Critique—done well—is a gift to the one being criticized. We should welcome the opportunity to have our thinking corrected and clarified. We see through a glass dimly, and God has gifted the church with teachers who often see things more clearly than we do at present. In God’s providence and through the gift of common grace he may also use unbelievers to critique our views, showing our logical mistakes or lack of clarity.
Justin Taylor has a helpful, succinct guide to remember when offering up critiques. Three basic rules:
- understand a position before critiquing a position (wisdom from philosopher Mortimer Adler, in his classic, How to Read a Book
- observe self-criticism (a selection from theologian, John Frame)
- offer an alternative (a useful quote from Millard Erickson's Christian Theology, the old standard systematic theology used when I was a seminary student in another life on another planet)
Taylor concludes:
The above three points won’t prevent us from making every mistake, but they will help us be better critics and therefore better servants of God and truth
Super advice. I hope we all consider and heed...
With that, I am...
Peter
Good stuff to remember, I lived between the ages, I suppose. I was assigned "Big Green" (Erickson) for one class and then "Big Blue" (You-know-who) for a later one. :)
Peter, in your estimation, do any of these three things jump out over the others as one people are most guilty of not doing? Number 1 seems like a biggie. If people spent more time abiding by that one rule, I suspect comment sections of blogs would fill up much more slowly than they tend to. I'm sure we have all been guilty not doing of these things at times.
Posted by: Jody | 2011.08.30 at 07:46 PM