Editing Relativism (section)

==== Catholicism ====
{{missing information|a historical perspective on Catholic thinking|date=January 2024}}

The [[Catholic Church]], especially under [[John Paul II]] and [[Pope Benedict XVI]], has identified relativism as one of the most significant problems for faith and morals today.<ref>{{cite web |title=World Youth Day News August August 21, 2005<!-- Bot generated title --> |url=http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/wyd082105.htm}}</ref>

According to the Church and to some theologians,{{who|date=January 2024}} relativism, as a denial of absolute truth, leads to moral license and a denial of the possibility of [[sin]] and of [[God]]. Whether moral or epistemological, relativism constitutes a denial of the capacity of the human mind and reason to arrive at truth. Truth, according to Catholic theologians and philosophers (following Aristotle) consists of ''adequatio rei et intellectus'', the [[correspondence theory of truth|correspondence]] of the mind and reality. Another way of putting it states that the [[mind]] has the same form as reality. This means when the form of the computer in front of someone (the type, color, shape, capacity, etc.) is also the form that is in their mind, then what they know is true because their mind corresponds to objective reality.

The denial of an absolute reference, of an ''axis mundi'', denies God, who equates to Absolute Truth, according to these Christian theologians. They link relativism to [[secularism]], an obstruction of religion in [[human condition|human life.]]

=====Leo XIII=====
[[Pope Leo XIII]] (1810–1903) was the first known Pope to use the word "relativism", in his encyclical ''[[Humanum genus]]'' (1884). Leo condemned [[Freemasonry]] and claimed that its philosophical and political system was largely based on relativism.<ref>{{cite web |title=Humanum genus |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_18840420_humanum-genus_it.html}}</ref>

=====John Paul II=====
[[Pope John Paul II|John Paul II]] wrote in ''[[Veritatis Splendor]]''

:As is immediately evident, the crisis of truth is not unconnected with this development. Once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reason, is lost, inevitably the notion of conscience also changes. Conscience is no longer considered in its primordial reality as an act of a person's intelligence, the function of which is to apply the universal knowledge of the good in a specific situation and thus to express a judgment about the right conduct to be chosen here and now. Instead, there is a tendency to grant to the individual conscience the prerogative of independently determining the criteria of good and evil and then acting accordingly. Such an outlook is quite congenial to an individualist ethic, wherein each individual is faced with his own truth, different from the truth of others. Taken to its extreme consequences, this individualism leads to a denial of the very idea of human nature.

In ''[[Evangelium Vitae]]'' (The Gospel of Life), he says:

:Freedom negates and destroys itself, and becomes a factor leading to the destruction of others, when it no longer recognizes and respects its essential link with the truth. When freedom, out of a desire to emancipate itself from all forms of tradition and authority, shuts out even the most obvious evidence of an objective and universal truth, which is the foundation of personal and social life, then the person ends up by no longer taking as the sole and indisputable point of reference for his own choices the truth about good and evil, but only his subjective and changeable opinion or, indeed, his selfish interest and whim.

===== Benedict XVI =====
In April 2005, in his homily during Mass prior to the conclave which would elect him as [[Pope]], then [[Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger]] talked about the world "moving towards a dictatorship of relativism":

:How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what [[Saint Paul]] says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf [[Ephesians]] 4, 14). Having a clear Faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and "swept along by every wind of teaching", looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires. However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an "Adult" means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today's fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with [[Christ]] is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth.<ref>{{cite web |title=Mass "Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice": Homily of Card. Joseph Ratzinger<!-- Bot generated title --> |url=https://www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/homily-pro-eligendo-pontifice_20050418_en.html}}</ref>

On June 6, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI told educators:

:Today, a particularly insidious obstacle to the task of education is the massive presence in our society and culture of that relativism which, recognizing nothing as definitive, leaves as the ultimate criterion only the self with its desires. And under the semblance of freedom it becomes a prison for each one, for it separates people from one another, locking each person into his or her own 'ego'.<ref>{{cite web |title=Inaugural Address at the Ecclesial Diocesan Convention of Rome<!-- Bot generated title --> |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2005/june/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20050606_convegno-famiglia_en.html}}</ref>

Then during the [[World Youth Day 2005|World Youth Day]] in August 2005, he also traced to relativism the problems produced by the communist and sexual revolutions, and provided a counter-counter argument.<ref>{{cite web |title=20th World Youth Day - Cologne - Marienfeld, Youth Vigil<!-- Bot generated title --> |url=https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2005/august/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20050820_vigil-wyd_en.html}}</ref>

:In the last century we experienced revolutions with a common programme–expecting nothing more from God, they assumed total responsibility for the cause of the world in order to change it. And this, as we saw, meant that a human and partial point of view was always taken as an absolute guiding principle. Absolutizing what is not absolute but relative is called totalitarianism. It does not liberate man, but takes away his dignity and enslaves him. It is not ideologies that save the world, but only a return to the living God, our Creator, the Guarantor of our freedom, the Guarantor of what is really good and true.{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}

=====Pope Francis=====
[[Pope Francis]] refers in ''[[Evangelii gaudium]]'' to two forms of relativism, "doctrinal relativism" and a "practical relativism" typical of "our age".<ref>Pope Francis, [https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html Evangelii gaudium], paragraph 80, published 24 November 2013, accessed 14 January 2024</ref> The latter is allied to "widespread indifference" to systems of belief.<ref>Olsen, C. E., [https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2013/11/26/a-helpful-summary-of-the-apostolic-exhortation-evangelii-gaudium/ A helpful summary of the Apostolic Exhortation, "Evangelii Gaudium"], ''The Catholic World Report'', published 26 November 2013, accessed 14 January 2024</ref>