A few years back I watched a debate between an evangelical Christian (Greg Koukl) and a new age guru (Deepak Chopra) on the issue of truth.  Mr. Chopra employed a common tactic to dismiss Mr. Koukl’s arguments.  The exchange went something like this:

DC: “Everyone thinks they are right.  You think you’re right.  The Hindu thinks he’s right.  The Buddhist thinks he’s right”

GK: Yes, that’s right.  And that’s why psychological confidence in one’s faith is not enough.  Something more is needed.  I am not interested in knowing that someone believes their view is right; I am interested in knowing why they believe their view is right.  This requires evidence.  We must weigh the evidence to determine who has better reasons supporting their view.

DC: chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp…

When someone says “everyone thinks they are right,” they are trying to relativize and/or dismiss your argument (typically because they can’t refute it).  Don’t play into the trap.

First, affirm the truth of the statement.  It is true that everyone thinks they are right.  But what follows from that observation?  Does it follow that everyone is right?  No.  They cannot all possibly be right because they contradict one another on many points.  Does it follow that no one is right, or that no one can be right?  No.  If five students give five different answers to one math problem, it does not mean that no answer exists, or that none of the five got the right answer.  So what follows?  All that follows is that not everyone can be right.  That’s why we can’t rely solely on the psychological confidence we have in the veracity of our own beliefs.  That’s why we have to roll up our mental sleeves and do the hard work necessary to determine whose beliefs are true and whose beliefs are not.

Koukl said something on a different occasion that illustrates this point.  He said most people think they are pretty smart, and yet only a few people actually are pretty smart.  But if the people who are actually dumb think they are smart, and the people who are actually smart and think they are smart both have psychological confidence that they are smart, how do you tell which one is truly smart from the one who just thinks he’s smart?  You determine it by giving them a test!  In the same way, most people may have psychological confidence that what they believe is the truth.  The way to tell the difference between those who think they have the truth but do not, and those who think they have the truth and do have the truth is by giving them a test.  Upon what evidence do they base their views?  What are their reasons for holding the views they do?  Are those reasons valid or invalid, sound or unsound?  That’s how we sift truth from error.

Yes, everyone thinks they are right, but not everyone is.  Truth can be discerned from error by putting truth-claims to the test.

For further reading see my article entitled “You Always Think You are Right”