Paul the apostle wrote, “Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good.”
– 1 Thessalonians 5:21
The law of rationality states that we ought to justify our conclusion by adequate evidence. Christianity is a religion that is not afraid of evaluation. In fact, Christianity invites public evaluation and examination because Christians believe the evidence holds up under public scrutiny (e.g. Acts 17:11). One can see this in even a cursory reading of the New Testament. Advocates of Christianity were publicly tried on multiple occasions without complaint of the trial.
In contrast to that kind of thinking, many “religions” in the world today are woefully lacking. These “religions” do not see truth as propositional and thus subject to criticism. They want “truth” in religion to be merely a matter of personal subjective conclusion and nothing else.
When asked whether what they believe is “right” or “wrong” the individuals involved in the discussion will not be so quick to claim to be right. They may say things like, “I don’t know” or “you may be right.” Such answers appear “humble.” After all, how could a person be arrogant if they are not claiming to know anything?
What is deceiving is that these individuals want you to believe what they believe. They would not be having a conversation with you if they did not. If an individual truly does not know something or believes that someone else is right, then they are not going to comment at all; that is the truly humble action in such a situation, namely, when you do not know, to say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”
On the contrary, when an individual does not know what he or she has, it is the height of arrogance to offer it up as a solution. The humble thing to do in that situation is to keep quiet and let someone who has solutions to answer. On the other hand, it is not arrogant to say, “I have the solution,” present the evidence to support it, and invite criticism.
The truth is that these religions simply do not want to defend their beliefs under criticism. To justify themselves, they castigate individuals who want to “debate.” This, they say, is the problem. It is curious to note that they do not seem to have a problem knowing what the problem is. In a system that claims to know nothing, they know an awful lot when it comes to evaluating the beliefs of others.
For part 2 of this epistle, check out The True Test of Humility (Part 2 of 2)