Against Pluralism

Friedrich Nietzsche believed that shaking an old man’s hand was just as valid as giving him a swift kick to the shin. “We have no right to be single in anything,” says the philosopher in his book Beyond Good and Evil, “we may neither err singly nor hit upon the truth singly.” If there is no single truth, then there is no right and wrong. If there is no right and wrong, then human nature is supple and malleable. Or, in other words, it doesn’t exist; no one set of principles would be capable of bringing about human flourishing. If kicking a man is “wrong”, Nietzsche thought, it was only wrong because that’s what “the group”—or society—decided was wrong, and those with the most power get to make that decision.

As a Platonist, it would be safe to say C.S. Lewis was on the opposite end of the spectrum. He thought “Reason” was the “natural organ of truth” and that values were something immaterial, but nevertheless universally true. To Lewis, moral judgements can’t be made with the five senses, but they are just as real as what a person can hear, see, smell, or touch. As he said in the Abolition of Man,

“To call children delightful and old men venerable is not simply to record a psychological fact about our own parental or filial emotions at the moment, but to recognize a quality which demands a certain response from us whether we make it or not.”

The way we respond to the information our senses give us can be either right or wrong in an objective sense. Not all children are consistently delightful, and not all old men act venerable, but it’s generally the correct posture to take toward them in our interactions. Treating children as delightful or old men as venerable isn’t something socially conditioned or neutral. It’s true to the world in which we live. Our job isn’t to shape the world to our emotions but to correctly shape our emotions to the way the world is, and our values drive our emotions. For instance, if we value beauty, we might be moved by the first flowers poking through a fine layer of snow in early spring. We can only shape our emotions correctly to the world if we hold the right values properly ordered, and not any set of circumstantially convenient values.

If some values we hold are correct ones (like stealing is wrong) and others incorrect (it’s okay to have sex before I’m married if I really love him) or disordered (my dog is more important than your child) then that means there is one correct standard for values. The correct values we might call true and the incorrect ones false. If some are true, and others false, then there had to be someone who set the rules, or “caused” the order we find in the universe. That Being we can call God.

To call oneself a Christian, for one, means to obey God—specifically the living God as described in the Bible (which is different from being perfect). If a person is “in Christ” by believing in Him, our obedience isn’t as a slave obeys his master out of fear and loathing but as a loving child obeys their wise and loving father. We obey His moral standards because we confess and believe they are true as He’s revealed them to us in the Bible. His law is perfect, objectively true, and in accordance with our true nature. Everything that is true originates with God and comes to a unity in Him. Therefore, it’d be wrong to live as if all values are the same or metaphysically neutral.

Pluralism—a theory or system that recognizes more than one ultimate principle—is false. For one’s own personal good, and the common, societal good, there is one moral standard, and that standard is God’s. Disagreement on these principles results in a worse society.

However, as Thomas Jefferson said in his first inaugural address, “Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle”. A non-pluralistic society is not at odds with a tolerant one, and a non-pluralistic society isn’t at odds with our current Republican form of government. America’s system uniquely fits a Christian worldview; its system of checks and balances accounts for the fallen nature of man through a separation of powers. Also, differences and a diversity of opinions ought to be tolerated under free speech, as they currently are. Since no human is God, many voices help us get a closer approximation to truth. However, philosophical pluralism is false, so Christians should hope and work for a society based on biblical principle. Living and acting in obedience to scripture and legislating nations according to biblical principles—not a pluralistic philosophy—singularly results in great blessing.

However, it’s important to remember that, as Stephen Wolfe says in his book The Case for Christian Nationalism, “While cultural Christianity, as a social power, cannot bring about spiritual good, it directs people to activities wherein they can procure the things of eternal life.” The Christian values held by a society cannot save a person or procure them heavenly rewards. However, a society’s Christian values—as held by a populace and instituted in written law—help guide people toward heavenly rewards and the common good. Wolfe illustrates this point in a YouTube video:

“I was just talking to a guy last week [who]…told me he grew up as an Evangelical Christian and then he kind of fell away. Then, when he was 20 or 21, he went to the local store to get some beer to buy a bunch of booze to go to the beach. It was a Sunday...He goes up to the counter, [and] it's like 10 a.m., and he has a sixpack, and the guy [behind the counter] is like ‘I can't sell that to you because I can't sell beer until noon on Sunday’ and [the guy’s] like ‘oh wow’ and he told me that [that] moment—when he was 20 years old trying to buy beer at 10 a.m. on Sunday in Long Island, New York—he essentially said ‘I gotta straighten my life [out] again and start going back to church’. And, to this day, the guy is still in church. His family's in church [and] he's active in the local classical Christian School.”

Laws can’t fundamentally change our hearts, but they do have the capacity to guide and direct us toward our common good. In Wolfe’s story, Sabbath laws helped guide a man toward what he ought to be. In a similar way, we ought to hope, work, and advocate for a society that guides us toward our temporal and spiritual good, and God alone is good. Recognizing God as the ultimate moral authority is not only essential for spiritual flourishing but also for the common good of any society.