My Version Of….
"We live in a postmodern world," we often hear. The same basic philosophy, however, has been tried in previous generations. Judges 21:25 tells us, for example, "In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes." In other words, everyone felt justified living any way that he wanted. He decided what was moral and spiritual for him, and it is unlikely his individual standards (or lack of them) conformed to God's system of ethics or commands. When everyone develops his own morality, we refer to it as subjective\—because it comes from within. Only that which arises outside of man\say say, from God\—can be said to be objective. In other words, objective morality will be correct regardless of whether any human being believes and accepts it or not. With a subjective philosophy, there is no right or wrong; society is left with a consensus of opinion, which may easily change from day to day and culture to culture.
Hitler, for example, convinced Germany that Jews were the source of their problems and therefore needed to be eliminated. He pressed his subjective opinion to the point of beginning World War II. Other nations disagreed, recognizing God's objective commandment not to kill those who are innocent of wrongdoing. (Of course, he also wanted to conquer the whole world.) Subjective morality leaves homes and society in turmoil because right and wrong cannot be agreed upon. So, everyone comes up with their version of the truth.
On the September 25th Gutfeld program (which I don't recommend even though they mute spoken obscenities and blot out the lips), there was a brief discussion of truth. A usual panelist, Tyrus (former wrestling champion and comedian) was not about to let the concept of subjective morality prevail. He poohpoohed the idea of, "This is my truth, which may be different than your truth." He declared, "When one of my children says to me, 'This is my version of truth,' I tell them, 'This is my version of punishment.'"
Of course, the line was calculated to get a laugh, but he is right. How many people have their own version of truth? Do they think that God will accept their rationalizations? "Lord, I felt justified in stealing because…." "You understand that I had to have an abortion because I was too young and too poor to care for a child." "People assured me that being a homosexual was all right\—that it was accepted behavior. So, I thought your commands against it were cultural and outdated." God will reply with His own version of justice\—one based on His objective word. No one need be surprised. He has revealed the truth concerning morality to us. We really ought to listen.