Inconsistent self

This is just a short thought in con­tin­u­a­tion from my post yes­ter­day on the virtue of mag­na­nim­ity. I find that there are cer­tain feel­ings which are related to those of inad­e­quacy, and I’ll call them ‘thoughts of con­sis­tency”. To give an exam­ple, this would take the form of doing or say­ing some­thing early in life and then com­ing to dis­agree with that view as one grows older. Truth­fully I don’t think there is any­thing wrong with this, and would think it rather hard to grow if not for express­ing views which are allowed to evolve. Take for instance a post I wrote quite a while ago, “Response to Post­mod­ern Bib­li­cal Author­ity” (it’s worth read­ing, so check it out). Since writ­ing it I’ve come to read more on the sub­ject (such as Lyotard’s books), and as a result I’ve come to bet­ter under­stand the argu­ment pre­sented.  Now, this is a case where I don’t nec­es­sar­ily agree with my con­clu­sion, though I wouldn’t say I still agree with my line of argu­ment (because, as a com­menter pointed out, it’s based on some mis­un­der­stand­ings). There may (and are) be cases where I do dis­agree with both my con­clu­sion and argu­men­ta­tion, or con­clu­sion but not my argu­men­ta­tion. The prob­lem comes when peo­ple are expected — such as in forum dis­cus­sions — to hold their view absolutely and that any change of mind is shown as some sort of weak­ness. What a ter­ri­bly destruc­tive atti­tude, I’ve been accused of it many times. Rather, these things are nec­es­sary for growth, as much as we may per­son­ally come to loathe some of the things we’ve said and done. And, in the end, if the result is a deeper under­stand­ing of God and greater wis­dom, then the cost of dis­agree­ing with your­self was well worth it. It should cause us to pause and think about how we present our views and teach­ings. With a proper, hum­ble atti­tude, I don’t think we have as much as an issue as we often imagine.

And per­son­ally, I love growth; learn­ing new things, “becom­ing wiser’. The humil­ity it requires is well worth it.–a lot of us could do with a lit­tle more humility.