#STRask - Is This an Argument for Relativism?

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Questions about whether the fact that the truth about one’s age changes over time is an argument for relativism, and how to ground virtues like courage in objective reality without relying on circular definitions.   I’ve heard truth doesn’t change and doesn’t contradict itself, but how does yearly change fit into that—e.g., I’m 38 one year and 39 the next. Does this create an argument for relativism? If “cowardice” is defined as failing to do what’s right, then calling it “wrong” is just a tautology. How do we ground virtues like courage in objective reality without relying on circular definitions?

This is Stand to Reasons. Hashtagest Here Ask Podcast. Welcome and thank you for joining us. And we're going to start with a question from Chelsea today. Hi, Greg. I've heard truth doesn't change and it doesn't contradict itself. But how does yearly change fit into that? For example, I'm 38 one year and 39 the next or 5-4 one year and 5-5 the next. I was definitely 38, but now I'm not. Does this create an argument for relativism? No, it doesn't. It doesn't. I'm just chuckling. I've been asked this question before. And this is why I'm a little bit jaundiced about the way sometimes people define truth. It's true for all people, all times, and all places, or something like that. I said, this is just not helpful because many things that are true don't follow that pattern.

And also the true for language, it's equivocal because it doesn't distinguish between subjective truth and objective truth. It's an attempt to define objective truth, but when somebody says, well, it's true for me today, but it's not true for me tomorrow. Now, that would be true about age, for example, as is brought up here, and it also could be true about moral opinions. Well, I used to believe this and now I believe that. So now a different thing is true about me. And so that way of characterizing, it doesn't help, I think, in giving us, allowing us to get our teeth into the concept of truth. A thing is true if it's a fact when it's uttered. How about that?

A thing is true if it's a fact when it's uttered. So when Chelsea was, what, 32, it was a fact that she was 32 when she uttered it. Now she's no longer 32. She's 33 or whatever. And therefore, now it is a fact that she's 33. So the truth of the truth value changes regarding a set of circumstances when the circumstances change. I mean, I'm chuckling because it's so obvious when you think about it. Because I think there's a hidden claim when she says, I'm 38.

She might be saying, I'm 38 on February 15th. That's the hidden part that's part of her claim. She's not just saying she's 38. She's saying I'm 38 today. Yeah. That's part of the claim, even though she's not saying it explicitly. Well, she's saying at the present tense, so I take that to be today. But, yeah, and it may be at some later time that that statement would not be.

true about her because the circumstances change, so it's not a fact anymore. What's hanging her up is this idea that the truth never changes. And this is not a useful way of talking about it. Now, I know what people are getting at when they say that, they're saying, look at it, if, in our culture, there are a lot of things that we used to think we're wrong, but we don't think are wrong now. or we used to think we're right and we don't think are right now. Okay. And so over time, our understanding of what is truly right and wrong has changed. And then people take this as relativistic.

And my response is, no, if, look at, if it's wrong to kill an unborn child, but just stipulate that for the sake of discussion, people would disagree if they want, but I'm just stipulated. If it's wrong to kill an unborn child for the reasons people have abortions, let's qualify it, then it was wrong then and it's wrong now. People might have thought differently about it, but they're thinking about it didn't change the morality of the action itself. And this is true of virtually every moral item. Well, people used to think this, and now they think this.

This came up actually in Doak, the diary of his CEO and the discussion about it. people thinking about racism, you know, they're racist, and now here we have a black talk show host who said that I would never have been able to do this at a certain time in our past. So haven't the things changed? No, what's changed is the culture's attitude, not the underlying moral principle. They got it wrong before, now they're getting it more right. That's all that's changed is our understanding, not, as I said, the underlying moral principle. So I don't know if I've spoken adequately to that. I think so.

The idea is if I'm describing a circumstance accurately, I'm speaking what's true. When the circumstances change, then I describe it differently, and that's true. Yeah. So you could say, I'm going to use this word here, I'm running a little bit of a risk, but having made my explanation, maybe we'll see this. This won't be a problem. truth claims are always relative to the circumstance. Okay, they're always dependent on the set of circumstances that the truth claims are being made about. If the circumstances are different, then the truth value is going to change.

Relativism is not when truth claims are relative to the circumstances. Relativism, that's objectivism, actually. Relativism is when the truth claims are relative to the subject. Where what I say changes what's true. Exactly, exactly. So relativism says, oh, let me back up and put it through, objectivism says that abortion is either morally sound. or not. That's objectivism, right? Did I see that right? Objectivism is either one or the other, okay? Relativism is when a subject says in the exact same set of circumstances as somebody else, that abortion could be

wrong for you in this set of circumstances, but me being in the exact same circumstances, it's right for me. Now the moral, the moral quality of the action, changes simply with a change of subjects of individuals, not with a change of circumstances. When the circumstances change, maybe the moral rule changes. People might say, what about abortion in the case of rape and incest? Notice how they're raising a question about a difference in circumstances. And so that needs to be answered. And some people will say, no in most cases, but yes in that one.

But notice, they're just replying to the circumstances. In relativism proper, moral relativism, none of the circumstances are changing. The only thing that changes is the individual, the subject, and you can get completely contrary moral points of view that are both correct on that view if two different people are saying it because it's true for them. And notice in those circumstances, there's no reference at all to the outside act. it's somewhat incidental. The moral assessment is done on the inside.

So if something is true about a certain set of circumstances, it is always true about that set of circumstances. So in the case of age, I'm going back to, because I should point, some things are the kinds of things that change, like age and height and that sort of thing. So the truth claims about that person will change as those. things change because it's a different circumstance. But some things like morality doesn't change, and so we would expect those to, over time, remain the same. It's not, it's not, it's not relevant in the same way that, that height is changing or something like that. Well, sometimes moral views are adjusted because new facts come into play. But notice that these are changes in the facts of the matter, the externals, and you say, oh, in that case,

my opinion is this, right. I think this is the correct one. But if all the facts stay the same, then the moral assessment regarding those facts for objectivists, moral realists, that's going to be the same as well. As opposed to someone who would say absolute truth, where they would say that sometimes people will say it's, it never changes depending on the circumstance. So this is why I don't like that word, that way. I don't use the word absolute because that word means something different in different circumstances. And it also doesn't seem to be leave open circumstances where you have, would you call it a moral dilemma. You know, do I tell the truth and sacrifice a human life or do I lie and save a human life?

Well, you have an obligation to protect life and also tell the truth. So how do you resolve that moral dilemma? And those who are absolutists, at least this is one way of using that word, see no exception to any moral rule. It can't be trumped by a higher moral rule. And I think that's problematic. So in any particular circumstance, there's an objective right and an objective wrong. For moral, for things that have moral qualities to them and moral elements to them, right. Hopefully we didn't run that question into the ground and confuse people more.

Let's go on to a question. The precision is important on these kinds of things. And a lot of times, many of these questions are meant to, I think, are asked because there is this lack of clarity. And they want to, can you dial down a little bit more on this? And this is why I don't like that definite. I cringe whenever I hear it. From this stage, I have friends who use it, you know, and they say, well, truth is an absolute. They use that word.

It'll say it's true for all people at all times and all places. Oh. Okay. Well, it might be a, you know. Well, certain things, God exists. There's an absolute truth. Well, that's true for all people in all times and all places. But it would, well, as long as you don't use the word for in that sense, the relativistic sense,

because it's not true for atheists. in one sense of that word. So there are some, but that's only because, Amy, there are some things that don't ever change. Right, right, exactly. That's probably the most stable point in the universe is God. Yeah. It is character. And so we can speak about the fact of God and who he is in those absolute terms.

Here's a question from Jesse. If cowardice is defined as failing to do right, calling it wrong, is just a tautology. How do we ground virtues like courage in objective reality without relying on circular definitions? Well, first of all, I would define courage. He says if cowardice. I wouldn't say, I wouldn't define cowardice as that. If I defined it that way, it would be a tautology. All definitions are tautological. And all that means is, that if you have an equal sign, it's the same on either side. So all bachelors are equal unmarried males.

It means the same on either side. It's a tautology. And you're not adding information. You're just, at that point, really, you're just, all X is X, all Y is Y. You know, you can put it in that way. So, but I don't, I think what probably is claimed is, how does this start again? If cowardice is defined as failing to do right. I think failing to do right is not.

That's not specific enough. No, it's not what cowardice is. You might fail to do right for other reasons. It may be a motivation for not doing what's right because you're afraid of the repercussions, negative repercussions to you, but it's not what immorality or sin or wrongdoing is. It just could be a motivation. Well, that's cowardice. Well, we mean that cowardice is predicated of the wrongdoing,

not that it's identical to the wrongdoing. So how would you define cowardice? Hmm. I'd have to think about this. I guess the way I'd started is that the failure to do what one ought to do in a circumstance, one is by morality or honor obliged to do because of perceived negative consequences that would fall to them. Maybe that they get hurt, they get killed, people would make fun of them or whatever. And so it's an excessive self-protection.

I agree. It's out of fear, obviously. Yeah, so I agree. I wouldn't define it the way Jesse did here. Do you think there are times when it's difficult to define virtues? Because the second part of his question, how do we ground virtues like courage in objective reality without relying on circular definitions? Well, or do you think they're more like first principles type things? Yeah, I think they're primitives.

Yeah, first principles. These are – it's like, okay, there's a chair. I see a chair. Okay, well, what's a chair? Well, you can describe the scripture of everything. I said, well, that's tautological because you're saying chary-e-e-e-l-this. I said, well, I'm looking at one. There's a feature of reality.

It's not an I-prior. It's not before we have encounters with the world. But this is in light of the encounter with the world, and we're using words that are meant to describe it, okay, to pick it out. And we have a sense of morality that is basically. built into us so that we go through moral motions, as the way Francis Schaefer put it. In other words, there are activities that we have, language that they use to pick out moral things. And then on the – but even more precise than that's kind of a formal category.

In a more material category, there are particular things that we all seem to acknowledge are virtuous or vice, and virtues or vice. And CS Lois talks about this in Abolition of Man. He's got a list of these kinds of things. Nobody thinks that cowardice is a virtue, for example. So these are things that we have an awareness of. Now, the grounding of it is an important question. What makes something virtuous or makes something an example of vice?

And that's the question about what grounds morality. And frankly, if there is no God who establishes the good from which evil is a departure. So you have virtue, that's the good, and vice is the departure from good. Well, you can't have virtue and vice. You can have cowards. You can have people who are afraid and therefore don't do something because of they're afraid, but you can't call cowardice of vice. All of these things can be in place as behaviors, but they can't be characterized as good or evil, virtue or vice, if there is no standard to identify them as such. And then, I mean, this is, I think, one of the most compelling arguments for the existence

of not just God, but a morally good God. Because if there isn't a morally good God, if God is not the standard of moral perfection, then there is no standard for moral perfection. And therefore, there's no moral perfection. there is no morality, and there is no evil, no virtue or vice, no good or evil. Now, this is wildly counterintuitive because we encounter a world filled with all kinds of evils, and we raise questions about God's existence in virtue of that. And so it's not like this is just a make-me-up.

Everybody knows this. but it does have implications for the nature of reality. What kind of world would it have to, even is real after a fashion, a way of speaking of it, a departure from good. What kind of world has to be in place in order for there to be such a thing as this, which we are observing, not with their physical eyes, but we have capacities to perceive perceptual capacities other than our physical senses. We have rational capacities. We can perceive moral things as well. And so I take these as somewhat a primitive, foundational first principles, if you will. Because you've got to start somewhere, and these are seem to be pretty obvious.

Although in a certain sense, they're epistemologically primitive. I was just going to say that I was going to say in terms of our awareness of it. But of course, it's they're grounded. It's not just that they're out there and we, it's just something we know. They're actually grounded in God's character. Right, right. So virtues are things that cause us to reflect God's character to the world. Yeah, I'm glad that we made this distinction kind of spontaneously together because there is a group.

There is a thinking now that, yes, morality is real, but we don't need to go. grounded in God. We just ground—we don't have to ground it. It's just there. It's a primitive. And my response is, why do we stop there? We have a great explanation. Why do we just say there is no explanation? By the way, if there is no explanation for morality, then there's no—which entails obligation. Right. Then it raises questions that can't be answered regarding the morality that we say is just there. To whom are we obligated? And what in force is. enforcement is there when we don't do what we ought. And so with God in the picture, that

resolves that problem. You know, we're obligated to the maker of the universe. He made it as his. We belong to him. He gets to say. So. But also, he is objectively good. There is a quality of goodness that we recognize in God. It's not just that he's randomly, arbitrarily saying this is good and That's right. No, that's right. And this is where divine command theory, it's good because God says it's good, works for obligations. But the reason he says it's good is because his character is good. So ultimately morality is rooted in his objective moral perfections.

And that makes it objectivist not any kind of relativism or kind of, you know, God's good because, you know, he's powerful. It doesn't reduce God's goodness to his power. Well, thank you, Chelsea and Jesse. We love hearing from you. You can send us your question on X with the hashtag STRS. So if you've had a question in mind, you still haven't sent it. Go ahead and send it. You can also go to our website at STR.org. And if you go to our hashtag STRAS page, you'll find a link there right at the top left of the page where you can submit a question. And we'd love to hear your question. Thank you so much for listening. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stan to Reason.