Friday

Thoughtful Thursday: My Theory of Relativity

E=mc²
Thank you, Albert Einstein. Such a simple mathematical equation for such a complicated idea.
While I'm no Albert Einstein, I have my own theory of relativity. The buzz word in American culture and religious circles today is tolerance. Everyone needs to be tolerant. Truth is relative. What is true for you may not be true for someone else. Who are you to judge if I am wrong? What makes you think that you are the only one with the market on truth?
I ran headlong into this way of thinking during my Sociology class in college. I needed the class to enroll in a Master's program I was planning to take (I wound up not doing the Master's program, but that's a whole different story). Our last night of the class, the professor took it upon herself to introduce us ignorant Arkansas hillbillies to higher, learned thinking. She threw out this statement and wanted us to discuss it: There is no such thing as absolute truth. Everything is relative.
We literally spent the entire class, an hour and a half, trying to come up with something that was always true. She quickly dismissed Christianity ("Well, that's not true to a Buddhist"), so we started trying to come up with universal truths. It finally got to the point where one of my classmates said, "Well, murder is wrong." The teacher's response, "It wasn't wrong to Hitler. He firmly believed that what he was doing was the right thing to do. So it was true to him."
Um, yeah, whatever.
So in a moment of logic that is totally foreign to me (ask my hubby), I suddenly had the answer to take the wind our of her sails. As the rest of my class sat in silence, stumped with trying to come up with something that is always true, and my professor sat on the edge of her desk with a smug look of satisfaction on her face for showing us the error of our Bible Belt ways, I timidly raised my hand.
She calls on me and this is our exchange:
Me: "So you are saying that there is no such thing as absolute truth?"
Professor: "Yes, that is what I'm trying to get you to understand."
Me: "Well, saying that there is no such thing as absolute truth is an absolute statement itself. Therefore, you have just stated an absolute truth, thus nullifying your argument."
She just stared at me, her face getting redder and her mouth growing tighter.The class stared at me with awe and appreciation on their faces. Finally, she said, "Class is dismissed," shot me a look of death and stormed out of the room. Thank goodness, the grades for the class had already been turned in!
So what is my theory of relativity? That most people don't want there to be absolute truth, so we turn to things like "tolerance" and "relative" to make us feel better about ourselves and our sin.
But Jesus said that there is truth, he is it.
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
Jesus also lets us know that we will be judged by his words.
The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. (John 12:48)
And so we have a choice, we can choose to believe the Bible and the truth that is in it or not. And that is not relative, just a fact.

Trying to walk in the truth in the treehouse,
Chelli

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