Page 37 - Advanced Apologetics and World Views Revised

There’s a story about a man who lived in Paris who had a stranger from the country come see him.
Wanting to show the stranger the magnificence of Paris, he took him to the Louvre to see the great art
and then to a concert at a majestic symphony hall to hear a great symphony orchestra play. At the end
of the day, the stranger from the country commented that he didn’t particularly like either the art or the
music. To which his host replied, “They aren’t on trial, you are.” Pilate and the Jewish leaders thought
they were judging Christ, when they were the ones being judged. Moreover, the One they convicted will
serve as their Judge one day, as He will for all who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

Pilate evidently never came to a knowledge of the truth. Eusebius, the historian, and Bishop of Caesarea,
records the fact that Pilate ultimately committed suicide sometime during the reign of the emperor
Caligula—a sad ending and a reminder for everyone that ignoring the truth always leads to undesired
consequences. xxiii

Truth Applied to Ethics – Christian Ethics

Doesn’t the situation you are in highly determine what is right or wrong?

Say you are sitting in your living room when suddenly, someone is banging on your door. You run to the
door, open it, and find a young woman who is terrified. She tells you that someone is chasing her and
trying to kill her. She comes into your house and runs into the back bedroom. You are totally taken
away! About three minutes later, someone bangs again on your door. You answer it and it is a large
mean looking man who is holding a baseball bat. He asks you, “Did a young woman come into your
house a few minutes ago?” So what do you say? Perhaps the situation warrants a response like “I don’t
know about any young woman. Perhaps she went that way!” But would that not be a lie? Didn’t Rahab
tell a lie about hiding the spies on her roof? Didn’t the situation she was in make the falsehood she told
OK?

There is a popular view today that truth is relative to the situation you are in. In the above case, lying
would not be wrong because of the situation.

Another example might be that a lady walks up to you with a new hat that looks rather ridiculous. It
even has a bird sitting on a nest at the top. Your immediate thought is that she looks like a clown in a
circus act. She asks you, “How do you like my new hat?” Are you going to tell her the truth, or are you
going to cover the truth by saying, “It looks very nice on you!” just to save face and not hurt her
feelings? Does not the situations you find yourself in determine what is the right or wrong thing to do or
say?

While more than just a list of “dos” and “don’ts,” the Bible does give us detailed instructions on how we
should live. The Bible is all we need to know about how to live the Christian life. However, the Bible does
not explicitly cover every situation we will face in our lives. How then is it sufficient for the all the ethical
dilemmas we face? That is where Christian ethics comes in.

Science defines ethics as “a set of moral principles, the study of morality.” Therefore, Christian ethics
would be the principles derived from the Christian faith by which we act. While God’s Word may not
cover every situation, we face throughout our lives, its principles give us the standards by which we

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