Pride and Humility: The Cause and Cure of Moral Relativism

moral relativism

Since the fall of man, we deal daily with the conflict between virtue and vice. Virtues are those characteristics or behaviors that move the soul closer to union with God. Each virtue has an exact opposite vice, a sin causing the separation of the soul from God’s sanctifying grace. Humility and pride are the highest virtue and deadliest sin, respectively.

Humility, Pride, and Relativism

To practice humility is to understand our place in the whole of God’s creation. Psalm 95 instructs us to bend our knee before the Lord, who is our maker. It reminds us that He is our God, and we are His people, the flock that he shepherds. These words encourage humility and submission to God as our creator. Remembering this will serve us well as we struggle against man’s predisposition to sin, also known as concupiscence.

The sin of pride caused man’s fall and is thought by most theologians to be the sin by which the angels also fell. Simply stated, pride is the belief that our will is superior to the will of God. Pride leads to self-deification by which we place faith in ourselves instead of God; all sin has pride as its root.

Moral relativism is a heresy in which good and evil are discerned by how they make us feel and not by objective moral truth. Since Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, is truth Himself (John 14:6, Catechism of the Catholic Church 2465), rejection of objective moral truth is nothing short of rejecting God (Psalm 119:30). God reveals His truth to us through Holy Scripture, Apostolic Tradition, and the Magisterium (CCC 80, 85, 88) and desires that all people are saved through the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). Through self-rejection and the embrace of God’s Word, we achieve humility. When we are humble we can discern good from evil according to God’s will instead of our own.

Moral Relativism in History

The rejection of absolute truth and the error of moral relativism began during the Italian Renaissance and continued through the Enlightenment period. Secularism, individualism, and scientific rationalism emerged as the dominant philosophies of Western Civilization during that time. These schools of philosophy are not inherently sinful but become so when, through human pride, they replace instead of complement Christ’s teachings. The historical irony is that pride within the Church hierarchy served only to embolden secularism and individualism. The same sin runs through the veins of the Church to this day, allowing “the smoke of Satan to enter the Church” (Pope St. Paul VI).

The enlightenment and the age of reason in the 18th century gave birth to the deified human that no longer needs God’s Word to guide his actions and morality. Moral relativism reached its height in the 20th and 21st centuries, continuing with no end in sight. The destruction of the family is the fault of a prideful people, spreading the evils of abortion, artificial conception, gender fluidity, and the devaluation of marriage. The belief in the superiority of human progress, as it were, over God makes the natural law and objective moral truth revealed by God irrelevant.

Misguided Mercy

Science and reason are not in opposition to our Catholic faith as consistently taught and demonstrated by many theologians, including St. Thomas Aquinas. When we apply humility to reason and progress, humanity can discern how scientific progress can be an instrument of God’s will, leading to a further understanding of God’s divine revelation to His people. Technological progress has done much to serve God and His people by helping alleviate sickness and suffering, bring food to the poor, and spread the Gospel to the world. These works of mercy are direct (and sometimes indirect) results of humility and love.

On the other hand, the heresy of moral relativism, the bitter fruit of pride, has enabled Satan to sow the seeds of death and destruction by the same advancements. The Machiavellian approach to curing disease and other forms of suffering, such as involuntary infertility, has led to the destruction of human life and dignity, when not discerned through the lens of God’s will.

The inherent good present in the human soul and the example of Christ motivates people to love their neighbor and show mercy to others (Matthew 22:36-40; Luke 6:36). Modern western society has made it unacceptable to admonish sinners or even proclaim the truth regarding sin if there is any risk that individuals or groups of people will be offended.

To many, this seems compatible with Jesus’ teachings, but it is antithetical. The Church instructs us to admonish sinners to save their souls (James 5:20); this is truly an act of mercy made in humble submission to God’s will. However, Satan has thus twisted human perception of good and evil, making what is evil seem merciful and what is merciful seem evil. We ate of the forbidden tree in the garden because of our pride, and thus we know ourselves to be gods.

Satan and the Media

Technological progress has given Satan a platform from which to operate, and he uses it more effectively than we could even imagine. The various forms of media, especially social media, operate around the clock and reach every corner of the globe. From this platform, Satan feeds upon the sin of pride devouring souls en masse; people are blissfully unaware as they willingly cooperate with the Evil One’s will. On television, in movies, and online we are told that we deserve everything: to be physically attractive, to satisfy our sexual desires on demand, to have and not have children as we wish, and to make our bodies into whatever gender we desire (including having no gender at all).

We no longer bend the knee to the Lord, our maker, but instead stand tall in the worship of ourselves. We use our talents for worldly rewards such as sex or money. We use our knowledge to advance our most base appetites. We no longer know God except as a means for our own glorification. By our “mercy” we neither admonish nor are we admonished, but instead, are complicit in destroying men’s souls.

Social media and mass communication technologies can further the progress of souls by promoting the Kingdom of God on Earth. Pope St. Paul VI promulgated the document Inter Mirifica (Decree on the Media of Social Communications) in 1963, which addressed the responsible use of communication technologies by producers and consumers of information and the pastoral responsibility of the clergy to guide the faithful in discerning media content following Catholic moral teaching. Media content reflects the morality of the times so that the consumer may only accurately discern the virtue of media content if they are well-catechized.

Conclusion

Total abandonment to the will of God is the calling of every soul. Humility is the virtue by which we respond to our calling, and it stands in contradiction to the practice of self-deification. Fr. John Hardon, S.J. writes in his essay “Imitating Christ in the Eucharist,” that Christ hides not only his humanity but also his divinity in the Eucharist, the ultimate act of humility.

It is through the Sacrament of the Eucharist that we should beg for humility, and only through humility can we lift the fog of moral relativism that clouds the soul. When the signs of the times overwhelm us, and we are not sure where to turn, be humble: “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

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3 thoughts on “Pride and Humility: The Cause and Cure of Moral Relativism”

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