Too Much Epistemic Humility

Now and then we find an article that is interesting because of its ambiguity. Such was an offering by Benjamin Vincent in Christianity Today (3/21/25) titled “Firm Faith Doesn’t Require a Closed Mind.” It is worth a look because of some things we can learn from the author’s seeming inability to come to any real conclusion. 

Mr. Vincent promotes the thesis that “there is no contradiction between unshakeable faith and intellectual humility.” While his thesis is true, he is never able to explain why, in a way, that is helpful. 

His article opens by posing the seeming contradiction, or at least conflict, between open-mindedness and humility. Shouldn’t Christians, Vincent says, “hold tightly to truth”? At the same time shouldn’t we recognize that “our understanding is so small, and the ways of God and His creation are so vast … [that we should] … hold our views loosely?” He poses the conflict like this: “Should Christians be regarded for our intellectual openness or renowned for our resolute resolve?” 

Vincent’s solution takes this tact: “In our praise and pursuit of a firm faith, we must not neglect the virtue of biblical epistemic humility.” He begins his exploration of this solution by trying to make a distinction between two kinds of curiosity. He presents several warnings against one version of curiosity, from the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4:4 through Augustine and various other commentators on Scripture. 

This leads Vincent to the conclusion there is a kind of curiosity that “is an expression of pride and a vessel for temptation.” Christians, he says, are right to “caution against this kind of open-mindedness.” He even calls this an “evil.” 

He seems to be saying that Christians should accept what God has said, not doubt it, and live by it. At this point my only complaint is that he could have made this point in many fewer words, but now he turns to his main point: 

There is, however, another kind of curiosity: the kind of open-mindedness that exists as an expression of humility and an acknowledgment of our own limitations. Scripture praises this posture, while warning against the arrogance of stubbornness and intellectual pride. 

It is here Vincent goes off the rails in a way that, while regrettable, does present a chance for us to learn something important from his mistakes. Again, Vincent has made the point that we should listen to what God has said in Scripture. Keep that in mind as we proceed. 

Vincent now points out where he thinks the real problem lies: 

As the Bible attests, God’s people are not known for our responsiveness to input, receptivity to change, or willingness to listen. In fact, if anything can be called our most consistent trait across the millennia, it is probably our hard hearts and stubborn minds. 

This is, of course, true, but where Vincent tries to go with this is astounding. 

He cites Exodus 32:9 which calls the Israelites “a stiff-necked people” when they made a golden calf to worship. He cites other references to the having “a stubborn heart” and being “obstinate.” He concludes, “we are all inclined to be closed-minded people.” 

He then cites Ezekiel 36:36 as the solution to this problem, where God makes the new covenant promise of a new heart and a new spirit and the replacement of a heart of stone with a heart of flesh. Here, Vincent claims, is the solution to the seeming conflict. It means we can become people ready “to listen and be changed.” However, he claims that we thwart this “whenever we confuse intellectual stubbornness for firmness of faith.” 

However, we must ask, doesn’t “firmness of faith” require we have some things that we believe are true and will not abandon? Vincent thinks he has the answer to this. He calls this solution “relational trust.” By this, he means, “The firmness of my faith ought not be rooted in my immovability or the stubbornness of my worldview but in the undying faithfulness of the one who loved me and gave himself for me.” 

Here is one of those things we so often hear that sounds both important and correct — until we think about it carefully. For my faith to be rooted in God’s undying faithfulness, I must believe and accept what God has said about Himself. I must believe and accept the idea that God is faithful, just for one point. Is Vincent saying we can be “too sure” of something like that? What exactly is he saying? 

He tries to explain himself by proclaiming, “a thoroughly biblical understanding of epistemic humility means rejoicing in a relationship with the eternal God and trusting that His vast and timeless knowledge far exceeds our own. I may not be certain about many things, but I have decided to follow Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, because He has given me good cause to trust Him. In fact, I would do well to trust Him more than I trust myself.” 

All the things Vincent demands that we trust involve matters of fact about God, His nature (“His vast and timeless knowledge”) and our own limitations. Without some significant degree of certainty about these things, Vincent’s whole proposal simply doesn’t make much sense. 

A key to what is wrong with what Vincent is saying is in this statement above, “I would do well to trust Him more than I trust myself.” Vincent is claiming the opposition between “unshakeable faith and intellectual humility” is a false choice. In other words, he thinks there can be both, but his solution is completely inadequate because of the false choice he presents here: trusting God versus trusting self. 

We must be clear on this point to understand what is wrong here: by “self” Vincent is talking about what an individual can know about God, the world, and so forth. In other words, he is talking about what is sometimes called “worldview.” This can slip by us because there are many important senses in which we must trust God more than ourselves, but don’t miss this: if we truly trust God, one necessary result is that we trust God’s promise of truth through revelation. For that to be at all meaningful, we must be able to understand the revelation. If we can’t understand what God has said, He has failed to reveal anything at all. 

Vincent is convinced he has discovered some important point here. In fact, he has waded into a meaningless muddle of contradictory ideas. He tries to conclude his article with all kinds of disclaimers such as this: “The call for humility is not a call to abandon the pillars of our faith and embrace postmodern skepticism.” But it must be some kind of skepticism about the possibility of understanding what God has revealed about Himself and His creation. Because, if God is able to successfully communicate with us, there is no problem to solve here. The very fact that we appeal to what God has revealed, and not what we might speculate, is part of the very essence of trust in God and not ourselves. 

It is not a lack of “epistemic humility” to hear and comprehend what God has said, accept it, and refuse to deviate from it. That is the brand of epistemic humility that Christianity requires. Vincent keeps talking about the “refusal to consider the possibility of error in one’s own judgment.” However, he is clearly making all kinds of judgments by appeals to Scripture. Why can he make these, and seemingly hold to them firmly, while being worried about those who “insist on believing that we know what is true, real, and good.” 

In the end, the problem proposed by Benjamin Vincent is not a problem at all, but the solution he proposes to this imagined problem is itself a real problem. At one point, he quotes a religion professor with whom he agrees who says that the kind of open-mindedness Vincent is trying to describe is “a midpoint between two intellectual vices, a sort of apex between the valleys of dogma and doubt.” 

The middle way, often extolled as a great virtue, is not always correct. There is no virtue in Christianity for some kind of semi-doubt. When we begin to assume we cannot understand and hold firm to what God has revealed about Himself, life, and reality, it goes even beyond gobbledygook.

It becomes a serious and dangerous error.