Moral Relativism - Making Conversation

Here are some common things you will hear from people who subscribe to moral relativism and brief responses that you can use in challenging them to rethink their position.  Again, let me acknowledge my debt to Beckwith & Koukl's Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air 

“You shouldn’t force your morality on me.”

Is that your conviction?  You honestly believe that?

Well, my conviction is that I should try and convince others of my moral beliefs.  Are you telling me that my convictions are false?  How can you say your convictions are true and mine are false?   What gives you the right to force YOUR CONVICTIONS on me?

“You shouldn’t force your morality on me”

Why Not?  If you think about it, you are trying to force your morality on me - your belief that it is wrong for me to try and "force" my beliefs on someone else.  You are trying to get me to change my behavior; and that's the very thing you just told me not to do.

“Who are you to say?”

You can respond with, “Who are YOU to say, ‘Who are you to say?'  I’m not asking you to agree with me because I’m some kind of moral authority.  I’m asking you to explore this issue with me rationally, in the belief that intelligence and reason can lead us to an understanding of right and wrong.

“Jesus said, ‘Judge not lest you be judged.’”

I like to respond, “and what was Jesus next statement?”  It was “condemn not, lest you be condemned.”

When Jesus said that we are not to judge, he meant it in the sense of not concluding that an individual was damned in the eyes of God. He did not tell us to refrain from judging actions.   

HE SAID THIS IN THE MIDST OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT.  It’s a three chapter sermon on what ACTIONS, on what BEHAVIORS, are virtuous and which are sinful - which behaviors will lead you to the kingdom of heaven or Gehenna!

Tolerance is given to people, not ideas or behavior.  I won’t despair of a pedophile's salvation, God can bring anyone to repentance.  But I do want him incarcerated, and I will shout that pedophilia is a disgusting wrong from whatever tower you’ll allow me.  I’ll do that for a long list of human behaviors.  
Jesus certainly has not revealed to me who is going to heaven or hell - there is such a myriad of variables involved that no one but Him should ever attempt to make that kind of statement.  What Jesus has done is tell to us, objectively speaking, what actions lead to each destination.  No one but He is aware of an individual soul's culpability.