Letter to the Editor, Wall Street Journal
Published April 27, 2005
 
I strongly disagree with the comments of George Weigel on Pope Benedict XVI’s statements regarding the “dictatorship of relativism.” (“Light in a New Dark Age” 4/21/05) Mr. Weigel asks, “If there is only ‘your truth’ and ‘my truth’ and nothing that we understand as ‘the truth,’ then on what principled basis is the West to defend its greatest accomplishments?” 
 
I wouldn’t be happy in your church with its truth, nor you in mine. But in civil society, we can get along just fine. How? Because there are many worldly truths we do agree on. These include the ones Mr. Weigel enumerates: equality before the law, tolerance and civility, religious freedom and the rights of conscience, democratic self-governance. 
 
None of these depend on us sharing any particular religious or transcendent belief. I see these bedrock truths of Western civilization as being inherently secular and relativist. I’m sure Mr. Weigel disagrees. If we were debating, I’d ask him upon what transcendent truth “belief in religious freedom” is based. That sounds like a paradox to me, unless one can point to a body of universal truths that underlies every creed and religion. 
 
Many of the “truths” we share remain unstated, and it’s better to leave them so, because as soon as we try to pin them down, we get into arguments. (E.g., what is “God”?) I work every day with people who would disagree vehemently with me on various “truths”—abortion, homosexuality, the war in Iraq—and we work companionably because we trust each other’s good will and integrity. We share many more values and beliefs than we disagree on, and it all works well as long as we avoid claiming to speak “the truth.” 
 
This is the beauty of America’s relativist culture. 
 
Mike Van Horn
San Rafael