Two social psychologists produced a hypothesis known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Their study asserts that people who are unfamiliar with a task tend to overestimate their ability to accomplish it. Another title for the concept is “Why People Fail to Recognize Their Own Incompetence.” The idea of minimal knowledge leading to unwarranted confidence has a biblical application. Those who study God’s word the least seem to exhibit the greatest confidence in their own version of “salvation.” In 1 Corinthians 1:18 Paul writes, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
This clearly bears itself out in our culture. Noted mathematician from the University of Cambridge, Alfred North Whitehead, said, “I consider Christian theology to be one of the greatest disasters of the human race.” Oxford University graduate Richard Dawkins, a renowned atheist, authored a book entitled, “The God Delusion.” Many of the highest educated and “deepest thinkers” among us reject God entirely despite the claim of Romans 1:19 that “what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.” Evidence for the God that will hold them accountable for every careless word they speak is readily apparent, yet they manifestly reject Him. The result is that “claiming to be wise, they became fools.” An ivy league education, authoring peer-reviewed journal articles and accruing the praise of academia do not impress a righteous and holy God. On the contrary what God will not despise is a broken and contrite heart.
Here’s some great news—it’s not anyone’s intellect that will earn them access to an eternity in heaven. Neither Pythagoras nor Plato has an advantage over us. We are saved because the Father chose us to be His children through Jesus Christ and it is sealed by the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:3-14). There are three contributors to our salvation and none of them include us.
For the believer this should lead to at least three things. First, it should result in praise. Thank the triune God that He saved us while we were still His enemies. He didn’t wait for us to work out the math. Second, don’t be intimidated by the world. The ones that fail to recognize their own incompetence are the same ones making claims that there is no truth, there is no God and there will not be a Judgment Day. We need not buckle under their criticism regardless of how much airtime and adoration our culture throws at them. If anything, we need to pray for them because they are slaves to their sin and blind to God’s truth. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
Third, diligently witness to others without carrying the burden of being smart enough or articulate enough to change their mind about God. Take your cue from the apostle Paul who was convinced that he did not deliver the gospel in an eloquent or convincing manner. He kept the message simple (“Jesus Christ and him crucified”) and left it to the power of God to do with it as He saw fit.
1 Corinthians 2:1–5
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
May God help us not to rely on our own or the world’s wisdom. Instead, let us commit to straightforwardly proclaiming the testimony of Jesus Christ, the cross and resurrection, and rest in the results worked out by the power of God.