When Nothing Is Absolute, You Are

The Most Convenient Belief of Our Age

Counterflow

In my last article, I told the story of a friend of mine and the bizarre dispute he had with his girlfriend. (Go read that piece before you continue and this will flow easier.)

It wasn’t loud.

It was destabilizing.

Facts softened mid-sentence.

Clear statements were reinterpreted in real time.

Memory became “your perception.”

Reality began to feel negotiable.

Then a few days later, she posted a quote on her Instagram story:

“Nothing is absolute.”

No explanation.

No argument.

Just a slogan.

So let’s follow up on that dispute — because that sentence explains everything.

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The Most Convenient Belief in the World

“Nothing is absolute.”

That claim is either absolutely true — or it isn’t.

If it is, something is absolute.

If it isn’t, it collapses.

But logical consistency isn’t really the point.

Autonomy is.

What the slogan really means is:

There is no truth above me.

No standard that binds me.

No reality that can correct me.

Only perspective.

Only narrative.

Only my truth.

And once that becomes the operating system, accountability dies quietly.

This is the worship of the self.

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When Truth Becomes Optional

If nothing is absolute:

    •    Memory becomes malleable.

    •    Promises become flexible.

    •    Boundaries become oppressive.

    •    Correction becomes abusive.

Two people can experience the same event — but both accounts cannot be equally true.

One may be wrong.

Possibly both are.

But reality does not split itself to protect egos.

Relativism sounds compassionate.

In practice, it protects the self from ever having to bow.

And sometimes that protection isn’t theoretical.

Sometimes it looks like escape.

In my friend’s case, the conversation reached a point where reality was no longer abstract. The facts weren’t bending anymore. Something true was pressing in. His girlfriend was all of a sudden caught lying about the truth and started creating her truth on the spot.

And suddenly — urgency.

A scenario formed.

A fear crystallized.

A reason to leave immediately.

She had to go. She had to check. She had to make sure everything was okay at home.

Maybe the concern felt real. Maybe it wasn’t calculated.

But it accomplished something powerful:

It ended the confrontation with reality.

Because when truth corners us, we don’t only fight.

We flee.

You don’t run from opinions.

You run from exposure.

And when reality becomes unavoidable, relativism needs an exit.

⸻

Orthodoxy Refuses the Exit

Christianity does not leave the door open like that.

Truth is not a vibe.

Not a lens.

Not “valid for you.”

Truth is a Person.

Christ does not say, “I offer insight.”

He says, “I am the Truth.”

That is absolute.

Repentance only makes sense if something is objectively wrong.

Forgiveness only makes sense if something objectively happened.

Love only makes sense if it is grounded in what is real.

Truth without love is cruelty.

Love without truth is delusion.

Orthodoxy refuses both.

⸻

Here’s the irony.

No one actually lives as if nothing is absolute.

We demand absolute loyalty.

Absolute honesty.

Absolute faithfulness.

Absolute respect.

The only absolutes we reject

are the ones that expose us.

In my friend’s dispute, the issue wasn’t tone.

It was authority.

Who gets the final word on reality?

If nothing is absolute, then the self is.

And when the self becomes absolute, truth becomes optional, repentance unnecessary, and love whatever feels safest in the moment.

Orthodoxy gives a harder answer:

There is Truth.

It does not bend.

It does not curate itself around your ego.

It stands.

And you either conform to it —

or you spend your life defending a version of yourself against it.

“Nothing is absolute.”

That’s convenient.

But it isn’t true.

The only thing “nothing is absolute” truly absolves you from is responsibility —

and even that doesn’t last.