Does the person-view of truth lead to moral relativism?

No, it does not. It is the philosophical tradition’s focus on the unchanging that treats moral relativism as the only alternative to moral absolutism. From a person view of truth, right and wrong are centered on God and His will for us. The covenantal tradition grounded morality in our covenants with God (and His covenants with us). As Richards and O’Brien helpfully note:¶

Of course, relationships come with certain expectations. But if worldviews are like icebergs—with the dangerous part underwater—then in the first-century world that Paul and Jesus inhabited, relationships were the underwater part. Rules were the parts above the waterline. Rules didn’t (and, in many places, still don’t) describe the bulk of the matter; they merely described the visible outworking of an underlying relationship, which was the truly defining element.¹

In other words, rules and moral principles still matter from a person view of truth. But they are surface level expressions of our deeper relationship with God.¶

Some will be concerned that this means that any action, no matter how violent or cruel, can become right if we think that God has commanded it. In fact, this is how violent extremists often justify murder. We have no desire to excuse them in the slightest. We do not have easy answers to these questions, except to point to Paul’s statement: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, [and] temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23).¶

Any time our hearts are hardened with resentment or hate, we can guarantee that we are not acting on God’s behalf. Pride, anger, and malice towards God’s children alienate us from God. God is not going to instruct us to kill except in the direst circumstances. The more familiar we are with God’s ways, the more we realize this. We read, “neither doth [the Lord] will that man should shed blood, but in all things hath forbidden it, from the beginning of man” (Ether 8:19).¶

Therefore, the person-truth framework does not leave us adrift in a sea of subjectivity. On the contrary, it provides us with a rich set of tools for navigating moral life: the detectable and reliable patterns in God’s commandments, the living guide of the Holy Spirit, the historical record of scripture, the counsel of commissioned prophets, and a community of faith striving to live by covenant. It does not offer the simplistic certainty of a universal rulebook, but something far more powerful: a living, guided relationship with the Source of all goodness.¶

Footnotes

1. Richards and O’Brien, Misreading Scripture, 161. ↩