Religion Prof Emeritus Phi Holtrop at Calvin College once said "there are no absolutes." (That was the same year the series finale of M*A*S*H aired; I wrote about that in a footnote here > [1].)
I bridled at that and said so in class. This good Schofield-toting Baptist was full of absolutes.
I slowly let go of them over the years, coming to an unhappy realization that he was right. But I just as slowly regained my footing and 20 years later reached a point where I discovered he was wrong (or where I didn’t need to be right).
(On a purely practical level there must be absolutes - definable, predictable states of things - or relationships between them cannot exist. This is true of the physical world around us, and once it's true in one place, it can be true in many places.)
In all fairness to Prof Holtrop (for whom I had great respect), when I challenged him in class, he qualified his statement and said "There are no absolutes but Christ." What he meant by that I’m not quite sure.
Unfortunately, that sort of broad flexibility led to a fractured Protestantism littered with something like 5,000 recognized denominations today, as well as a lot of heresies along the way (of which my own Baptist tradition was one). I’m not saying an unreformed church is preferred, but that picking 
only a starting point and not adding sturdy guardrails guarantees a mess, in theology or anything else.
I’m oversimplifying, and I’m sure Prof Holtrop would have elaborated more, but I was hardly qualified to debate him then, nor am I now, though I must say I’ve found a delightful rest stop on my journey and think I will spend some time here.
[8/24/2013]
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[1]
He wasn’t a full professor yet when I had him, and he said not to call him “professor,” but I did anyway. I never stopped calling a professor “professor,” even when they asked, and many did. It was a comfort thing for me; I have a strong sense of roles and my place among them. Guardrails, you know.
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