"Two kinds of blindness are easily combined so that those who do not see really appear to see what is not"
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Tertullian names a perilous duet: lack of true sight paired with the illusion of seeing. Ignorance by itself can be passive, a simple not-knowing. But when it joins with presumption, desire, or rhetorical sparkle, it fashions phantoms that feel like clarity. People who cannot perceive what is, become certain they perceive what is not. The result is not mere error but counterfeit vision, a confidence that hardens into dogma.
Writing in Roman North Africa at the turn of the third century, Tertullian battled both pagan critics and Christian heresies, especially the self-advertised gnosis that promised secret insight. He watched a culture trained in eloquence and spectacle, where appearance could overrun substance. In such a world, two kinds of blindness often converged: moral blindness, which refuses the demands of truth, and intellectual blindness, which mistakes clever constructs for reality. Pride supplies the lens, fear steadies the hand, and a persuasive story completes the image. What is absent begins to shine as if present.
He also sensed how the mind cooperates with its own deceptions. The will does not want to see, so the intellect manufactures reasons not to. Conversely, the will craves a certain outcome, and arguments appear on cue. The double blindness becomes self-sealing: evidence is discounted, contrary testimony dismissed, and the counterfeit vision grows brighter precisely because it is unthreatened by contact with the real.
His warning has a modern ring. Overconfidence and ignorance can fuse into a vivid hallucination of understanding, amplified by prestige, platform, or sheer repetition. The antidote is not cynicism but humility and discipline: to test what passes for sight, to examine the sources that shape our seeing, to prefer hard, slow corroboration over fluent assurance. For Tertullian, genuine vision required allegiance to a trustworthy rule and a community of witnesses. Stripped of its ancient polemics, the counsel endures: beware the union of darkness and certainty, for it makes illusions look like truth.
Writing in Roman North Africa at the turn of the third century, Tertullian battled both pagan critics and Christian heresies, especially the self-advertised gnosis that promised secret insight. He watched a culture trained in eloquence and spectacle, where appearance could overrun substance. In such a world, two kinds of blindness often converged: moral blindness, which refuses the demands of truth, and intellectual blindness, which mistakes clever constructs for reality. Pride supplies the lens, fear steadies the hand, and a persuasive story completes the image. What is absent begins to shine as if present.
He also sensed how the mind cooperates with its own deceptions. The will does not want to see, so the intellect manufactures reasons not to. Conversely, the will craves a certain outcome, and arguments appear on cue. The double blindness becomes self-sealing: evidence is discounted, contrary testimony dismissed, and the counterfeit vision grows brighter precisely because it is unthreatened by contact with the real.
His warning has a modern ring. Overconfidence and ignorance can fuse into a vivid hallucination of understanding, amplified by prestige, platform, or sheer repetition. The antidote is not cynicism but humility and discipline: to test what passes for sight, to examine the sources that shape our seeing, to prefer hard, slow corroboration over fluent assurance. For Tertullian, genuine vision required allegiance to a trustworthy rule and a community of witnesses. Stripped of its ancient polemics, the counsel endures: beware the union of darkness and certainty, for it makes illusions look like truth.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
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