On Being Sure About Things We Don’t Know – Sunday, May 04, 1941
One of the most startling things about humanity is that quality which permits us to be so sure about things we don’t know—which permits us to be so utterly positive in our opinions, and yet be so wrong. History has given us many examples of uncompromising declarations which the verdict of succeeding generations has found to be in error. Things which only yesterday we were dogmatically taught in school, are being replaced by other theories which today in some quarters are taught with equal dogmatism, some of which will also later be discarded.
Constantly there are being challenged, discredited and abandoned man-made doctrine and dogma that have heretofore at some time or other been pushed into our consciousness by the pointing of the professional finger or the pounding of pulpits. Theories are often the stepping stones to truth, but they must be regarded with suspicion until greater light comes to credit or discredit them conclusively. Some things, which to question would once have been akin to heresy, have long since fallen with their own unsupportable weight.
Wisdom comes when we learn to know how much we don’t know, and when we learn to remember how much that was accepted as dogmatic truth yesterday is now in the discard, and how many of today’s positive assertions will be discarded by those who follow us. And so, in all our searching and in all our soundings of the truths of life, before we become too positive in a wrong direction, we could save ourselves a good deal of trouble to remember that when two men fundamentally disagree in a matter of belief, whether it be religious or scientific, or in any other field of thought or learning, either one of them is wrong or both of them are wrong. It would be well also to remember that dogmatism is not confined to religion. “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom and the man that getteth understanding.” (Proverbs 3:13) Thus spoke the writer of Proverbs.
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May 04, 1941
Broadcast Number 0,611