Without having already dedicated oneself to soundly building one's own philosophical knowledge and standing by rationalistic reflection, it is pointless to try to help others become intellectually and morally competent (not that anyone ultimately needs others to do so). In this sense, one's own self always needs to be a higher priority than anyone else, and yet this is not selfishness. Selfishness comes about when a person disregards or violates actual moral obligations to other beings; realizing that one's own relationship with truth and with the evidence for Christianity (which may or may not turn out to be wholly true) need not be dismissed for the sake of others is far from selfish.
It is actually irrational to focus on positively influencing other people more than one does on developing and reflecting on one's own worldview--if someone does not know truth for themselves, they can only offer little to no help to others. The only assistance that such a person can grant others is incomplete, incidental, or insincere. If one is to help others understand philosophical truths--again, not that anyone needs to rely on a person rather than on reason to do so--one must already understand those philosophical truths on one's own.
One's own intellectual, moral, and spiritual status must come before that of anyone else if one is to even understand what is at stake when trying to reason with others. Again, this is not the same as selfishness. A selfish lifestyle is one of selective or total egoism, which is nothing but a focus on one's desires and preferences at the expense of all else. A person can care about the philosophical and soteriological status of other people while rightly caring more about whether they are where they need to be in light of reason and morality.
When correcting the ideological errors of others or evangelizing with them, this truth needs to be kept in mind. It is better to refrain from engaging with someone who desperately needs to a rationalistic worldview for the sake of oneself than it is to influence them thoroughly for the better at one's own expense. Before truth can be shared with other people (who are capable of discovering logical truths completely on their own with effort and intentionality), it must already be understood by the person who wishes to share it.
This reminds me of Jesus' command of taking the plank out of your own eye first (Matt 7:3-5). I think that principle is definitely applicable here. At worst, it can be downright hypocritical trying to help someone in a certain subject when they're in fact, inexperienced and/or don't have it all together in that department neither. The perfect word describing that kind of person is "sanctimonious", even if they have the best of intentions.
ReplyDeleteThat's a very applicable principle indeed. It is certainly hypocritical to profess the ability to help others when one doesn't even know the nature of the issue(s) they're trying to help with. At worst, someone who does this is an intentional deceiver, and at best, such a person is an unintentional fraud. There is no use for either.
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