My Dear Friend,
Years ago, a non-Christian acquaintance visited my husband and me. He started talking about Christ, and as my husband — a born confessor — ardently testified to his belief in the Savior’s divinity, the other exploded: “You are so dreadfully self-assured.”
This man’s remark drew my attention to another confusion rampant in our society, particularly in universities. Relativism has corroded our mentality to such an extent that any categorical assertion is immediately branded as a form of intellectual arrogance, that is, a tacit claim that one knows more and better than others.
But, surprisingly enough, this criticism is only leveled at those who claim that God exists, that truth is objective, that moral values are absolutes, that man has an immortal soul. Those denying these truths (and every denial is another form of affirmation) are not called “arrogant”; they are credited with having a critical mind.
What is self-assurance? We all know people who are terribly assertive in all their pronouncements. They are “absolutely certain” that something is such and so. More than once, I have met people who claimed that “they have always been right.” We might laugh, but the question is more serious than meets the eye.
In human life, there are domains in which certainty is difficult to attain; in many cases, it might even be impossible. Nevertheless, man’s craving to conquer knowledge leads him to make prognoses about the future, or offer theories about the distant and nebulous past. This is the rich domain of “opinions,” and centuries ago, Socrates made a much-needed distinction between “opinion” (doxa) and “knowledge” (episteme).
Wise is the man who distinguishes between the two and reminds himself that mere opinions, by definition, cannot lay claim to certainty.
The interesting thing about opinion is that a person — even though realizing that opinions are only a more or less intelligent guesswork — will usually defend them through thick and thin, as if they were absolute, unshakable truths. Hence the word “opinionated.” Even though opinions are necessarily either true or false (as is every categorical assertion), as long as the truth of a proposition is neither self-evident nor proven, intellectual modesty is called for. To press one’s point of view as if it were absolutely certain is unwise and arrogant.
In self-assurance (an unattractive trait in others, and much cultivated in oneself), the whole weight is on the subject: I believe; I am certain; I know; and so on. It is a subjective conviction which is not buttressed (or not yet buttressed) by the credentials of the object in question. In matters of opinion, the object is veiled, and therefore the affirmations made about it should be tentative (even though some of these opinions can be intelligent and others plainly stupid).
In the forming of opinions, the subject’s role assumes the major role; he is not receptive to the message of the object; he projects into the object whatever ideas his mind happens to produce about it. He is the master. In authentic knowledge, on the contrary, man is the recipient; the object is doing the “talking.”
We immediately see how intellectually and morally dangerous self-assurance can be. It arrogates an authority that in fact the person cannot claim to possess, for it is not backed up by valid credentials.
Strange as it may sound, this self-assurance can go hand in hand with skepticism in domains where truths are indubitably available to the human mind: either because they are revealed (God’s word), or self-evident, or absolutely given, such as one’s own existence. Great minds (such as Plato, Aristotle, and St. Augustine) have shown convincingly that man is capable of achieving unshakable certainty in the above-mentioned domains. The authority of God’s word is such that the only valid, rational response to its message is “I believe”; or the credentials of the object are so luminous (as in veritates aeternae), that joyous assent is called for (St. Augustine put this beautifully: “Let us embrace the truth and rejoice” [de libero arbitrio, II, XIII, 35]). To claim certainty because the fact is indubitably convincing is at the very antipodes of self-assurance.
The striking difference between the two cases lies in the fact that in the first, a person is certain of himself, of the validity of his position, of the remarkable sharpness of his mind. In the other case, a person humbly and gratefully receives the information that an object rich in valid credentials offers him. The self-assured person is “exercising” his intellectual rights, and “creates” his opinion. The person granted certainty is receptive (and receptivity to truth is the very essence of knowledge), and gratefully and humbly accepts it.
It would be ludicrous to be “grateful” for one’s opinions. But everyone who has been granted to perceive an objective truth should respond with gratitude.
One only needs to read St. Augustine’s Confessions to realize that gratitude always accompanied his perception of a newly conquered truth.
But intellectual confusion is the trademark of our contemporary world; time and again I have witnessed that intellectuals brand those who believe God’s word, or are certain of the objectivity of truth, as “arrogantly” self-assured. This is of course a countersense.
Self-assurance is nothing but pride; but refusal to give assent to a fact that has all the credentials necessary to grant certainty to the knower, is another form of the same disease. For the proud intellectual refuses to “receive”; he wants to “create” his own truth, but alas, to “create” truth is to produce another error. Acceptance of truth, on the other hand, is an expression of intellectual humility; for the mind submits to what is. The person convinced of the existence of objective truth, and of man’s capacity to reach it, knows that the truth he has attained is neither his own individual production nor his possession (St. Augustine, On Free Will, II, X, 28).
If it is true, it is true for all men, and open to all of them. Error is always the said personal possession of its creator; no one can claim a patent for truth; but every error entitled its inventor to one.
For this reason truth alone can unite. It is essentially ours — a most precious gift offered to everyone; all we need so is to open our hands to receive it. Granted that few individuals have a rich knowledge of truths (for ignorance, stupidity, prejudices, and intellectual laziness prevent many from finding it), truth in its very essence cannot be esoteric: All men are invited to its banquet; it is up to them to accept this invitation. On the other hand, error is essentially divisive, for error’s name is legion.
Once again, we are going to draw the same conclusion; we should strive for wisdom, for the spirit of discernment which will enable us to realize how dangerous self-assurance is and how it radically differs from the blessing of absolute certainty. Only fools or fanatics are willing to die for their subjective opinions. But there are truths that men should live for, and for this very reason, that they should be willing to die for.
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