Historical Relativism and Christianity

Most of us have heard of moral relativism - the idea that what is right and wrong is determined by the individual with nothing being absolutely right or wrong - but historical relativism might not be as familiar. Yes, even history is not immune to the attempts of relativism in the twentieth century. Historical relativists believe that the writing of history is hopelessly subjective and that the historian who discovers facts about history ascribes his own meaning to them because these facts carry no meaning of their own. The most devoted postmodernist will insist we can't know the past, and each reconstruction is as valid as any other.

How does this affect Christianity? Because Christianity is a religion rooted in history, - with God acting in history and its key figure being the historical person of Jesus whose claims were validated by the historical event of the resurrection - the claim that we can learn nothing from the past would be crushing if it was true.

But as William Lane Craig points out in Reasonable Faith, "relativists recognize that our knowledge of history is not awash in subjectivism. For although they deny historical objectivity, they do not really treat history in so roughshod a manner." (235) Examples that show this is true include the fact that even historical relativists admit that there are some facts that are so indisputable that only a madman would dispute them; that historians know the difference between history and propaganda which would be one and the same if history was truly relative; and that we recognize and can criticize poor history which would be impossible if one reconstruction of history was just as good as another. (Lane discusses the claims of historical relativists and the objections against them at length in his book.)

This attempt to make history subjective and relative matters to us as Christians because we believe that the events of Jesus' birth, ministry, death, and resurrections were part of objective history and as Craig puts it, part of "an objective revelation mediated through historical events." (241) This means that it is extremely important to defend history as something we can research, learn more about, and know objectively.

Something to keep in mind when engaging with someone on any topic: You may occasionally encounter people who are determined not to believe God's truth no matter what the evidence or how good your arguments are. People like this will often try to keep you on the defensive by peppering you with questions and  making you explain this or explain away that - one thing after another with no intention of truly hearing what you are saying. One way of dealing with people like this is to ask them why they believe what they do. Greg Koukl, an apologist for Stand to Reason, advises asking questions like "How did you come to that conclusion?" and "What do you mean by that?" Remember that unbelievers have just as much responsibility to explain why they don't believe (and what they do believe) as we do to explain what we believe. Skepticism is not a free pass to say and believe whatever one wants without explanation. Of course, always be loving and gentle. The ultimate goal is to win them to Christ as God makes their hearts ready, not to just win an argument.