Hans Schantz has a Ph.D. in physics and dozens of conference papers and patents to his credit. He works in the field of electromagnetism — quantum mechanics, dipoles, fields, energy and other aspects of science about which I know literally nothing. Despite having a vastly superior grasp of these concepts than I do, Hans said exactly the same thing about himself in a recent blog post as I feel about my own comprehension of them: “I Know That I Know Nothing”.
How can that be?
The Ashes of Erroneous Consensus
Hans explains:
“Every significant advance in science, EVERY significant advance, without exception, arises from the ashes of an erroneous and widely-held consensus. I know … this is not an easy truth to take to heart. All our most distinguished researchers, all our most beloved teachers, all our most respected authorities.
They are all wrong. All of them.
No, not in each and every aspect of their theories, teachings, and beliefs. However, in critical aspects, on certain key points, in one way or another, they are all wrong. You are wrong, too. So, surely, am I. The great physicist Richard Feynman (1918-1988) defined ‘science’ as ‘the belief in the ignorance of experts’.
Amen.”
Take that to heart. Comparatively speaking, we all know nothing. There is always far more to be learned about any subject than a lifetime of diligent searching for accurate knowledge can supply. Hans’ humility concerning his own understanding of his chosen discipline may legitimately be applied to history, political, economics, geography, chemistry, astronomy, biology, music, the arts, computer science and every single area of human knowledge. It certainly applies to medicine.
Most especially for the Christian, it applies to our understanding of the scriptures.
Learning to Expect Error
Our starting point in sitting down to listen to the word of God every Sunday morning must be that in one way or another, big or small, every decent, praying, committed, gifted Christian teacher who ever took the platform at our local church and every other gathering of the Lord’s people was wrong about something. Worse, many of those errors are widely held in the Christian community.
For that matter, every disciple and apostle who followed Christ at one point or another misspoke, misunderstood or otherwise misrepresented the truth (though not within the pages of scripture, where we can be confident the Holy Spirit of God carried them along). Peter did. Paul did. James and John did. The Bible records their errors for us, probably in order to give us opportunity to avoid them ourselves. Children of Adam are fallible by definition, the Church Fathers included. Only our Lord Jesus Christ never erred in what he said, and the moment we begin to explain or paraphrase his words, we enter a danger zone in which we may, however inadvertently, introduce error into perfection.
Stumbling in Many Ways
Even if we apply ourselves most diligently to the study and practice of God’s word, we are still going to make mistakes. “Not many of you should become teachers,” warns James, “for we all stumble in many ways.” He’s talking there about errors in the things we say. At the beginning of my seventh decade reading the word of God, I rarely get through the first five minutes of any sermon without catching the speaker in at least one error. Most are trivial slips, and I let them pass without comment, knowing they were accidental or concerned matters of comparative insignificance. Worse are the fundamental assumptions, long held, that are wrong at the core. Unless you bring these to the speaker’s attention, only repeated reading of the word of God will ever cause him to rethink the false foundation on which he will unwittingly erect further errors and pass them on to others in good conscience.
All this understood, the vast majority who take on the responsibility of teaching the word of God in local churches (and even in on TV and YouTube) are saved by grace, in Christ and fellow sons of our Father. They are trying to do the right thing out of love for their Savior and the people of God. It is appropriate to be gentle in our dealings with one another, giving the benefit of the doubt wherever multiple interpretations of a statement are possible. Nevertheless, we ought also to be Berean in our listening habits, constantly referring to the scriptures and inquiring, “Are these things so?” and “Does that accurately represent the teaching of the Bible on the subject?”
Is there good news in all this? Sure. Every error we catch is a growth opportunity.
Mindless, Uncritical Devotion
Those who understand how little we really know about the word of God will not be pedants, faultfinders and perpetual critics. That’s not the point of learning to listen, read or watch with discernment. But we will safeguard ourselves from the mindless, uncritical devotion of the fanboy or cultist, from repeating errors we have heard but never assessed for ourselves, and from experiencing those devastating moments when a beloved mentor in Christ falls off his pedestal.
Be sure that will happen to you at least once. Don’t despair. The word of God teaches us to expect it. We will talk more about that tomorrow.
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