THE EXPERTS

In the age of "trust the science" and "fake news", my estimation of any particular person's "expertise" on anything has been greatly diminished. 

For one thing, experts are still human beings - with their own unique biases and vast areas of complete ignorance. Add in faulty human reasoning. In fact, the more years that person invested in that study, the greater the pull of confirmation bias: everywhere they will see evidence that confirms "I was right!" 

Meanwhile, all evidence to the contrary will be downplayed or ignored entirely. We all do this.  

(Besides, how often do 100% of the experts agree on anything? You can only get 4 out of 5 to agree on which toothpaste is best. Somebody is wrong. Is the majority position always right?) 

So I must confess something: When it comes to theological "experts", if such an expert is recommended to me, the first thing I do is check out their stance on Calvinism.

I just type "Was J.I. Packer a Calvinist?" into Google and - boom - I learn something about this particular expert. (He was.)

To be clear, I am not saying that when I discover some theologian is a Calvinist that in my mind it calls into question every last thing that person has taught. (But definitely SOME of what they have taught.)

It simply serves to remind me that any expert can be wrong in big and important ways. 

And that, I think, is a good and useful perspective to keep in mind.

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And if you think that I am wrong in my stance on Calvinism, then good for you! You might be right. Feel free to question everything an Arminian expert teaches. The fact still stands that SOME THEOLOGIANS are 100% incorrect on at least one important topic. We might disagree about who is wrong, but we both should conclude that "expert" does not equal "right". 

By the way, it should be obvious that I have a confirmation bias against Calvinists, so anyone wanting to sway my opinion on a theological matter would be wise to quote "experts" who lean Arminian. 

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