We Need Confidence to Endure

I posted
earlier this week about the call in Hebrews 10:32-36 to hold fast to our
confidence in the reality of Christ and His sacrifice for the sake of
endurance. Unfortunately, the reputation of confidence has suffered in this
postmodern world, where “humility” has come to mean doubting your convictions. As
G.K. Chesterton noted:

What we suffer from today is
humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition.
Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to
be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the
truth; this has been exactly reversed…. The old humility was a spur that
prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from
going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which
might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his
aims, which will make him stop working altogether…. We are on the road to
producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication
table.

Because a person’s confidence in the rightness of his
convictions enables him to endure in his course of action, even at great cost
to himself, there is much discussion these days about the dangers of this sort
of confidence. Those who think their beliefs are true are feared and even
hated. Evils of all sorts have been traced back to confidence, and confidence
is declared its root and source. The remedy for evil in this view, then, is for
everyone to reduce their confidence in their beliefs. It’s commonly thought
that this would make the world a better place.

Confidence Can Serve
Either Good or Evil

But confidence itself is a morally neutral trait. What
matters is what you’re putting your confidence in. If your confidence is
well placed in the true and the good, then great good will follow from the
endurance it produces. But if your confidence is wrongly placed in false and
evil ideas, then great evil will follow. The problem, therefore, is the false
beliefs, not the confidence which can serve either good or evil. The remedy for
evil in this view is for everyone to address the actual beliefs people hold, endeavoring
to reduce confidence in false beliefs and raise confidence in true ones. The
greater confidence people have in good, true beliefs, the better off this world
will be.

If this second view is correct, then seeing confidence as
the root of evil and pressuring everyone to have less confidence will have the
unfortunate effect of causing a net loss of not only bad things in this world,
but also a great deal of good. To do good is a very, very difficult enterprise—one
that is often met with ridicule and intense opposition (just look at Jesus). Confidence
is an absolute necessity for anyone who would persevere through this.

The Blessings of
Confidence

William
Wilberforce is a perfect example of the blessings of confidence. How
was he able to fight for twenty years, enduring scorn and personal
attacks day in and day out, to put an end to the slave trade in England? Listen
to his
own explanation:

The grand object of my
parliamentary existence [is the abolition of the slave trade]. . . Before this
great cause all others dwindle in my eyes, and I must say that the certainty
that I am right here, adds greatly to the complacency [i.e., the
settled, peaceful confidence] with which I exert myself in asserting it. If it
please God to honor me so far, may I be the instrument of stopping such a
course of wickedness and cruelty as never before disgraced a Christian country.

Wilberforce was certain that he was right about what
was wicked and cruel, and he was certain that the right thing for him to
do was to stop that wickedness. That is what drove him steadily on to end the
suffering of hundreds of thousands of people. Would you have chided him for his
confidence? If so, what if he had listened to you? What if all the
abolitionists had listened to you? The world would now be a much uglier place.

Let’s work to end evil, not confidence.