What is confirmation bias?

Is the old ground of faith, authority, given up? And have people learnt, with Prof. Huxley, for justification by faith to substitute justification by verification? Then, if the verification is meant to be, as of course it should be, personal, it will go hard with much that we have counted knowledge. How many have verified for themselves the leading facts and principles of any one of the sciences? And if, as Mr. Lewes says, and as we all know, "the psychological law that we only see what interests us, and only assimilate what is adapted to our condition, causes the mind to select its evidence," then what hope is there of attaining truth by means of evidence gathered in this way by those for whose power to see aright it is wholly impossible to answer?

In order to understand any prophecy, it is of the utmost importance that we should study it with a disposition to believe, joined with a strict trial of the evidence in favour of any given meaning. That is to say, we should be ready, on sufficient testimony, to accommodate our understandings and perceptions to ideas not analogous to those of our ordinary experience. With such a temper of mind, we are, under God, likely to profit both ourselves and the church, in the prophetic inquiry; whilst, on the contrary, we can make little or no progress in studying any prophetic record, if consistency with our previous apprehensions and prejudices be our test and trial of the new ideas with which we meet. To make agreement with previous ideas (as is the common practice) the necessary evidence of the justness of any view is indeed to prohibit the impression of any new truth upon the mind; and, on the other hand, assumption without evidence is the opening an admission to falsehood. A disposition to believe may, by some, be called credulity; but the credulity (if you will so have it) which consists in a disposition to receive on new testimony that which is inconsistent with human experience, is right before God, and is but another name for faith; howsoever foolish it may be among men, with whom guilt and deceit have made wisdom to consist in the knowledge and suspicion of evil. Evil cannot justify us in unbelief, though it may have habituated our minds to indisposition to receive even GOD at His word. This judging by what we have, instead of receiving what we have not (after simply trying it by the word and the testimony), is, indeed, the great moral hindrance to our perception, as well as to our receiving the strength of the power of God. Such was the spirit of the Sadducees - such was the mind of Thomas and is of unbelief, at all times. "How is it that ye do not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word."

311 "And truly, it is much better thus to consult scripture, and take it for a guide, than to resort to it merely for confirmation, contained in detached verses, of the several parts of some system of theology, which the student fixes on as reputed orthodox, and which is in fact made the guide which he permits 'to lead him by the hand'; while passages culled out from various parts of the sacred writings, in subserviency to such system, are formed into what may be called an anagram of scripture; and then by reference to this system as a standard, each doctrine, or discourse, is readily pronounced orthodox, or Socinian, or Arian, or Sabellian, or Nestorian, etc.; and all this on the ground that the theological scheme, which the student has adopted, is supported by scripture. The materials, indeed, are the stones of the temple; but the building constructed with them is a fabric of human contrivances. If, instead of this too common procedure, students would fairly search the scriptures, with a view, not merely to defend opinions, but to form them; not merely for arguments, but for truth: keeping human expositions to their own proper purposes (see Essay 6, first series), and not allowing those to become practically a standard - if, in short, they were as honestly desirous to be on the side of scripture, as they naturally are to have scripture on their side, how much sounder as well as more charitable would their conclusions often be!"

The word "lusts" simply means "desires." The time will come, says the Apostle, when men will insist upon hearing, not what is true but what pleases them, and they will "heap up" to themselves teachers who will give them what they want. That time is now arrived. Many features of the Apostle's doctrine, as recorded in the New Testament are quite repugnant to the "modern mind," therefore, we are told, they must be discarded by all progressive thinkers and preachers, who must learn to harmonize their utterances with the latest fashions in scientific thought and the latest crazes as to popular pleasures. Hence all that advanced modernistic preaching which the Apostle here dismisses in one word — FABLES!

Here was the germ of the evil: why not a class of men or a profession of men to be accredited as instructors and teachers, the same as prevailed in their schools of philosophy? This was the readiest way in man's thought to provide for the instruction of the church; to heap to themselves teachers. And it was thus early in the church that we see its ruin provided for, and the dawning of that season which is not yet fully matured, when they would not endure sound doctrine. The secret is, that we can never be taught except in obedience. "He that hath an ear, let him hear." Now a recognised class of teachers, as such, relieves from the responsibility laid upon us by the Lord. "Take heed how ye hear." Men hear what they like to hear — hear after their own lusts, instead of proving what they hear, and holding fast that which is good. Instruction to the church never assumes the ground of ignorance, but that of competent understanding. "I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it" … "and ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things" (1 John 2:20-21). And the Second and Third Epistles throw the responsibility on christians, not of receiving teachers as teachers, — let them bear what name they might — but of testing their doctrine. In St. Paul's discourse to the elders of Ephesus the Spirit leads him to point out the corruption of the church as arising from within. "For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them " (Acts 20:29-30). And the solemn charge of the apostle to Timothy, points out the result of that which he had noticed to the elders of Ephesus. "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, Who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom, preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry " (2 Tim. 4:15).

A good deal is said nowadays about thinking men, but in truth there is little depth of thought at the present time with the majority. People generally believe what is agreeable to them, rejecting what is not.

When persons reject the gospel on the ground of God’s eternal decrees, they are rejecting what is revealed on the ground of what is hidden. What can they possibly know about God’s decrees? Nothing. How then can that which is secret be urged as a reason for rejecting what is revealed? Why refuse what can be known on the ground of what cannot? It is obvious that men do not act thus in cases where they wish to believe a matter. Only let a man be willing to believe a thing, and you will not find him anxiously looking for a ground of objection.

Then we come to the New Testament, and we find there was a company of people in Berea, and Scripture says they were "more noble (or 'honourable') than those of Thessalonica" (Acts 17:11). When they heard the message from Paul they accepted it without question, they accepted it as the word of God, and knowing that it was the word of God they searched the Scriptures daily for confirmation, not for rejection - they knew it was the word of God and they searched the Old Testament scriptures to prove that what they had heard was correct. What an honourable thing to do. It seems to me that this is honourable in the sight of God, and is the great test of all ministry. It is not what brother so-and-so says, or what he writes (however important those things might be), it is a question of, 'What does the word of God say?', and all ministry, whether past or present, should be tested on the basis of the word of God without any juggling with the scriptures to prove one's point of view, rather the pure truth of God is to have its weight upon our conscience and accepted as such, that, we believe, constitutes honourable persons.

Alas! those to whom Jeremiah spoke refused the instruction, and heeded not the warnings of the Lord. Jeremiah is not ignorant of the reason. He says, "Ye dissembled in your hearts," or according to a better translation, "Ye deceived yourselves in your own souls" (v. 20). The self-will that was determined to take a certain course deceived them. Nothing will so warp the understanding, and hinder the apprehension of the truth as self-will. It will not see what it does not want to see. And, as ever, behind the self-will there was pride that would not admit they were wrong, as we read, "All the proud men" came to Jeremiah saying, "Thou speakest falsely: the Lord our God has not sent thee to say, Go not into Egypt to sojourn there" (Jer. 43:2).

But more: it discerns the very thoughts and intents of the heart. In these things we are all too likely to be self-deceived, and in order to maintain self-respect will seek to persuade ourselves that our motives are actually better than they are; or to hide our actual intentions or desires under a plausible cover of avowing that we want the leading of the Lord! But let us honestly read the Word of God, and it will expose to us these secret work­ings, and make manifest the counsels of the heart. This is strikingly seen in Jeremiah 42, where Johanan and the remnant of Israel required of Jeremiah as to the will of God, declaring their absolute intention of obeying God's Word. But the Word given them also discerned the actual dissembling of their hearts, (vs. 20, 21), and Jeremiah told them they would not obey the Word of God, but do their own will. Then their brazen actions proved the Word of the Lord to be right, but they excused themselves by denying it to be the Word of God! How little does man suspect the actual deceit of his own heart! May God give us to judge ourselves by His Word, the only trustworthy standard. It can be a grievous snare to us to assume that our preferences are consistent with the Word of God, then when the Word is given us to the contrary, to object that it must be a wrong translation or wrong interpretation, and thus dismiss it without honest inquiry.