Objection: “But you don’t have an open mind!”

Ever heard it before? Well, it won’t be the first or last time if you are involved in trying to be biblical in your counseling. Let’s see how you might answer.

Response: Right. And neither do you. Your very objection indicates that you have a position on the matter. As a matter of fact, those who most vigorously advocate open-mindedness often viciously attack others who believe in being close-minded. It is logically impossible to hold an open-minded position with conviction. That is, in itself, a contradiction. Either one has no convictions on the subject (which isn’t open-mindedness, but simple lack of conviction), or he holds firmly to a position for or against open-mindedness (and in neither case can he be open-minded toward the opposite position).”

An open mind is like an open window; you have to put in screens to keep the bugs out! That is the way that a professor in one seminary puts it. He means, of course, that a person without convictions is open to everyone else’s opinions (no matter how outrageous). Many who boast of having an open mind simply don’t have convictions about anything much. As the Peanuts crowd puts it, they are wishy-washy.

Christian counselors must be closed-minded about open-mindedness. They are required not to be swept along by every wind of doctrine (especially counseling doctrine, which changes at least as often as the breeze) like those without convictions.^[1] At the same time, they must be as open-minded as the Holy Spirit will make them toward scriptural truth. Here is one place where open-mindedness is both desirable and possible. The Spirit alone can truly open the mind and heart to the changes demanded in the Bible.^[2]

When the Christian speaks of closed-mindedness, then he considers it a virtue and not a vice. But the sort of closed-mindedness that he applauds isn’t pig-headed bigotry. Rather, it is the conviction that what God says in the Bible is true. And it is that very Bible that insists that he open his mind to facts wherever they are found.^[3] But such data may not be accepted uncritically. They must be screened. The Scriptures are the screen by which the Christian keeps the bugs out. As his Standard of faith and life, the Bible keeps him from becoming the flypaper to which every sort of belief sticks.

[1] Ephesians 4:14.

[2] Luke 24:32.

[3] 1 Thessalonians 5:21.

 

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