Why Contextual Absolutism Changes Everything

Christians know the Bible well enough to recognize tension. One verse says, “No one is righteous, no not one” (Romans 3:10). Another says, “Noah was a righteous man” (Genesis 6:9). So, which is it? If we treat both verses flatly, they contradict. If we deny one side, we shrink Scripture. And if we wave our hands and call it “mystery,” we end up hiding behind a word that Scripture itself rarely uses in that way.

There must be a better way.

The Problem of Contradiction

For too long, we’ve either lived with contradiction or explained it away. Philosophers, pastors, and theologians have taken different routes: relativism (“everyone has their own truth”), reductionism (privileging one verse over another), or paradox (affirming contradiction as though that were faith). Each path fails. Relativism abandons truth. Reductionism ignores God’s full counsel. Paradox makes nonsense out of revelation. But the Bible is not incoherent. God does not speak out of both sides of his mouth.

The Path Forward

This is where Contextual Absolutism comes in. It’s a simple claim with far-reaching consequences: truth is always singular, but it must be framed within its proper context. Put differently, every true statement has three parts — the subject, the predicate, and the context. Without that third piece, truth collapses into vagueness or contradiction.

Take our example: “No one is righteous” is true in the universal context of humanity under sin. “Noah was righteous” is true in the covenantal context of God’s dealings with one man. Both are true, not because contradiction is faith, but because context makes the truth clear. Properly framed, we can say both that no man is righteous and yet Noah, and many others, are. However, if the context is the same, then we have fallen into a contradiction.

What’s Distinct Here

Christians and thinkers throughout history have used this logic in practice. Augustine distinguished between God’s unchanging essence and his responsive will. Calvin said God “lisps” to us in human language. Pastors regularly tell their congregations, “You need to read this verse in context.”

But no one has ever named and defined this as a full epistemological and hermeneutical model. That is what I call Contextual Absolutism. It is correspondence theory sharpened: truth still corresponds to reality, but only when it is properly framed.

Why It Matters

Contextual Absolutism is not an ivory-tower idea. It changes how we read Scripture, how we do theology, and how we resist relativism. It means we don’t have to live with contradiction or appeal to mystery when the Bible challenges us. It gives us a path that lets us take God at his word.

This is the heart of my new book, The One Truth: Contextual Absolutism and the Battle for Doctrinal Clarity. It’s not a philosophical tome (that’s still coming). It’s a call to clarity for the church right now. If we care about truth — and we must — then we need a model that can uphold it without compromise.

The One Truth is designed with summaries and discussion questions, making it easily adaptable to a homeschooling curriculum, small groups, or higher education settings.

Buy The One Truth at your favorite retailer today! It is available in ebook, paperback, and hardback. Alternatively, you can request that your local library or bookstore order a copy for you (they can fulfill requests for both ebooks and physical copies).