Skepticism and Humility

Wow, looks like I enraged Scott. Go me. I should clarify – I’m not saying I distrust doctors in general. I’m just saying I slightly distrust medicine. And I’m not saying we should abandon it or that I have a better alternative; far from it. I’m just saying that it’s good to have a humble attitude with it, and that those (few) practitioners who think and act as if they know all the ultimate answers annoy me. Possibly because I personally know that not to be true. But in general, yeah, go doctors; they’re clearly doing better stuff with their lives than I am.

Furthermore, it’s not limited to medicine; if you read what I’ve written in the past, I have the same skepticism with many things. Like science in general and even Scriptural interpretation. Doesn’t mean they’re bad or that we should abandon them. I just think we should have a humble attitude, that’s it.

In regards to Scriptural interpretation, I strongly believe that Scripture holds the ultimate truth, but I’m somewhat skeptical about our interpretation of it sometimes. Maybe this has to do with my upbringing. I was raised a Southern Baptist, a denomination that was formed over the issue of slavery (on the wrong side of it, something they’ve publicly repented over). I don’t doubt the sincerity of their faith (it’s actually really interesting – they split because northern Baptists weren’t allowing slaveowners to participate in missions). And they believed that they had Scriptural basis for their position. But I believe that it was wrong. In any case, in my denominational tradition, sincere people had what I believe to be bad interpretation, so it makes me skeptical sometimes. But yeah, we absolutely should believe Scripture to be the ultimate authority of truth, and absolutely should seek to interpret it well. I just think a little humility is in order sometimes.