ProTheism

While perusing the net, I found a remarkable article by Kreeft. Under the subtitle “we live in two worlds”, Kreeft writes about moral subjectivism. Though I am not a Catholic, Kreeft has been a major influence in developing my Christian Philosophy. Kreeft has a way of eloquently chiding postmodern incoherence. Moreover, I think in this article, he really captured what we are experiencing today. He says:

Moral values have become both privatized and collectivized. On the one hand, the modern mind has fallen victim to what C.S. Lewis calls, “the poison of subjectivism”: the idea that morality is manmade, private, subjective, a matter of feeling, a subdivision of psychology. “I feel” replaces “I believe”. On the other hand, sociology has socialized and collectivized morality; consensus determines rightness or wrongness, and democracy becomes our religion: vox populi vox dei (“the voice of the people is the voice of God”). These two developments, privatism and collectivism, may seem contradictory, but they have happened simultaneously in the modern West.

He goes on to say (under “Moral Education Values Clarification”):

The one moral absolute in values clarification is that there are no moral absolutes, and the only thing forbidden is for the facilitator to suggest that his beliefs are true, or even to suggest that there is objective truth in the realm of values, for that would mean that some . . . are wrong, and that would be “judgmental,” the only sin. In fact, the very procedure itself teaches a nearly irresistible lesson: values are all up for grabs, are matters of individual or social taste; no one has the right to teach another here; values are “my” values or “your” values, never simply true values; values, in short, are not facts but feelings.

Values clarification, apparently, clarifies that there are no objective values. If this isn’t what’s permeating in today’s social mindset—I don’t know what is.