyone who values logic must abandon relativism regardless of its disguises. It has no rational defense. Having shown truth to be absolute, universal and eternal, we can now turn to collecting some of these observable facts about the reality around us and come to some unshakable conclusions about what the truth may be.
