"What's that?" Rocky asked.
"Famous for being evil," I replied. "It's spelled I-N-F-A-M-O-U-S."
"Oh, you mean inFAmous," he responded, accenting the second syllable.
"It does look like it should be pronounced that way," I answered, "but actually it's accented on the first syllable -- INfamous."
"Dad, you are totally wrong about this one," Rocky replied with youthful self-confidence. "The word is inFAmous."
"How can we settle this?" I asked in good Socratic fashion.
"Let's get the dictionary!" Rocky responded joyfully, delighted by the opportunity to teach his father the English language. He eagerly thumbed through the pages while I waited with a word of comfort for a son about to eat crow. When Rocky arrived at the page and found the word, he stopped with a troubled frown.
"Well, what does it say?" I prompted after a few moments of silence.
"Dad, this is unbelievable," Rocky announced in shock. "You and the dictionary are both wrong!"
I remember those days of youthful know-it-allness well, in myself as well as my son -- the days when my classmates and I argued with fervency about whether Barry Goldwater or Lyndon Johnson should be elected president (although we could not have stated their positions on even one issue), when we argued over whether John Deere or Allis-Chalmers made a better tractor (based on which brand our dads owned).
Most of us can recall episodes like those, and they would simply be amusing if we lost that intellectual pride as we grew older. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case.
To most people, humility means spiritual humility -- humbling oneself before God. And that's certainly important. But as the Bible makes clear, we are also to humble ourselves before each other. For instance, 1 Peter 5:5 says, "All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another." And one of the chief ways we do that is through intellectual humility -- considering the possibility that the other person may be right and I may be wrong.
One of the saddest episodes in history, I think, occurred during Oliver Cromwell's rule in England in the mid-1600s. The English and Scottish armies were preparing to fight over a point of theology, and in a last-ditch effort to avoid the killing, Cromwell sent a message to the Scottish troops saying (in modernized language), "I beg you, brothers, by the mercies of God, consider that you may be wrong." Cromwell saw the need for the people of Scotland to have intellectual humility -- but didn't see the need for it in himself! And so once again different Bible interpretations led to bloodshed.
"Consider that you may be wrong." Our natural tendency, in both reading and conversation, is to do the opposite -- to assume our own beliefs must be right and to avoid hearing or reading information that may oppose them. When we can't avoid information that supports the other side, we tend to attack rather than consider. In a study conducted by Charles Lord at Stanford University, students were asked whether they favored or opposed capital punishment, and how strongly. All the students were then given two sets of research studies to read -- one favoring capital punishment, one opposing. Then the students were surveyed on their capital punishment views again. In a surprising result, the students now held their views more strongly than before -- on both sides. Examining the evidence split them further apart! Whatever their position, students looked for evidence to support their existing beliefs, and they ignored evidence for the opposition.
Ignoring evidence is not a Christian attribute. Acts 17:11 says the Jews of Berea had a "noble character" because when Paul came teaching a different way of understanding God's relationship with us, they "examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."
I remember now, to considerable embarrassment, the first time I ever read a C. S. Lewis book. I was a 17-year-old college freshman. Before even finishing the preface to Mere Christianity, I found something I disagreed with and flung the book against a wall in disgust. (Christian actor/writer Tom Key told me he did the same thing, at the same age, to the same book.) Rather than discuss with someone whether Lewis' point (that people in denominations other than my own could go to heaven) might be true, I simply assumed I was right, he was wrong, and that was that. Well, I was 17, an age not noted for wisdom. But intellectual arrogance still runs rampant in Christianity; we can see it in conversations, letters to magazines, board meetings and Bible studies.
As an English professor at a Christian college, I often guide discussions about British literature. Many students come in with one of two extreme positions: (1) Every answer is as good as every other answer. (2) There's only one way to look at this, and it's my way. My task is to move them toward a combination of insight and intellectual humility. I use a four-step procedure to lead them in this path, and these steps can be useful in gaining humility about religion as well.
1. Understand the other side. William Barton, a famous pastor in the early decades of the 20th century, was asked near the end of his long life, "What advice would you give to young pastors just starting out?" He said, "I would tell them, 'There's more to be said for the other side of almost every issue than you currently realize.'"
It's a good point. In conversation, when we hear something for the other side our natural tendency is to fight it. I encourage my students to try first to understand the other side a bit better, asking questions such as, "Why do you feel that way about it?" or "Where did you find that in the text?"
In our reading, we can be willing to thoughtfully read an intelligent presentation of an opposing view. I, a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist, am currently reading Blaine Smith's book The Optimism Factor. Why am I reading a book on optimism when I consider positive pessimism to be the wisest Christian position? Because I may be wrong. And even if I appear right, I want to understand why wise people take a different view.
2. Be charitable to the other side. God loves them -- even if they do disagree with us! We need to avoid emotionally charged words such as "stupid," "narrow-minded" and "shallow." Even when we can't see the people with whom we disagree, as in writing letters to editors or in discussing the views of politicians, we need to be gentle enough to avoid name-calling.
3. Take your position humbly. Writing teachers sometimes instruct their students in the art of "weasel words," which are often used to soften a position that is taken. Instead of saying, "The sentence means this," we can say, "I understand the sentence to mean this" or "A different way to look at the sentence is this." Near the end of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin may have swayed some delegates toward approval by remarking something to this effect: "This document isn't perfect. But I think we ought to give it a chance. There are still portions I do not favor, but I have lived long enough to learn that sometimes I change my mind. After a period of trial, I may do so in this case as well."
4. Give specific disagreement and evidence. Sometimes in reading over the local newspaper's "Opinion Line" I find remarks such as this: "I hope no one is in favor of our new city growth plan. It's a disgrace." How can any productive discussion come out of that? If the writer says, "The new city growth plan will create a traffic logjam on the west side because only one major road serves that area," then insight can occur; city planners can consider whether another major road is needed, or they can point out to the writer that he has overlooked a northwest road where growth is expected.
I teach a C. S. Lewis class every year. You may wonder how that can be, since Mr. Lewis and I had such a rocky beginning. It comes from my reading, at the age of 19, Lewis' The Horse and His Boy, one of The Chronicles of Narnia. I decided that a children's series would be "safe" (i.e., wouldn't disturb my theology). In the middle of The Horse and His Boy, an arrogant horse named Bree puts down a shy (but wise) horse named Hwin with these words: "'I think, Ma'am,' said Bree very crushingly, 'that I know a little more about campaigns and forced marches and what a horse can stand than you do.'"
When I read these words, I immediately had four thoughts: (1) Bree's not very nice. (2) That sounds just like the sort of smart-aleck put-downs I make. (3) Maybe I'm not very nice. (4) This author has just unexpectedly taught me something, so maybe I shouldn't throw his books against walls. It was my first instance of learning that the clothing of humility is always in style, whether we are reading or talking, whether we are considering life, literature or religion.
If we seek a deeper understanding of others, and provide correction for one another gently, the flower of truth has a better chance of breaking through the hard ground of our accustomed ways of thinking.
