“What a beautiful discipline it is to strain to find value in others’ perspectives and to strain to find fault in our own.”-Mark R. McMinn

These are some excerpts from a book my mommy is reading by Mark R. McMinn; I’d never heard of the guy before, but some of this stuff rings all too true and seems to me to really hit some things on the head. I heard a similar analysis by Jerry Root when he said that reason is the weakest element of the soul; that when we sin, it is our reason that attempts to justify our actions. Remarks anyone???

"One way to combat our presumptuous thinking is to actively search for ways we may be wrong, to deliberately look at things from another perspective and find the error in ours. We need to see our capacity for self-deception. We are sinners, broken in every way, and when we grasp this truth, we begin to see that others may be right and we may be wrong."

"Not only are we presumptuous, but we are often wrong in our thinking. Social scientists have described various sorts of thinking errors: we filter out important information while focusing in on selected details; we misconstrue things by using mental “shortcuts” based on what is most available in our memories; we create rigid mental stereotypes and then falsely interpret the world in light of our preconceived ideas; and we are vulnerable to making foolish choices when information is presented in a misleading context. In short, we are quick to make up our mind, often wrong, and easily manipulated."

"Our prideful capacity to think wrongly and to justify sinful choices is terrifying. Not only do we need others to help us think well, but we also need enough humility to accept what they have to say."

“This is not a call to retreat from thinking. Let’s celebrate our capacity to think by studying, reading, reasoning, and engaging in rich and lively dialogue with others. But let’s remember that our reasoning is part of our sinful state and thus vulnerable to error. We need each other to help us think better than we might alone, and we need enough humility to admit our need for others. And if we are humble enough-or if we become humble enough through the tragedies of life-our reasoning will help lead us down the dusty path and into the arms of the One who granted us this great gift in the first place.”

- Mark R. McMinn