"Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"
I could not refrain from writing down a quote by R.C. Sproul from this video clip. According to Wikipedia this is actually commonly misquoted from an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson. So here it is as Emerson wrote it, one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" (often misquoted by omission of the word "foolish").
Emerson, who was the champion of self-reliance and self-esteem, meant that individuality and personal authenticity was only guaranteed by a rejection of conformity to external pressures. We can see this when he writes:
R.C.Sproul:
"To believe God's own thought, to believe that what is true of Him in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius."
In the end what is a really "foolish consistency" is conformity to any mind other than the mind of God and so:
When I first heard on this video file R.C. Sproul speaking of the "hobgoblin of little minds" I headed off to Google to check out these pesky little fellows. Troublemakers, that's what they are- and sure enough one of them was already giving me some trouble. Trouble do you see, because I thought that what R.C meant was that consistency, or rather the lack of consistency was the troublemaker of little minds being referred to. Thus in a neat way confirming what I'd once heard Francis Schaeffer say: "The trouble with Christians is they see things in bits and pieces" meaning they often didn't get the big picture. And if one only sees the little picture, well it's like another story I'd heard well told and it goes like this: Our little view of reality, with our little eye spy eyes are like the person looking through the wee hole in the wall of a fence.
I could not refrain from writing down a quote by R.C. Sproul from this video clip. According to Wikipedia this is actually commonly misquoted from an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson. So here it is as Emerson wrote it, one of Emerson's most famous quotations: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" (often misquoted by omission of the word "foolish").
Emerson, who was the champion of self-reliance and self-esteem, meant that individuality and personal authenticity was only guaranteed by a rejection of conformity to external pressures. We can see this when he writes:
"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius."This sentiment appears to me to be strongly reminiscent of Kantian thought which advocates the supremecy and ultimacy of human autonomy.
R.C.Sproul:
"It's been said that- consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds- and if that adage is true then the smallest mind in all of reality would seem to me to be God’s; because God is completely consistent with himself, he doesn’t speak with a forked tongue, he’s not the author of confusion and so we look to see the unity of sacred Scripture because we believe in its coherence- because its author is so eminently coherent."Sproul's use of the saying- "Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds"- is about, in the context of this amiable discussion of scriptural exegesis, the problem of consistency for the biblical exegete. To Sproul, all that encompasses the concept "God" is so great an undertaking for finite human minds, that inevitably without great care, and an accompanying stretching of the minds horizon, there will be inconsistency in our understanding of Him, and the smaller our scope, the less inclined we are able to either overcome or even perceive this shortcoming. Following on from this, arises- in Lewisonian terms- the situation whereby God is put "in the dock" and asked to answer these "inconsistencies", whereas in all reality the inconsistency lies in the poverty of the exegete. Interestingly I find Emerson's thought so true, but his application so bad. His saying is applicable only really to God. Let's revise what he said:
"To believe God's own thought, to believe that what is true of Him in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius."
In the end what is a really "foolish consistency" is conformity to any mind other than the mind of God and so:
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:" Philippians 2:5
When I first heard on this video file R.C. Sproul speaking of the "hobgoblin of little minds" I headed off to Google to check out these pesky little fellows. Troublemakers, that's what they are- and sure enough one of them was already giving me some trouble. Trouble do you see, because I thought that what R.C meant was that consistency, or rather the lack of consistency was the troublemaker of little minds being referred to. Thus in a neat way confirming what I'd once heard Francis Schaeffer say: "The trouble with Christians is they see things in bits and pieces" meaning they often didn't get the big picture. And if one only sees the little picture, well it's like another story I'd heard well told and it goes like this: Our little view of reality, with our little eye spy eyes are like the person looking through the wee hole in the wall of a fence.
Imagine that there is a big fancy circus that had come to town and today, they were having a street parade to show off all the acts. Imagine also, that you badly wanted to see this parade but there is a big wooden fence between you and the parade. And the only way for you to see this parade is by looking through a small peep hole in this fence. You see the clowns, the monkeys, the elephants and the acrobats but you only see glimpses of all of them and you never see the parade as a whole. You don’t see where it begins and where it ends. You are only viewing this parade in pieces and none of them seem to make any sense.
Imagine now, that God is in a helicopter “above” this parade and he is seeing the whole entire thing, and he is also orchestrating it all and knows exactly when it’s going to end, where it’s headed and what is going to happen along the way.
Well as it happens it has a happy ending because no matter which way you cut it, it ends up the same way. Consistency is not a problem for God, and neither is small mindedness but it is for us. But I'd far rather it that way wouldn't you?
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