Claim. An absolute standard for value judgment yields qualitative agreement among all people while still allowing quantitative differences arising from individual subjective action, because human beings simultaneously bear the Universal Image and Individual Images of God.
Elaboration. Lee anticipates the obvious objection (Absolute Standard and Human Individuality): if value judgments become identical under an absolute standard, won’t individuality be flattened? His answer turns on the UT distinction between God’s Universal Image (commonality) and Individual Images (particularity), which humans resemble as individual truth beings.
The absolute standard is connected to the universal image and the purpose for the whole; subjective action is connected to the individual image and the purpose for the individual. These are always united in a person — neither replaces the other. Therefore absolute value is “a universal value which includes individual differences,” just as the universal image includes the individual image in any concrete being.
The key technical move: agreement under an absolute standard is qualitative agreement, while individuality contributes quantitative variation. Lee’s example: “to help the poor” is judged good regardless of religion. In the ideal world, no one judges it evil — that is the qualitative agreement. But people may differ in saying it is “very good,” “moderately good,” or “ordinarily good” — that is the quantitative variation produced by subjective action. The same logic applies to judgments of truth and beauty.
Fallen egoistic society has produced qualitative differences (some calling good evil and vice versa), which is the source of value-confusion. The absolute standard restores qualitative agreement without erasing quantitative individuality.
This claim is doing significant work for UT’s case against the charge of authoritarian uniformity. It allows Lee to say (a) all true value systems converge on absolute value and (b) cultural and personal individuality is preserved, not steamrolled. Critics of religious universalism would push on whether the qualitative/quantitative distinction can really bear this weight, particularly for contested cases (e.g., gender norms, ritual practice) where traditions disagree at what looks like a qualitative level. Lee would presumably say such disagreements are products of fallen society, not authentic individuality.
See also. absolute-standard-from-gods-love-and-truth, individuality-grounded-in-divine-individual-image, dual-purposes-dual-desires-dual-values