Tim Keller: “There Is a Bar of Justice Somewhere for Everyone”

Christianity Today just released an interview I did a few months back with Manhattan pastor Tim Keller to talk about his recent book Encounters with Jesus, which I have read and strongly commend to you. I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to talk with Keller and have included his helpful commendation of “objective moral truth” (not just objective morality or objective truth, but the two combined, which is noteworthy) below.

Strachan: You state that we all know there’s a standard by which we will be judged—”there is a bar of justice somewhere for all of us.” Could you unpack this idea? Why is it relevant today?

Keller: What that means is in our hearts, we know that morality’s not relevant. We know that there’s a standard by which people are going to be judged regardless of how they feel. We bear witness to that when we may say morality’s relative, socially constructed, evolution and culture determine what we feel is right or wrong, but there’s no real standard. But then, deep in our hearts, we do feel when someone does something wrong that they should be accountable. So I was trying to tell people what they intuitively know to be true is true. There is such a thing as objective moral truth.

Read the whole interview.