1/30/26

This week, I had an interesting conversation with a student on campus about axiology, which is a study oriented around the issue of what is good or valuable. We had our conversation on Tuesday, and the question on the board that day was, "Why do you think the world is so dark?" I can't for the life of me remember how in the world we arrived at the conversation we did, but we eventually landed ourselves discussing meaning and value in life. The student described a worldview where happiness is the standard for good. I asked him more about the implications of this, and he told me directly that he believes even violence is ok as long as both parties like it. The example that he gave was a relationship between a masochist (someone who enjoys experiencing pain) and a sadist (someone who enjoys inflicting pain on others). He told me that this would be a prime example of utopia as everyone was happy and getting what they want. The problem with this idea is that desires aren't always good, and happiness isn't either. Both I and this student can assert our axiologies, but the question is more of how we determine which one is true. There are a number of ways to approach this, but with regard to this specific example, I can merely appeal to the common sense we both share as we can observe which option most leads to life and human flourishing. You don't have to be a genius to recognize that endorsing perverted and abusive behavior merely because an individual wants it is actually destructive and life-threatening for society. You can tell me all day long that the mentally divergent abuser is doing "good", but there is no category in my mind to see a dead or dying person as ideal. No, that's demonic; and it doesn't even take a religious person to tell.

So, I asked the student if he really thought that the relationship between the masochist and sadist could really be considered healthy - mentally, emotionally, physically, etc. He literally conceded the point and didn't even try to defend it as I assume he realized how delusional he would have to be to defend that. I'm not super sure why he posed this axiology initially if he wasn't really down to defend it even in the slightest. I feel that he could just desire to be edgy, or perhaps he is merely attracted to the relativistic worldview which seeks to avoid the uncomfortable confrontation with accountability and ethics. I do not know for certain, but our conversation continued forward and eventually landed us talking about larger society - I think with regards to the question of deliverance from the increasing darkness the whiteboard question hinted toward. 

Again, he described a relativistic world of morphing realities in which there is no standard, but rather constant chaos and conflict. As he described this worldview more in depth, I couldn't help but recognize the resemblance it had to the sociological ideas of Karl Marx. The student told me that conflict and fighting are not bad as they progress society forward towards a utopia where the upper and lower class are equalized and a sort of social entropy of war finishes its work as a great equalizer. I told him that this sounded very much like the ideas of Marxism, and he agreed with me - as though it was assumed from the beginning. Finally clear on the topic, I asked him if he thought there was a way to reach this utopian society any other way than the necessary-conflict approach, but he said he knew of no other way to do it. Then, he asked me if I know of another way to reach the utopian society other than continual wars, so I told him about the kingdom of God. I was quite pleased by this archway as it was a pretty clean bump, set, and spike into Jesus' gospel of God's eternal kingdom characterized by people of peace, love, and sacrifice. People seem to think that hatred and conflict are really powerful and influential, but they just need to do one of two things - read the Gospels or at least watch The Princess Bride. The Gospels are WAY better, but even apart from religious texts, people are not unaware of the power of love and sacrifice. It seems that the issue falls at the feet of the insufficiency of our human love to mend the wounds of our world. It's almost like we need a supernatural love to empower us towards love-born sacrifice and reconciliation... it's almost like that...

At that point, he noticed my Bible sitting on the table behind me and tried to tell me that he partially follows Jesus. Internally amused by the clearly false statement, I proceeded to ask him what it means and looks like to follow Jesus. This led to a whole rabbit trail of heresy and nonsense that I won't labor you to sift through, but you can safely conclude that he has no idea what the Bible teaches or says about Jesus. At one point in this whirlwind of worldview, he described a theoretical situation in which someone is tied to a pole with their arms behind their back and who was then stabbed repeatedly by a line of 100 people. He somehow concluded that this monstrous act would result in the murdered person becoming the prince of demons in hell. From there he blasphemously concluded that Jesus is likewise a prince in hell. I apologize if you are unsettled by this conversation, as I myself am repulsed by retelling these delusional and demonic ideas, but I figured that it might be beneficial to say in demonstrating how someone saying they "follow Jesus" doesn't mean they do. This quickly becomes the classic case of "which Jesus do you follow?" Muslim Jesus, Mormon Jesus, JW Jesus, New Age Jesus, Conservative Jesus, Liberal Jesus, etc. If it's not the historical Jesus who is recorded in the Gospels, then it's actually destructive to follow it. As we can see here, I would grant that this student's ideas and worldview plausibly flow from his demon-prince version of Jesus that he subscribed to. We discussed these things as I told him the things he was saying are completely unfounded and contradicted by the actual biblical text, and we concluded our conversation with an exhortation to read for himself what the Bible says about Jesus and His message. Hopefully we are able to continue this conversation another time after he's had some more work done in him through the Holy Spirit!

There could be many more things I write and share about, but, for the sake of time, I will save them for later!