The Idol of Correctness: When Being "Right" Costs Us Our Humanity

We have all felt that familiar tightening in the chest when a conversation takes a sudden turn. Someone shares an opinion—political, social, or spiritual—that is diametrically opposed to your own deeply held beliefs.

In an ideal world, this would be an opportunity for curiosity. It would be a chance to ask, "Tell me more about why you see it that way." But we don't live in an ideal world; we live in a polarized one.

Instead of leaning in, we armor up. We aren't preparing for a conversation; we are preparing for combat.

The reason we struggle so profoundly to converse with those who think differently than us isn't just because the divide is wide. It’s because the goalposts have shifted. Too often, people are no longer interested in debating, discussing, or exploring ideas. They are interested in arguing, conquering, and trying to prove—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that their way is the only way.

We have traded connection for conquest.

The Theological Battleground

While this dynamic is toxic everywhere, it is particularly devastating in religious circles. It is a profound irony that spaces dedicated to the exploration of the divine—often centered on concepts of grace, humility, and love—can become arenas of ruthless intellectual bloodsport.

When we step into the realm of theology, the stakes feel incredibly high. We aren't just arguing about tax policy; we are arguing about eternal truth, the nature of God, and the destiny of souls. Because the stakes are high, the fear of being "wrong" is immense.

This fear drives us to cling to our theological frameworks tighter than we cling to the people in front of us. Humanity gets lost in the theology.

An Example from the Pews:

Consider a debate between someone holding a strict Calvinist view of predestination and someone holding an Arminian view of free will. These are centuries-old theological tensions that brilliant minds have disagreed on forever.

In a healthy environment, discussing these views explores the magnificent mystery of how God’s sovereignty interacts with human agency.

But in the modern "argument culture," it looks different. Two people aren't exploring God; they are throwing Bible verses at each other like shuriken. They use terms like "heresy" loosely. They stop seeing the person across from them as a fellow traveler trying to understand the divine, and start seeing them as a threat to "sound doctrine."

When the dust settles, one person might feel victorious because they deployed better syllogisms, but both people leave feeling alienated. The doctrine was defended, but the humanity was discarded.

The Trap of the Intellectual Bully

This issue is frequently exacerbated among the highly intellectual. There is a specific type of arrogance that accompanies deep study when it is untempered by humility.

For the intellectually gifted believer, knowledge can easily become an idol. Because they have read the original Greek, studied the commentaries, and mastered the logical arguments, they feel an almost messianic duty to "correct" those who haven't.

They don't just want to be right; they want you to know they are right, and they often use tactics designed to demean rather than persuade.

Tactics of Theological Dominance:

1. Weaponized Vocabulary: Using dense, academic theological jargon not to clarify a point, but to overwhelm the other person and make them feel stupid for not knowing the terms. It’s a power move designed to silence opposition through intimidation.

2. The Aggressive Socratic Method: Asking leading questions not to help the other person discover truth, but to back them into a logical corner where you can spring a "gotcha" moment. It’s treating a conversation like a deposition.

3. Abstracting the Pain Away: When someone discusses a theological struggle rooted in real-world pain (e.g., the problem of suffering after a personal tragedy), the intellectual bully responds with cold, abstract propositions about God’s will, completely ignoring the human grief in front of them.

When we do this, we may win the argument on points, but we lose the soul of the interaction. We become what the Apostle Paul warned about in 1 Corinthians 8:1: "Knowledge puffs up, while love builds up."

Returning to Humanity

If our theology makes us mean, our theology is wrong.

It doesn't matter how technically correct our exegesis is if our application destroys the dignity of the person we are talking to. We have to recognize that our need to be proven "right" is often rooted in ego and insecurity, not holy zeal.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has noted in his research on moral psychology that human beings are fundamentally intuitive creatures who use reasoning backward to justify what they already feel.

When we attack someone's core beliefs aggressively, we trigger their defensive intuitions. They don't listen to our brilliant logic; they just enter fight-or-flight mode.

To move forward, especially in religious discourse, we need a massive injection of epistemic humility. This is the recognition that while we may hold tight to truth, our understanding of that truth is finite and fallible.

We must decide what is more important: winning the theological debate, or honoring the humanity of the person made in the image of God sitting across from us. Until we prioritize the latter, our conversations will remain battlefields, and we will remain right, lonely, and tragically missing the point.

References and Further Reading:

• On the psychology of arguing to win rather than to learn:

Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Pantheon. (Haidt’s exploration of how intuition drives our reasoning, and how we use logic to defend our "team" rather than seek truth, is essential here).

• On the danger of intellectual arrogance in theology:

The Holy Bible, New International Version. 1 Corinthians 8:1-3. ("We know that 'We all possess knowledge.' But knowledge puffs up while love builds up. Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know.")

• On rethinking how we engage and the trap of the "preacher/prosecutor" mode:

Grant, A. (2021). Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know. Viking. (Grant discusses how we often enter "preacher" mode to defend our sacred beliefs or "prosecutor" mode to prove others wrong, rather than "scientist" mode where we explore the truth).