There’s a reason why parables like “The Composer’s New Violin” (or “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” which I totally copied for my story) stand the test of time. Even if the setting is one we can’t relate to, the lessons we take from it are still ones of value today. Pride will always be something we have to be aware of. And we “regular folk” know enough about certain things to know if a statement is true or false without having to be subject matter experts.
Experts Are Humans, Too
One of the main takeaways of the story of the Composer’s New Violin is that experts are humans, too. They aren’t emotionless logical machines who let reason rule the day at all times. Experts can be concerned about their reputation, just like the rest of us are. They can be worried about losing their jobs and being exiled from their communities. Cancel Culture is nothing new. Now, we just try to shut people up. In the past, we burned people with heretical views at the stake. Who among us wouldn’t reconsider saying something our expert buddies disagree with if the result could be us literally going up in smoke?
Part of our modern vernacular is to say things like “the science says”. The truth is that science doesn’t say anything. Scientists do. In other words, the scientific method gives us data points. But it’s up to humans to interpret that data. Humans who have their own worldviews and who can make mistakes.
Experts Get Things Wrong
Another way that experts show their humanness is that they get things wrong, too. For example, scientists used to believe that the universe was static, constant, a fixed size. The size it is now is the size it always had been and always will be. One of the greatest champions of this view was Albert Einstein. But, once Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe was expanding – and he showed this expansion to Einstein – Einstein was forced to drop his theory because new evidence had been introduced.
Einstein is a great example of the humanness of brilliant thinkers. Before Hubble showed him the evidence for an expanding universe through a telescope, Einstein had started to see something similar in his mathematical equations. But Einstein was so committed to his view of an eternal universe that when the math didn’t work out right, he invented a constant to add to his equations that would make them work the way he wanted them to. In other words, he fudged it.
Experts Often Disagree
The story of Einstein and Hubble illustrates another point about experts. Two highly intelligent, highly accredited people often disagree with the evidence. Nowhere is this clearer than in a courtroom. Both the prosecution and the defense have access to the same evidence. Both sides will put highly qualified expert witnesses on the stand to tell the jury how to interpret the evidence. And they usually disagree on how we should interpret the evidence.
Be A Child-like Truth Seeker
One of the major sins (need a better word) demonstrated in this story is the sin of pride. At certain stages of our lives, we care more and more about our social station and how we appear to others. The more our network of status and friendship grows, the less likely we become to say something that may risk that status. We don’t want people to think we are weird or that we hold views outside of what our friend groups have accepted to be true. In some cases, holding views outside of the friend group could get you shunned. In certain academic circles, it can get you blacklisted. And, in some cultures, it can get you killed.
Jesus had to deal with the sin of pride amongst his disciples as well. In Matthew 18:1-4, the disciples are concerned with what their status is in the kingdom of heaven. And, Jesus told them they needed to “become like children” or they would never enter the kingdom.
What Jesus was talking about was having humility. Not letting one’s pride get in the way. The child in the story of the Composer’s New Violin isn’t demonstrating humility, per se. But he is showing a lack of concern for his social station by speaking the truth, by speaking something all the adults could plainly see (or hear), but were too afraid to let anyone else know what they saw (or heard). Or didn’t see (or hear), as the case may be. They were afraid of being thought of as ignorant and uneducated. They were afraid of losing their positions with the orchestra. So, they went along with the false narrative.
Don’t Take It Too Far
Distrusting experts can be taken too far the other way as well. We shouldn’t completely ignore expert opinion. I rely on subject matter experts to learn all the things I want to learn. When I dive into theological topics, I turn to various highly accredited theologians to see how they interpret specific passages. But I should never hold a position just because Dr. Aton E. Ment said so. It’s my job to weigh what he said in light of what else I know about the world and decide what’s true or false.
I’m not suggesting we should go the other way and immediately be suspicious of experts, though. Someone who has a PhD in microbiology (even someone who has taken a single class in microbiology) has put in more work on the topic than I have. I should definitely listen to what they have to say. But that doesn’t mean I should automatically agree with them. Expert witnesses have more value than someone who watched a video on YouTube. But just like in any court case, both sides have their expert witnesses, and it’s up to the jury to decide the case. It’s my responsibility to think things through on my own and not let others do the thinking for me.
I’m not suggesting your instinct should be your ultimate source of truth, either. Your instinct isn’t always right. Science has done a wonderful job of enlightening us about the world we live in. When I go out for a walk, my instinct is that the Earth is flat. It certainly doesn’t seem like I’m walking on the surface of a large, round ball. And yet, we know that the Earth is round. It was discovered through scientific observation first and then verified by observation from outer space hundreds of years later, when we put a camera into space.
Instinct can also be clouded. Or even manipulated. In the past couple of decades, news sources have become extremely polarized and one-sided. If you only consume news from sources that you already agree with, they will begin to shape your view of reality.
We, The Jury
This is why it’s up to us as individuals to come to our own conclusions on what the truth is. We have to be the jury on these matters, weigh the evidence, listen to the testimony of the expert witnesses, and judge the case for ourselves. This is how juries work. They aren’t made up of subject matter experts for the specific facts of a given trial; they are made up of “regular people”.
I get the intimidation factor, though. People are given the title “expert” for a reason: because they know a lot about a given topic. And, if two experts are debating something, I have to admit that when they start getting into the finer points, I’m usually out of my league. If two musicians were debating Steve Vai vs Joe Satriani, I could follow most of the conversation. But as soon as the debate boiled down to the use of diatonic mixalidian 5ths vs quadrupal dorian half-step sweep picking, I’m way above my pay grade.
I would never call myself a musician. I used to be able to play alto saxophone, and I used to be able to pluck a few riffs on a guitar. I don’t know music theory, though. I can’t tell you all the notes in a given scale, and I can’t explain modes.
But I’ve listened to enough music in my lifetime to know what music sounds like. I don’t have to understand the key a song is in to know when a guitar player hits a wrong note, when a singer is off key, or when the bass player is out of time with the rest of the band.
The point is that in many areas of life, we all possess enough general knowledge about a given topic that we can have informed views on things we don’t have degrees in. Music is one of those areas.
I’m not a botanist, and I don’t know how basketballs are manufactured, but I know enough about plants and basketballs to know that if I found one in a bush while taking a hike in the woods, it didn’t grow on the bush. Someone was involved in getting it there. And, if someone who is well studied in the world of plants, who has lots of credentials on their walls and letters after their name, tells me the basketball grew in the bush, I can know he’s either lying or just wrong. I don’t have to take his word for it just because he has more degrees than I do.
My analogy of the basketball in the bush is what Douglas Axe would call “design instinct”. The focus of his book Undeniable is on the appearance of design in the natural world and how even people without advanced degrees can feel justified in seeing it.
In the pages of this site, I will also argue that we have a “musical instinct”. We have listened to enough music in our lifetimes to hear the significant difference between a bird singing and the Brandenburg Concertos. Both are beautiful sounds. But only one demonstrates the extreme level of intelligence required to produce it.
Three Steps To Seeking The Truth
The first step in seeking the truth is to be humble. I admit that the more knowledge I gain on a topic, the harder it is to be humble about it. My instinct is to immediately reject something that goes against what I already hold to be true. Rather than trying to understand what it is they are saying, I immediately try to find holes and flaws. But if the goal is to be a seeker of truth, I have to stay humble and be open to having my ideas challenged.
The second thing we have to do if we want to seek the truth is not to be lazy. If I’m interested in something, I can’t read an article and watch a video and consider the issue closed. It’s really easy to leave all the hard work to the experts and then just take their words as the truth.
There’s a twisted urge to do this in the “Share, Like, and Comment” era of social media because we feel like we have to have something to add to the conversation in a rapidly evolving news cycle. Before I commit to a position (especially on Big Picture questions), I should put in the work. Listen to experts on both sides. And THEN start to form an opinion.
The last piece of advice if we want to seek the truth is an offshoot of the previous point. We need to stop surrendering to the experts. We have to weigh the evidence and think things through for ourselves. The experts are humans, too. They make mistakes. They face pressures to go a certain way. They also don’t always agree. For every issue, you’ll have one expert with research and a study that contradicts other experts ‘ studies.
And lest you think we should immediately go with the consensus, I’ll point out that progress means someone discovered something that goes against the consensus. The consensus by the educated used to be that the Earth was flat and that the Earth was at the center of the universe.
Discovery usually starts with an inquiry. Why is this thing that way? As “regular folk”, we know enough about the world to know certain things are true or false without having to be subject matter experts. We have the ability to evaluate subject matter experts when they disagree. And, if we really are on a truth quest, we need to be ready to speak up when something doesn’t sound right.
David is an author and speaker with Legati Christi where he has written about and spoken on multiple apologetic and theological topics for the past 6 years. He recently launched Theology In Music as a way to combine his love of theology with his other passion in life – music.
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