What Is An Open Mind?

There is an alarm­ing trend that I see more and more of. I have seen many attribute a very “closed” per­spec­tive to hav­ing an “open mind.” I feel it worth­while to dis­cuss a bet­ter def­i­n­i­tion to hav­ing an open mind and its impli­ca­tions, but first we must dis­cuss the mis­use of the phrase.

What An Open Mind Is Not

I see more and more peo­ple asso­ci­at­ing hav­ing this “open mind” to being lib­eral. Polit­i­cal and the­o­log­i­cal lib­er­al­ism then become the only true rep­re­sen­ta­tion of hav­ing an open mind. If you believe that gay mar­riage is immoral—then you have a closed mind. If you believe that one world­view is right and oth­ers are wrong—then you have a closed mind. The list could go on and on.

There are some glar­ing prob­lems with this def­i­n­i­tion of hav­ing an open mind. First, when you say that say­ing any other world­view is wrong then you essen­tially believe in noth­ing. This is the conun­drum that is implicit in Post­moder­nity. Moral rel­a­tivism is one of a few grave philo­soph­i­cal and log­i­cal errors that are made when you step in Post­mod­ern phi­los­o­phy. The prob­lem is that when you believe in every­thing then you believe noth­ing. A crit­i­cal thinker doesn’t let every­thing into their minds.

The other issue is that when you write off those with a par­tic­u­lar ide­ol­ogy as close minded then the accuser ends up with the closed mind. Much like the rel­a­tivist fal­lacy in moral rel­a­tivism it is self defeat­ing. Is there a bet­ter way to approach a more bal­anced def­i­n­i­tion of hav­ing an open mind?

A Def­i­n­i­tion Worth Defining

Let’s try this def­i­n­i­tion to guide our discussion.

Open Mind: Hav­ing an “open mind” is when an indi­vid­ual can objec­tively judge truth claims in light of their own pre­sup­po­si­tions in the pur­suit of truth and knowledge.

Notice there are a cou­ple of impor­tant points in this def­i­n­i­tion. Notice that this def­i­n­i­tion applies to an indi­vid­ual to avoid apply­ing the def­i­n­i­tion to a group of peo­ple who falls prey to group­think. The per­son also eval­u­ates truth claims which can be any­thing from a polit­i­cal ide­ol­ogy to a reli­gion. Pre­sup­po­si­tions also can greatly color the way we test truth claims so the per­son has to be hon­est with their pre­sup­po­si­tions and not let a set of pre­sup­po­si­tions imme­di­ately decide how one feels on an issue. This point is cru­cial, and its impor­tance is worth noting.

Finally, hav­ing an open mind must mean you are seek­ing truth and knowl­edge.. If you sub­scribe to moral rel­a­tivism you aren’t really search­ing for any­thing absolute or mean­ing­ful to your exis­tence. Also, if you sim­ply enter­tain an idea or phi­los­o­phy as a hobby it will hin­der your abil­ity to objec­tively judge it as opposed to some­one who is see­ing to know if some­thing is truthful.

Let’s Move On

Let’s use this def­i­n­i­tion to avoid call­ing a Chris­t­ian, or any­one else who believes in absolutes, as close minded. I apply this def­i­n­i­tion as my friend Aaron Shafo­val­off once told me. He said that if some­one pro­vided him with an objec­tive, log­i­cal, and truth­ful pre­sen­ta­tion that Chris­tian­ity is false that he would hope­fully have the where with all to aban­don Chris­tian­ity. That is a great appli­ca­tion of our def­i­n­i­tion, and I invite all to chal­lenge myself and each other.