I once heard Dallas Willard say something to the effect that, “At any given moment, at least twenty percent of what I am saying is not true. I’m just not sure what falls into that twenty percent. I believe everything I’m telling you is true.”

I was profoundly impacted by the honesty and humility present in Willard’s statement. If that is true of Dallas Willard, an esteemed professor of philosophy at USC, then how much more for me! This is especially true the further out I venture from my discipline, training, and first-hand experience. 

We live at a time when everyone has an opinion, and every opinion is equally valid. Look no further than social media. You’ll hear a lot of things on social media — ‘news’, gossip, emotional rants, conspiracy theories, counter-conspiracy theories, advocacy, protest, appeals to heaps and heaps of ‘experts ‘ … but one thing you’ll rarely hear, the elusive unicorn of this sultry sphere, are the words:  

“I might be wrong.” 

Four words. Four simple words, yet so difficult to utter. It’s easier to retreat to dismissive clichés like “That’s just your opinion” or “We’ll just have to agree to disagree,” or silently ‘unfollow’ those I disagree with, rather than entertain the possibility that I might be wrong.

There are moments when it is good to let a conversation lie and ‘agree to disagree,’ but we should do so sparingly, only after we’ve thoughtfully considered the other’s argument and you cannot conceive how they might be right. But even then, exercising intellectual humility is not a bad default. 

There are hills worth dying on but in any given debate you have to ask yourself, “Is this one? … How certain am I that I’m right and they’re wrong?” 

We need to wrestle with our beliefs. It is unlikely that our beliefs are completely wrong but if we don’t open them to scrutiny, significant aspects of our lives could be driven by falsehoods, with devastating implications. What’s true is not a matter of opinion. A belief is ultimately true or false. It either aligns with reality or it doesn’t. (Though, some beliefs are nearer to the truth than others).

For example, I might believe my jeans are brown. I’ve only ever seen them as brown, even though my wife tells me they’re blue. I have good cause to believe my jeans are brown, but someone I trust tells me otherwise. We can’t both be right. In getting my eyes checked by an optometrist I discover that I’m color blind. That realization changes things. 

Perception is a source of knowledge, though there are others (reason; experience; and authority). In the example above, my perception provided me with a justifiable belief that my jeans were brown. However, experience and reason (trust of my wife) opened me to the possibility that my perception may be off; a reality that good authority confirmed (the optometrist).

Following the example, I was certain that my jeans were brown but I was open to the possibility that they weren’t. Certainty doesn’t mean ‘absolute’ or undeniable certainty. Having certainty simply means being more certain than not. In this way, it is helpful to conceive of certainty on a sliding scale. Anywhere between fifty-one to one-hundred percent I find myself more or less certain. Anything less, I’m highly unlikely to trust, act upon, defend, much less die for what is being proposed.

Let me illustrate. I believe the earth is a sphere. I have good reason for this belief based on both my perceptions and on good authority (scientists and astronauts). I’m more certain than not of this belief. In fact, I’d venture to say that I’m 99.99% certain. 

Though, I’m willing to consider the remote possibility that the earth isn’t a sphere, in that I’ve never been to space and the whole notion could an elaborate hoax by the ‘good authority’ I’ve placed my trust in on this matter. 

There’s an even more remote chance that my entire perception of reality is false. That everything I know is really an illusion; that I’m really just a brain in a vat being prodded by an alien species with electrical stimulation that constructs the false-reality I’m presently experiencing (think: The Matrix). 

While there is the theoretical possibility of either of these two scenarios, I have no good reason to believe either is the case.

But, I might be wrong.

Intellectual humility is an acknowledgment of our limitations and the acceptance that even a high degree of certainty requires a degree of faith in the sources we’ve placed our trust in. Faith is what moves us to live out our beliefs with consistency until we are given good cause to think otherwise.

We should welcome challenges to our beliefs, at the very least to pause and consider what a given belief is grounded in (perception; reason; experience; and/or authority), along with the degree of certainty we have in that belief. You see, how certain you are that a belief is true will impact the lengths you are willing to go to act upon and defend it.

Your belief may be genuine but be grounded in questionable authority, false assumptions, faulty perceptions, or flawed reasoning. Allowing ourselves to be challenged through thoughtful dialogue will create space for our beliefs to be exposed or affirmed, deconstructed and refined, deepening our understanding along the way.

If you resist scrutiny out of fear and blind faith, you may find yourself clinging to false beliefs as you confidently saw away the very branch you are sitting on.