How do you know you’re a critical thinker?

What is a critical thinker? Plato answered that with a story. Some people living in a cave were chained so they could only see the wall in front of them. On that wall danced shadows of people and animals. This was the only thing the prisoners knew since the moment of birth—all their talk and beliefs were about these shadows. One prisoner is then freed. He stands up, turns around, and is suddenly blinded by light. As his eyes acclimate, he sees that the shadows are cast by puppets dancing before a fire. He makes his way to the cave entrance and exits. For a second time he is blinded by light. Stumbling along, he sees that the shadows were just imitations of real plants and animals. With his new insight, he returns to his friends in the cave, wanting to share his joys with them. As his eyes adjust to the dark again, his friends tell him his “insights” have blinded him. They reject his new ideas as harmful to their beliefs and practices. In the end they kill him.

So, what is a critical thinker? It is someone who is not blinded by their own beliefs and engages in self-examination. In short, a critical thinker’s beliefs and practices are grounded in good reasons and not in following the flow.

How do you know whether you are blinded by ignorance or have the truth others resist?

The Catholic and Southern Baptist churches are rooting out sexual abuse among their leaders and members, but how did these abuses begin? Why did they survive unchecked for so long? The answer is church culture. The evangelical church has been struggling in the past half-century to overcome the legalistic fundamentalism of the past and replace it with grace-filled parenting, counseling, marriage, evangelism, and other community practices. A church’s doctrine is not the same as their traditions, though the two are intertwined. We may not always practice what we preach.

We are born into a community. As we grow, we learn our community’s beliefs and practices, how to talk the talk and walk the walk of our people. Each individual is part of multiple communities. Our friends, family, church, political party, coworkers, and interest groups all affect our thought patterns. We are also influenced through news, social media, entertainment, and advertising. Even if we resist those, your family, friends, and coworkers have beliefs affected by media and national culture. Our beliefs are affected in subtle and nonconscious ways.

In the 18th century American South, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) split off from northern Baptists to defend slave owners becoming missionaries. Thankfully, the SBC later renounced its racist origins for better biblical reasons, but at the time, it was known for using the Bible to defend slavery. They read the Bible through the lens of their beliefs and practices.

Culture influences us, but it does not have to blind us. There may be good and bad elements to our traditions, but we can only see them if we think critically and biblically. It was critical thinking that ended the British and American slave trade. In the 19th century England, a small group of Anglicans known as the Clapham Sect dared to challenge their culture by pointing out the hypocrisy of “Christian” legislators. The Bible itself encourages self-evaluation and critical thinking. “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves” (1 Cr 13:5). “test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Th 5:21).

If we don’t use critical thinking, we won’t even realize who is influencing us. We parrot the beliefs of our community and respond in the same way as our friends. Whether it is a belief about politics, religion, or even sports, we tend to go with the flow. It’s easier. We like being part of a group. But groupthink and confirmation bias can propagate more than just racism. It blinds us to our own vices.

Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Plato’s Allegory of the Cave likens the lack of critical thinking to the life of cave-dwellers who only knew life in the shadows—their slice of reality. When told an unfamiliar truth by a traveller, the truth of their blindness, they killed him, thinking his ideas harmful.

If we do not examine our lives and the reasonableness of our beliefs and practices, we will be like leaves “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Ephesians 4:14). Leaves are not tied down, they fly free. If we don’t think for ourselves, we will feel free because we are blind to our own shackles, blind to our influences, and unable to see that there are other and better beliefs and practices.

On the other hand, we can be anchored to truth. If the culture of our community is grounded in biblical wisdom, we are free to pull up anchor and ride the wave. If not, we can resist cultural tides and others can cling to us as they do the same.

So what do we do? First, engage in self-examination to investigate whether your beliefs and practices are wise. Plato says the difference between knowledge and opinion is that knowledge has good justification. We can’t do this well without dialogue with others, especially people with different ideas. We learn in community, and that is right, but that shouldn’t blind us like Plato’s cave dwellers. We should avoid confirmation bias and groupthink by seriously considering differing opinions.

Second, cultivate intellectual humility. Truth is truth wherever it is found. “All truth is God’s truth” as the saying goes. If we love the truth more than our ego, then we’ll have to be humble enough to admit that we’re wrong and honest enough to not brush away dissenting opinions without seriously considering their reasons.

Third, search and read about your own beliefs. If we’re wrong and blind, then how will we know it? We have to investigate reasons and counter-arguments. Our beliefs grow stronger in response to opposition. Or, we may find that others are more rational than us, and we must tweek or change our thoughts and practices.

The question is this: Will you examine your life and make it worth living? Will you find wise reasons for your beliefs and practices, rather than just going with the flow? Will you seriously consider the unfamiliar ideas of others, humbly admitting they might see something you don’t?