Every time I read about the riot in Ephesus (Acts 19:21–41), I shake my head.
Some people were shouting one thing and others were shouting something else. The meeting was very confused. Most of the people did not know why they had come there. (Acts 19:32, ERV)
Imagine walking in a crowd, screaming your lungs out, and all of a sudden you realize you don’t know why you’re there.
Lack of critical thinking makes you walk to places you would never go if you were conscious of your reasons. When you’re seeking the truth, honest questions pave your walk toward it.
I questioned my faith and found myself standing on solid ground. I questioned my motives and found a straight path to honesty and love. I questioned my life and, as a result, started living with a deeper purpose.
When questioned, lies crumble down with ease, but the truth remains. It’s because truth doesn’t need to be defended by people. It defends people. Lies, on the other hand, cannot sustain themselves without a helping hand.
Lies are guarded by fear and shame
I respect Muslims for their devotion to their faith. However, I often struggle to have a deep conversation. Fear of saying something wrong about Allah or questioning his authority is considered to be a sin in Islam. As soon as I put my hands to testing how solid Islam is, Muslims back off.
Why? Is the truth not strong enough to stand on its own? If you say that your house has a strong structure, why are you so fearful when I lean on the wall?
Before a statement is proven to be a lie, faith in it stands tall.
Recently I heard a podcast about a woman trapped in a sex-trafficking cult. She joined the movement expecting to learn about success. One of the values she was taught was blind faith in the messages and the speakers. Every suspicion had to be suppressed and thrown out of her head. Every member who questioned the ideas was punished and criticized as following the false instinct that restricts their personal growth.
When truth is guarded by rules not to question it, beware! Every honest reality isn’t afraid to be tested. Truth knows it can stand any kind of beating.
Fact-checking is a noble act
Christian faith shouldn’t be blind or baseless. When a person knows what he believes and why, he stands tall among every opposition.
God doesn’t want you to accept everything that sounds good. Jews in Berea searched out the scriptures daily after Paul shared the gospel with them. They did not rush to accept it nor reject it but decided to see whether Paul’s message was true.
Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. (Acts 17:11–12, ESV)
Critical thinking is the best tool to get a spine for your faith and conviction. Blind faith often leads to doubt, double-mindedness and error. Critical thinking shakes reality and knocks down every falsehood.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1, ESV)
If there are many false prophets and teachers, every believer and honest seeker of truth should weigh the arguments they hear. Especially when the arguments are so entangled and hard to repeat. Jesus was able to explain the Kingdom of God using agricultural examples and people without a high education understood.
The worst that can happen in fact-checking is getting closer to the truth. That’s not bad if you’re honestly seeking the truth. Imagine if you decided to question the reliability of the Bible. After finding out that it’s the most accurately preserved book in history, your trust in God to be able to protect His Word would be strengthened.
How to develop critical thinking?
Here are a few practical examples of how you can apply critical thinking:
- Don’t rush to embrace every statement that is declared to be a fact. Every human being can make a mistake. Many sciences have a list of anomalies that don’t fit the current system of thought. Don’t expect everyone to tell you the pure truth.
- When possible, listen to arguments from the opposite camps of thought. We tend to grab onto statements that feel right before we hear out the other side. My view rarely changes, but I often find more compassion and understanding for the opposite side.
- The best place to practice critical thinking is by debating your worries. “Debating” might be big a word, but anxiety and its arguments deserve to be crushed quickly. Hear the arguments and weigh them. You will be surprised at how unrealistic they seem.
Final thoughts
An honest truth-seeker equipped with critical thinking is dangerous to a lie. He doesn’t try to prove one side or another but selflessly seeks to find the truth.
Evil hides in darkness, but what’s good is not afraid to be in the light.
In the same way, the truth has no fear of being questioned while lies are afraid of being exposed.
Critical thinking is a quality of healthy intelligence. The assumption that everything we see or hear is true throws away the fact that we’re living in a broken world.
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:21, KJV)
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