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In recent years, the term “reason” has been upgraded to “critical thinking,” as though to imply increased potency. It’s the same stuff. It’s just that the latter was not the buzzphrase then that it has come to be today. Like “fake news” or declaring things “unacceptable,” it’s a term that came out of obscurity, if not nowhere, and becomes ubiquitous. I sometimes wish it would suffer the same fate as that politician whom everyone knew should be hanged, and finally he was. “Any last words?” they asked him on the gallows. “This is unacceptable!” he cried as the trap door swung open and the rope snapped taut.
It’s hard to get the point across that “critical thinking” is not the same as “thinking.” Nor is it the same as “criticism.” It is a particularly narrow brand of thinking that, when applied to biblical studies, means you can’t consider the virgin birth of Christ nor his resurrection since those things don’t happen today and are not repeatable, thus violating the scientific method. I admit that if I had not heard Luke Timothy Johnson describe its derivative “higher criticism” as a Trojan horse which outwardly impresses but inwardly carries the seeds of destruction, I might not have come to regard the expression as bull does a red flag.
It morphs, however. It becomes a term that everyone likes for outward appearance—after all, nobody wants to be “sloppy” in their thinking—and so they adapt it to their own ends. Says an AI commentary, with regard to biblical commentary:
“Some scholars use critical thinking and arrive at traditional views of authorship and dating
- Others use critical thinking and conclude Moses didn’t write the Pentateuch
- Conservative evangelical scholars apply rigorous critical thinking while rejecting many higher critical conclusions
- The same critical thinking skills help you evaluate whether higher criticism’s assumptions are sound”
Exactly. Everyone’s brimming over with the stuff, but it doesn’t help in resolving problems. It just results in more entrenched positions that are less open to agreement because everyone imagines their thinking is THE sound way to do it. It’s as though you can trump any conversation with a “Excuse me. I have concluded otherwise and I used critical thinking!” Since it can be applied any which way, just drop the term and stop being so pretentious.
Increasingly, Witness literature doesn’t cater AT ALL to those who take pride in their critical thinking skills. Instead, they cater to those who feel like a gut punch the travesty of human rule, largely a product of that critical thinking. Few world leaders have not been trained in universities that specialize in it. Accordingly, people don’t need more of it. They need less of it.
The heart makes a grab what it wants and then charges the head to devise a convincing rationale for it. This leads to the appearance that the head is calling the shots, but it is the heart all along.
****** The bookstore
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