Absolute Morality...again.

As I said: Of course. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Now I'm wondering what the relationship is, if any, between absolute/relative and objective/subjective.

Can we say that a mathematical principle, such as that rule about the hypotenuse of a right triangle, is an absolute? I would think so. It's true at all times, in all places. And it's certainly objective.So I suppose an absolute rule has to be objective. Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

The problem for trying to establish an absolute morality (on any grounds other than God's own revelation anyway) is that there are different cultural standards, different personal feelings about what constitutes murder and what constitutes justice, based mostly on "us" versus "them." The "eye for an eye" law of justice in the Old Testament is understood to have been a restraint on the habit of overkill by clans in the Middle East, as they habitually exacted retribution many times the equivalent of the crime committed against them, and the law brought them down to the equivalent.

Yes, you are correct. The Sabbath has only to do with the ceasing from work. It was a day ordained by God to rest on our behalf, the only stipulation, to keep that day of rest, holy. This is the absolute rule until the Savior would come to give us victory over sin, establishing His rest by His spirit of grace that indwelt us. And this could only be made possible through the propitiation of a Savior. The Tenach is replete with examples of Sabbath commandments. But in this, we miss the example that this was God's plan from the beginning.The Law is our schoolmaster, giving us the understading of what it is right and what is wrong, absolutely. But there is only one problem with the absolute Law in relation to humans... Nobody can absolutely keep it. And so, our reliance upon a Savior is neccessary to take upon himself our guilt, for it written:"Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. The Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe. Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law." -Galatians 3:21-25And those who think that they are keeping the Sabbath as a day must remember that it is also written:"If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, 'Love your neighbour as yourself,' you are doing right. But if you show favouritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as law-breakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For He who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not murder.' If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a law-breaker. Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!" -James 2:8-13So the question is, now that the triumph of Calvary has come, is there still a Sabbath? If so, what does it mean?Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it."For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith. Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, So I declared on oath in my anger,'They shall never enter my rest.' And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: And on the seventh day God rested from all his work. And again in the passage above he says, They shall never enter my rest. It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience. Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before: 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts." - Hebrews 1:4-7So what does the Sabbath mean for those entering into the Covenant? It means that the Sabbath isn't on a particular day of the week, it always falls on 'Today.' Therefore, the Law remains and it is wrapped up in Jesus Christ, God our Saviour. Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : add italics

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“Always be ready to give a defense to
everyone who asks you a reason for the
hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15

Yes, definitely.But let's imagine this scenario. Let's suppose that it was God that gave that rule to Moses. Let's assume also that this God, when he thinks about morality, thinks objectively, as we do when we think about arithmetic. Let's say the rule is "Thou shalt not murder." Murder is an unjustifiable killing. Now we have to figure out what "unjustifiable" means. We write out an elaborate set of criteria, which we got from God via prayer or something, that will let us determine in each and every possible case, with no interpretation necessary, whether a given killing constitutes murder or not. The question is, would it be possible to write up such a set of criteria?I tend to doubt it.

Give us a case where you think we couldn't.

Thank you for that discussion. I'm in a church that believes we should observe the Sabbath as a day and it's driven me crazy trying to sort out how that is not just bondage to the Law.

This is a somewhat complex issue.Consider the Celsius temperature scale. It is relative to the melting point of ice, since we arbitrarily choose that point to be 0⁰C. By contrast, the Kelvin scale can be called absolute, since it does not depend on this arbitrary choice. Strictly speaking, the Kelvin scale still depends on the arbitrary decision that a degree is one hundredth of the range between the melting point of ice and the boiling point of water, so still not completely absolute.That example illustrates the meaning of the term "absolute". But it doesn't give the whole picture. We can still say that temperature is objective, even when measured on the Celsius scale. That's because we can reach agreements as to what it means. The melting point of ice, although an arbitrary choice, still serves to anchor the scale in physical reality. So although the choice is arbitrary, we can consider it objective and we need not have great concern of epistemic relativism (whether truth/falsity of statements about reality are relative).On the question of moral judgements, we observe that they are relative. But, unlike the case of the Celsius scale, there does not seem to be any way to anchor these in physical reality. Instead, they appear to be anchored in purely cultural conventions.The appeal to God given absolutes doesn't work either. For even if we consider biblical rules, how they were interpreted by the early Christian is different from how they were interpreted by the Jews, and is different from how they are interpreted by modern Christians. Even looking at today's world, we can see differences in rendering by different Christian denominations. Thus it looks as if there could be no purely physical anchor for moral judgements.I'm not sure how you want to relate this to objective/subjective. It seems to me that the objective/subjective distinction works well enough for epistemic judgements (what is a fact about the world). I'm not sure that it works at all for moral judgements. It seems to me that two people (perhaps from different cultures) could completely agree on an epistemic account of a person's behavior, yet disagree on whether that behavior was moral.

It all depends on what we think about the nature of language, and I'm not sure about this matter myself.One idea is that there's no such thing as a text which doesn't have to be interpreted. Look at the Constitution. It's not an obscure symbolic poem. Its language is plain, and yet it's constantly being interpreted and re-interpreted. We pay people in black robes lots of money to keep on interpreting it and other texts.Somebody writes up an elaborate contract and thinks he's covered all the bases, and yet later on we have lawyers haggling over what some passage means. Of course, there may be bad-faith arguments involved, which we can dismiss, where somebody pretends that his interpretation is reasonable.Another idea about language is that there can be a natural and primary sense in which a statement is to be understood if clearly expressed, which needs no interpretation. In fact, I would say a Biblical literalist would have to have this view of language.The idea is to avoid interpretation, because there you have an opening for subjectivity. The question is whether it can be avoided.

Well, we can believe the law is absolute even if we acknowledge that fallen human nature will probably always get it wrong. There's no way to avoid interpretation this side of the Kingdom of God.

I'm not willing to dismiss the second idea of language that I mentioned earlier completely. Let's call that "literalism."Consider the word STOP on a stop sign. What does it mean?The literalist would say it means "stop." That's the sum total of what it means. There's nothing to interpret. If we understand the meaning of the word "stop," we understand the sign. If we want a snynonym, it would be "come to a position in which your vehicle is no longer moving."Now let's consider the other view of language, which we can call "relativism."The relativist might say, "It's by no means clear what 'stop' means. Does it mean 'pause'? Stop for how long? Two seconds? a millisecond?The literalist would reply that those questions are irrelevant.I don't know. I might side with the literalist here.

So I should be stoned to death for coming to work today? Dammit!

I want to say, I think, that an Absolute rule would be by definition objective.

I think this need not be the case. As discussed in other posts, "relativity" is not the same thing as "circumstantiality," in my view.ABE: In other words, just because we have to decide something on a case-by-case basis, this does not necessarily mean that the judgment is relative (i.e, that one could have two different conclusions that are both equally plausible).Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.