A Different (Yet Still Firm?) Foundation: Non-Relativistic Ethics Within A Finitistic Theology At this symposium twenty years ago, I took up the challenging question of the grounds of moral obligation in a universe that isn’t ultimately founded in God’s creative acts. In what sense can He command, and what makes anything right or wrong? A commentator complained that my point of view results in an “antinomian, relativistic ethic.” We were recently both quoted in Richard and Joan Ostling’s Mormon America. A revisit is long overdue, both because this vital issue appropriately refuses to die, and because this fear of ethical relativism (combined with the great PR value of Mormonism’s image as a bastion of morality) may be one of the enticements tempting many toward “the fleshpots of [modern Christian] orthodoxy.” I argue that, although fundamental LDS beliefs should, indeed, radically recast our understanding of moral law, they do not lead to relativism, properly understood. Indeed, they encourage the sort of personal moral experience that best promotes the kind of moral growth and development that are the purpose and design of our mortal existence.

Kim McCall