Unqualified Absolutism

This chapter moves away from relativistic to deontological systems of ethics. A deontological view of ethics emphasizes rules rather than results. It is concerned with the question of duty and the intrinsic value of the duty regardless of the results.

The single most popular position among Christians is unqualified absolutism. Its presupposition is that laws are absolute and without qualification whereby they are to be broken. The premises of this view are that ethical laws are never in any real conflict, all apparent conflicts are not real, and sin is always avoidable and is never acceptable under any circumstances.

While there are different ways to reason unqualified absolutism, all Christian unqualified absolutists would based their conclusion in the fact that God is characteristically unchangeable; moral laws flow from His nature and contain His immutable character; God never contradicts Himself, hence no moral laws ever conflict; all conflicts are only apparent and not real, hence moral laws are never to be broken.

The normative disposition of the unqualified absolutist has many positive aspects such as an emphasis on the immutability of God, the duty of man to obey God, faith in His absolute providential control over all things by which He is to be trusted for the results, and an emphasis on avoiding sin at all cost.

However valuable the above considerations may be, unqualified absolutism is fundamentally contradictory and consequentially falls under its own weight. As agnostic unqualified absolutist Immanuel Kant posits, “Even one exception to a rule proves the rule is not genuinely universal.” Yet inevitably every unqualified absolutist adds qualifications. Although be they inadequate to accommodate the reality of moral conflicts; they are quite adequate to render this moral system as self-refuting. The qualifications lessen absolutes by insisting that some laws are merely God’s perfect will and do not flow from His nature therefore they can be broken in His permissive will. Or that certain laws are intended for such a case where all things are equal, thus exceptions can be made due to inequities. Or still some qualify laws by deeming them as purely civil or ceremonial in nature and not morally binding. In any event, these qualifications basically leave the system self-defeating.

Other flaws and fallacies of this position also include its reliance on the providence of God to the neglect of godly wisdom. The fact is that God does not always intervene; bad things happen to good people. However, some things may be avoided and overcome by wisdom and sometimes wisdom involves setting laws aside. Such is so in the case of David eating the showbread, or Jesus and his disciples picking and eating corn on the Sabbath.

There is not always a third alternative, as proponents of this view assert, whereby breaking a law can be avoided. Again it is merely an unfounded and untrue assumption that moral laws never conflict. For instance, the governing authority whom the law commands to obey can demand that God be disobeyed. In such a case one must break one to keep the other; both cannot be kept.

All real moral conflicts are not a result of personal sin; to the contrary, many are a result of righteousness. The kind of conflict I alluded to above, the demand of the government that a Christian disobey God, has many biblical and historical instances where it was not the result of personal sin.

It emphasizes the sin of commission while ignoring sins of omission. This is in fact legalism. Jesus addressed the Pharisees as it pertained to this fault saying, you pay tithes of your mint and cumin yet you neglect the weightier matters of love, justice and mercy. It is to take law out of the context of its purpose and in fact renders the law itself meaningless.

Unqualified Absolutism is a self-refuting system, full of fallacious and unsubstantiated arguments, which will not stand the test of historical and biblical examples. It proves to be not only implausible but an impossible weight to place upon humanity in that it ignores reality, it is merciless, it is legalistic, and inadequate to resolve real moral conflicts.