Moral relativists who complain about the problem of evil are complaining about something, that on their own ontology, does not exist. This makes as much sense as a man without a car complaining that it won’t start: It doesn’t exist, and yet it’s claimed to be broken.
August 24, 2009
Moral Relativists Should Have No Problem with Evil
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Moral Argument, Relativism[6] Comments
Thinking to Believe 
August 24, 2009 at 8:31 am
Yup, as much rhetoric as they spew out about the relitivity of right and wrong, thier God-given conscience bears witness that there is an absolute right and wrong (Romans 1). (i.e. murder, stealing, rape,….etc). To take it a step further, let someone break in their home, I wonder if they will up hold their ideology and not call the cops, because remember, “there is no true right or wrong.”
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August 24, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Exactly right. One can only profess moral relativism, they cannot consistently live it. Sooner or later they will reveal their belief in objective morality–such as when they use the problem of evil as evidence against God’s existence.
Jason
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August 26, 2009 at 1:58 am
Can they not argue based on majority thought though?
So if the majority thought burdlary was ok then fine, but until then they can hold that it is morally wrong to steal…
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August 26, 2009 at 5:48 am
Based on thier theory of moral relativity, then no, they cannot hold to anything. Remember (right and wrong is relative), therefore they would be contradicting their theory by stating that “Burglary is ok” or stating that “it was morally wrong to steal”…You see those are ABSOLUTE statements which is the opposite of subjective.
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August 26, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Scott,
Remember, on their view there is no objective moral law. It simply does not exist. How much sense does it make to complain against something that you don’t believe exists? It would be like me complaining about leprechauns eating all my Lucky Charms. I don’t believe in leprechauns, so why complain about what they are doing if there is no “they” to do anything? It won’t help to appeal to the fact that the majority of people don’t like leprechauns eating all their Lucky Charms either. No matter how many people think this way, the fact remains that there are no such things as leprechauns. Likewise, no matter how many people may think burglary is wrong, the fact remains that there is no such thing as right and wrong, and thus there is nothing to complain about when someone burglarizes your home. You may not like it; society may not like it; but his/her act does not somehow become immoral just because the majority of people do not like what he has done. It’s all just a matter of personal taste.
And yet it’s clear to me that when the moral relativist complains about all the evil in the world, they are not viewing evil as some subjective evaluation. They believe those acts are inherently evil in an objective sense. Inherent to the complaint, then, is a logical contradiction, because on the one hand it affirms evil as an objective reality, while on the other hand it denies that moral judgments have anything to do with reality. If moral values do not exist, it doesn’t matter how many people might think something is evil—it will never be evil. That’s why a moral relativist has no grounds on which to argue against the existence of God based on the existence of evil. If evil is just a human convention, then saying God cannot exist because of all the evil in the world is like saying “God cannot exist because I do not like broccoli!” (or alternatively “God cannot exist because most people do not like broccoli!”). That’s nonsense.
Jason
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August 26, 2009 at 3:12 pm
I should also add that moral judgments require a moral standard. On moral relativism, there is no standard other than the individual or the culture. If there is no standard outside the individual or culture, then one cannot make moral judgments about others’ behavior (or the behavior of other cultures). I like tacos, you like fish. Hitler liked to kill Jews, Schindler liked to save Jews. Who is to say which is better? On moral relativism there is no way to say, because there is no “better.” “Better” implies an objective standard that can be used to judge everyone’s behavior.
Jason
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