Bad FaithA similar rationale also explains why creationism carries such
force in the US. A literal seven days of creation is taken as a key
test of faith; if you believe in it, you believe in the Bible; if not,
you do not.
Sexuality is not the only issue over which churches are forced
to draw the line. One of Pope Benedict XVI’s favourites is rela-
tivism. The growth of relativism is another paradoxical product
of the scientifi c revolution. In the search for facts and certitude,
philosophical certainty is itself called into question, and fl oun-
ders. Only one thing is sure, relativism says: nothing is sure.
That this is itself a contradiction does nothing to lesson the fear
of the nihilism relativism implies. The Pope objects to this. But
what is particularly surprising, for a man who confesses faith
in God, is the ferocity with which he rails against it. ‘We are
moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not
recognise anything as defi nitive and has as its highest value
one’s own ego and one’s own desires,’ he said in a sermon on
the eve of his election. ‘From Marxism to free-market liberalism
to even libertarianism, from collectivism to radical individual-
ism, from atheism to a vague religion, from agnosticism to syn-
cretism and so forth.’
Rampant relativism is a good candidate for demonisation.
Everyone fears it a little. And the Pope is issuing a powerful
challenge with his concern for the erosion of the moral founda-
tions of the modern state. Consensus is not enough, he argues,
because consensus is weak. There must be principles upon
which life is based that are ‘pre-political’, not subject to the ups
and downs of democratic agreement.
But the reason this is surprising from the Pope is that talk of
God – theology – is itself bound to embody a kind of relativism
because anything that can be said about God is provisional –
relative to human beings’ incapacity to know God. He might
do better to make us more comfortable with ‘right relativism’
and thereby more equipped to resist its destructive forms. But
in a world dominated by science, lines must be drawn in the
sand. If the price is the rejection of religious uncertainty, and