All I have considered so far, is John Stuart Mill’s consideration of the possibility that the statement might be true. How do his comments apply to statements that are true? For example, if you are a Christian and believe in the truth of the gospel can you benefit from heresy? If you are a liberal who believes that the election of Joseph Biden as president in 2020 was not stolen by fraud should you nonetheless accept and consider heretical opinions that the election was fraudulent?

Mill  argued that people should be free to challenge true opinions on the grounds that this would maximize the amount of benefit or happiness for society. You might have thought that this would be a difficult claim to establish.

Here Mill makes a fascinating point.  Anyone should be free to challenge an opinion even if is true.  This is an extremely important point and I never seriously considered it until I read Mill.

Mill asked an important question, how will an opinion be held when its truth is not freely and openly discussed. One would think that would not matter. Right? After all, if we believe it to be true because it is never challenged we will believe what is true.  But Mill asks, how will we believe that true statement?

Mill says, “however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as dead dogma, not a living truth.” Mill points out that there are people who believe that it is good enough if a person accepts what he is taught as true.  In fact, as we all know, most parents take this position. For example, they teach their children what is right and wrong. They want their children to accept that the things the parents think are wrong are in fact wrong. They want their children to accept that the things the parents think are right are in fact right. That is their goal. This is the goal of indoctrination.

Indoctrination is particularly robust in cases of religion—perhaps because rational argument and debate are so difficult and as a result the views of the children will be, it is believed by the parents, forever weak and subject to undermining by others. And that will not do. Mill strongly disagrees. So do I.

Indoctrinators don’t care if the object of their attention has any knowledge of the grounds of their opinion or not. What counts is the opinion, not the reason for the opinion. It matters not to these parents that the children could not make a tenable defence of the opinion against the most superficial objection. What matters is that the opinion is firmly held no matter what. Naturally people who indoctrinate others “if they can once get their creed taught from authority naturally think that no good, and some harm, comes of its being allowed to be questioned.”

The problem with this approach according to Mill is that such an opinion can never be rejected wisely, but actually can be rejected rashly and ignorantly. That is because one can never shut out discussion completely no matter how hard one tries. When rational discussion creeps in, as it always eventually does,

beliefs not grounded on conviction are apt to give way before the slightest semblance of an argument. Waiving, however, this possibility, assuming the true opinion abides in the mind, but abides as a prejudice, a belief independent of, and proof against, argument—this is not the way in which truth ought to be held by a rational being. This is not knowing the truth. Truth, thus held, is but one superstition the more, accidentally clinging to the words which enunciate a truth.

 This is what faith is. Faith is not based on grounds or reasons. In fact, often it is held against grounds or reasons.  Mill says, it is held like a prejudice.  That is because it is not based on reason and evidence but something else—like a superstition. It is not enough to be told the grounds or reasons either. That is still indoctrination. It is not lived; it is not experienced. It is a dead truth. And how much is that worth?