Behold the Wonders of a Closed Mind
People often get confused about closed mindedness. They think it means one must not reject anything, but be open to everything. One comes into every dispute or discussion in a neutral frame of mind. Open-mindedness, for such folk, is a code phrase for radical relativism.
"The proposition of the house today is that we shoot all blacks?" Mmmm. Let's think about this. There will be pro arguments and con arguments. Open mindedness requires we approach such a question with a willingness to bat for either team, depending on how the argument runs. Clearly a person who thinks in this way has already closed his mind to a vast swathe of truth. Everything such a mind may consider will be approached from a position of radical relativism.
Genuine open mindedness is a willingness to change one's mind when argument and evidence shows that one is inconsistent with the fundamental beliefs each of us inevitably hold. At this blog, we are Christians. We are not going to spend lots of time agonising over whether covetousness is evil. We reject it from the get-go--and always will--as part of our fundamental belief system. Open-mindedness, however, in our case means that we are willing to consider, and even reconsider, whether or not certain kinds of ambition, for example, are actually covetousness dressed up as candy.
It's the only way open-mindedness can have any meaning or impact whatsoever. The alternative begins and ends in meaninglessness.
To be sure, Christians are regularly criticised for not being open-minded, but only by those who are truly closed minded to any possibility of certain and infallible truth. Yet, ironically, even such as those so radically "open-minded" are actually closed-minded to anything being certain, except the certainty that nothing is certain.
But a new kind of closed-mindedness is emerging in universities and colleges in the United States.
