Commenting on the importance of intellectual integrity and honesty, W. Jay Wood (PhD, Notre Dame) wrote:
Christians have some special reasons to take seriously the questions and concerns raised by epistemologists. Exercising care over the formation of our minds is not a purely academic pursuit; it is also a spiritual one. God enjoins us in Scripture to pursue the intellectual virtues. The Bible is unequivocally clear that Christians are to superintend the life of the mind. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Rom 12:3). God cares about how you think, not just what you think. A godly mind is not merely one devoid of vile thoughts, nor are the faithful stewards of the mind necessarily the ones who die with all their doctrinal p’s and q’s in place (brainwashing might as effectively accomplish this).
The concern of ancient and medieval philosophers to cultivate the habits of mind that we call the intellectual virtues is also a biblical concern. Not only do classical Greek thinkers and the writers of the Hebrew wisdom literature name some virtues in common but their understanding of some virtues and vices seems roughly to coincide. Scores of injunctions to pursue intellectual virtues dot the pages of Scripture. We are urged to be attentive, wise, discerning, prudent, circumspect, understanding, teachable, lovers of truth, intellectually humble and intellectually tenacious, along with any other positive intellectual traits. We are also directed to be able to defend our faith, to instruct others in the faith to confute those who oppose true doctrine, and so on. On the other hand, warnings abound against laziness of thought, folly, immaturity in our thinking, being easily duped or gullible (“blown about by every wind of doctrine”—Eph 4:14), engaging in idle speculation, intellectual arrogance or vicious curiosity (“for the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth”—2 Tim 4:3-4.
According to the Christian tradition, to forge virtuous habits of moral and intellectual character is part of what is required for us to grow to the full stature of all that God intends for humans to be. Becoming virtuous is part of what makes us fit residents of the kingdom of heaven, ready and able to do God’s work now and in the age to come. Intertwining moral and intellectual virtues in this way underscores the unity of our lives; these are not isolated compartments of our selves. We cannot be fully intellectually virtuous without also being mortally virtuous. The converse is also true; we cannot succeed in the moral life without also displaying important intellectual virtues. When we succeed in harmonizing these aspects of our lives, we achieve what ancients and moderns alike call integrity . . . Being intellectually honest involves more than simply telling the truth. One might do this out of fear of being caught or, like Kant’s honest shopkeeper, because it is good for business. To be honest requires that we be honest persons, that we inwardly prize the truth and set our minds on it as a motive and goal of our efforts as rational beings. And the honesty of which Christianity speaks is not skin deep but ought to be inherent in who we are as persons. The Christian tradition teaches that our capacity for discerning and conveying truth is a part of God’s design; it is one of the ways we partake of the divine image. So insofar as we strive to become honest persons who represent ourselves and our ideas sincerely, we are living obediently with God’s intentions for what sorts of persons we are to become. (W. Jay Wood, Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous [Contours of Christian Philosophy; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 1998], 18-19, 66, 144-45, italics in original, emphasis in bold added)
For more, see my blog post article:
