You have been taught that the highest achievement of the intellectual life is to be "unbiased." You have been trained by the academy, by the media, and by the religious system to believe that the most sophisticated posture is that of the neutral observer, the man who can calmly present "all the perspectives" without ever committing to one.
This is a lie.
It is the most sophisticated, most praised, and most spiritually lethal lie of this present evil eon. The "unbiased" mind is not an enlightened mind. It is a castrated one. It is a mind that has voluntarily surrendered its primary function: to judge.
Let us be precise. The modern cult of "unbias" is not a pursuit of truth. It is a flight from responsibility. It is a system designed to protect its adherents from the terrifying possibility of being wrong. The man who concludes, "Critics say X, while supporters say Y," has not offered an insight. He has performed an act of intellectual cowardice. He has refused to do the hard, necessary work of weighing the evidence, of applying a standard, and of rendering a verdict. He is a reporter, not a thinker. He is a curator of opinions, not a pursuer of truth.
The scripture does not praise this kind of intellectual pacifism. It commands the opposite. It commands a state of perpetual, rigorous, discerning judgment.
"But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man." (1 Corinthians 2:15 KJV).
The word for "judges" is ἀνακρίνει (anakrinei). It is a legal term. It means to examine, to investigate, to scrutinize for the purpose of rendering a verdict. [See G350] We are not called to be neutral observers of "the different views." We are called to be prosecuting attorneys, subjecting every thought, every doctrine, and every teacher to a brutal cross-examination against the unyielding standard of the word of God.
Now, the religious and secular systems will hear this and cry, "But that is bias!"
And we will answer: Yes. It is.
They have turned "bias" into a slur. They have defined it as an "unfair prejudice." But what is a prejudice? It is a pre-judgment, a standard that is applied to all incoming data. A mind without a prejudice is a mind without an operating system. It is a useless collection of random facts with no way to process them.
The question is not whether you have a bias. The question is, is your bias correct?
The religious system has a bias: the preservation of its traditions and its institutions.
The world has a bias: the deification of human reason and the autonomy of the self.
We have a bias: the absolute, singular, and final authority of the apostolic revelation given to Paul.
Our bias is not an "unfair" prejudice. It is the very standard of truth against which all other claims must be judged.
Was Paul "unbiased" when he confronted the Judaizers? No. He was ruthlessly biased in favor of the Evangel of Grace. He did not "present the different views" on circumcision. He said, "if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing" (Galatians 5:2). He rendered a verdict.
Was Christ "unbiased" when he confronted the Pharisees? No. He was ruthlessly biased in favor of the truth of His own identity. He did not say, "Some of you believe I am a prophet, others believe I am a blasphemer, and both are valid perspectives." He said, "if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins" (John 8:24). He rendered a verdict.
The modern "unbiased" man is a useless man. He is a judge who refuses to pass sentence. He is a soldier who refuses to choose a side. He is a man who, in his terror of being wrong, has forfeited the possibility of ever being right.
Do not be deceived by their pretense of sophistication. Their "unbiasedness" is a spiritual and intellectual disease. It is the paralysis of a mind that has no standard. We are not called to be unbiased. We are called to be biased in favor of the truth, to take our stand on the word of God, and to judge all things by its unwavering light. Anything less is a cowardly abdication of our calling.
But let us be surgically precise. To be biased is not to be ignorant. The two are, in fact, opposites.
The "unbiased" man of the modern world is the truly ignorant one. He skims the surface of a dozen different arguments, collecting them like souvenirs. He can tell you what the Arian believes, and what the Calvinist believes, and what the Socinian believes. But he does not truly understand any of them, because he has never subjected them to the brutal, internal pressure of a rigorous cross-examination against a fixed standard. His is the shallow knowledge of the curator. He knows the labels on the jars, but he does not know what is inside them.
The biased man, the Pauline exegete, is the one who is compelled to understand the opponent's position with a terrifying and intimate clarity. Why? Because his goal is not to "present" it. His goal is to destroy it.
This is the nature of our work. I am not advocating for a position that doesn't engage with opposing views. I am advocating for the most intense and hostile form of engagement possible.
Do not confuse the intellectual cowardice of the "unbiased" man with the strategic necessity of understanding your enemy. We do not engage with their arguments to find "common ground." We engage with them to find the perfect place to plant the demolition charge.
Do not just teach a man how to use a sword. Teach him that he has the right to use it.
"Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them." (Romans 16:17 KJV).
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