A couple of days after I started writing this blog, Derek Max came into my office, looking cool & confused, and posited the question, “Chris, what’s your point, why are you writing a blog, and who are you trying to argue with?”
Argue? I am not trying to argue…or am I? Maybe I am, but with whom? And what does it really accomplish because everyone is right these days…and we are all entitled our opinions because all of our opinions are valid…aren’t they? And why does Derek have to spoil my fun? RAT-FINK!
As I have been mulling these questions over in my mind I was studying Saint Augustine’s treatise on “De Trinitate” (The Trinity) written in 371 a.d. Ironically, he addressed the exact same issue of argument and its purpose, because “De Trinitate” was an argument to prove Christ’s deity. In the year 325 the Council of Nicaea established Christ’s absolute equality with the Father as orthodoxy for true Christian teaching. But that didn’t stop the battle for doctrine to stop raging because there were still large pockets of Arians and Sabellians who were teaching their followers to deny the full divinity of the Son. And to say both sides were right was just wrong! So Augustine took up his pen to both show how New Testament scripture supported Nicaea’s teaching and to silence the loud voices of opposition. We probably can’t even imagine the fury and violence felt between both factions. So Augustine, in his introduction, addresses the people who would rather fume and bluster than reasonably think.
“We must first establish by the authority of the holy scriptures that our teaching is true. Only then shall we go on, if God so wills and gives his help, to accommodate those who have more conceit than capacity, which makes the disease they suffer from all the more dangerous…perhaps [through scripture] they are able to discover reasons they can have no doubt about…they will sooner find fault with their own minds than with the truth itself or our arguments.”
More conceit than capacity: in other words, many of the people we try to have discussions/arguments with will often be confident of their position not based on reason, but on who they think they are. That is why he says God has to help them with the “disease they suffer from.” What is that disease? Pride: Conceited people think they know things simply because they think they are better, smarter, & have experienced more of life than anybody else. Sometimes because they have a degree, the color of their skin is different, they drank a beer, or they have moved out of mom and dad’s house, they think they know everything. And the rest of the world, well, they are morons! Proud people are blinded by their own pride, and when you try to have a civil argument with a proud person you lose the argument even before you open your mouth.
Augustine decides to keep arguing anyway, even if he is surrounded by conceited critics, because he thinks it can still help save and rescue people, “If there is a particle of the love or fear of God in them, they may return to the beginning and right order of faith.” Hopefully, through honest well-articulated debate, we can steer people back onto the path. Open dialogue also demands that we also must be willing to be corrected by the critic. Argument and contention have always been around; and even though it may get heated, I think we still owe it to people to tell the truth and point out error. I thank God for writers who have corrected me, taught me, rebuked me. The shallow soul is the person who sees someone heading over a cliff and fails to warn because they don’t want to cause conflict.
I love how Augustine ends his discussion on the argument, “I should prefer to be censured by the censurer of falsehood than to receive its praiser’s praises.” In other words, it is a good thing to make proud foolish people mad at you; because if you stay safe so they agree with you, you become part of the party of fools! Courage requires you to stick your neck out knowing someone is going to try to chop it off.
