The highest form of ignorance

Mark Twain the motivational speaker and author of more than thirty self-help books, has a number of good insights to share, but none better than his observation that "the highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about.” Why this struck me so forcibly is that I have just been reading an account of the life and accomplishments of Francis Collins, the noted physician-geneticist who served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. Not only his educational background (PhD from Yale and MD from UNC), but his professional achievements in modem molecular genetics give us good reason to listen when he speaks.
       When Dr. Collins was in graduate school he considered him­ self an atheist, but somewhat later he rather realized that he had rejected the Christian faith without ever having examined it, and that was diametrically opposed to the scientific method that had ruled his life. It was time to examine his religious view of life, which he did with the help of C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. The result was a clear-cut conversion to Evangelical Christianity. What is so interesting to me is that the scientific method, which withholds any conclusion until all the evidence is examined, led a serious and informed intellectual to personal faith in Christ.
       It would appear that we are not faced with two kinds of truth: scientific truth which informs us of the universe in which we live, and religious truth that deals with values and other issues that lie beyond our ability to verify. The Christian worldview holds that there is only one kind of truth: what is true in science will not contradict revelation, and what is true in scripture will not have to be set aside due to the advance of science. Since truth is one, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that everything we know to be true will exhibit an inner consistency. Otherwise truth is something less than we have always understood it to be.
       So when we are tempted to reject an area of knowledge of which we are uninformed, we should consider with care the possibility that we may be exhibiting "the highest form of ignorance.” This is especially true of the Christian faith, because since the dawn of history the spiritual dimension in reality has played a central role in man's experience. To ignore it or decide against it apart from careful examination could have some serious and eternal consequences.