WITHOUT A COMPASS

It is not simple equivocation. Neither is it, I believe, a calculative determination to call evil good and good evil. It is a true inability. This failure definitively to call acts of terrorism evil, or, to be unable to say marriage exists only between opposite genders is a result of having abandoned absolutes and adopting a relativistic, situational ethics way of looking at things. Without an absolute standard, there is simply no measure for saying, "This is right," and "This is wrong." If one is on a ship lost in the middle of the sea without a compass, how with any certainty can he point in any direction and say, "That is the right way."? Or, conversely, how can he say of a different direction another is pointing and say, "That is the wrong way." (He could in lieu of a compass use a sextant, GPS, or the North Star, but that only proves the need of an absolute.) Post-modernists of today would have us to believe as long as an individual believes the direction he is pointing is the right direction, for him, that is the right direction. Another may point to an opposite direction. If he believes that is the right direction, for him, that is the right direction. The only trouble is that only one or neither of the pointed directions can lead to the set destination of the ship. If I truly believe this relativism, although I am pointing in an opposite direction than you saying my direction is right, I cannot, to be consistent, say that you are wrong. The boasted conclusion is that nobody's wrong. If that is true, then nobody's right either. Only a compass can determine which direction, or neither, is right. If the compass has been jettisoned, there is no way with conviction to know which direction to sail the ship however emphatically one insists that the way he is pointing is correct. He himself cannot really have conviction he is right--if he is honest. It is blatantly dishonest to insist one is accurate about the direction when he has not based his orientation on a compass but only on his philosophies, opinions, inclinations, whims, etc. To judge what is correct it takes an absolute reference point beyond the subjective individual who is making the judgment. From a common member of our society making life style choices to a leader of our country deciding what to do about world crises, we see today this inability to make decisions with a definitive, "this is right and that is wrong". Each makes decisions absent a moral compass. Only the absolute morality revealed by God can provide the moral compass. What an arrogance to embark on the ocean of life with the boast, "I need no compass. I will just decide what is the right direction for me." It is also disastrous to have no compass and to say, "I will decide what is right for this country." This was the essence of the original sin of partaking of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The appeal of the tree was for mankind to be able to make decisions of right and wrong by himself without consulting God. From then to now, every time the compass is thrown overboard, there has been awful shipwreck.