The beginning philosophy teacher had a number of students in his class who were defenders of relativism, claiming that there were no universal, absolute moral laws. The teacher did his best to change students’ attitudes on this issue. He talked about the impossibility of acting as a moral judge with regard to the Holocaust and slavery. Most students were not willing to defend the actions of the Nazi death camps or the actions of Southern American slaveholders as being right for some people or being right for the day in which they were practiced. The students wanted to condemn such practices as wrong.
The brightest student in this class, however, would not change his mind; he continued to defend relativism.
The teacher thought he would teach this student a lesson, so on the student’s final exam he wrote that the student had gotten an F on the final and an F in the course. The professor did this in spite of the fact that the student had received an A on the midterm and had written one of the best final exams. The final exams were returned to the students by university postal service, and this student was both stunned and angry when he received his grade.
He went immediately to the professor’s office to inquire why he had received an F. The professor told him that he had decided that anyone who did not write the final exam in purple ink had failed both the exam and the course. This explanation did not make the student any happier. He told the professor that his actions were wrong and that if the grade was not changed, he, the student, would report the professor’s actions to university authorities, the campus newspaper, and local call-in radio programs.
The professor listened for some time to the student’s threats before saying this to him, ”You really are not a relativist, are you? You do believe some things are wrong. We cannot do whatever we want. Your exam was the best in class. You got an A on it and an A in the course. Now be on your way”.
The point again is this:
One may talk and even act like a relativist until someone treats him in terms of his own principles – then watch the relativist’s reaction !
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Taken from:
“Five Views on Apologetics“, page 163-164
by: Craig, Habermas, Frame, Clark, Feinberg (Contributors); Gundry and Cowan (Editors)
