this is not humility but hypocrisy. It is also against intelligence and knowledge of the truth not to admit one's superiority in a particular matter pertaining to the truth while remaining humble. If a person knows that the square root of nine is three and someone comes along and insists that it is two, it is not spiritual humility not to insist upon the truth that it is three because one fears being seen as proud.
Much of theological truth has been destroyed in the modern world through the practice of sacrificing the truth at the altar of a sentimental and opaque humility. For example, many Christian theologians have refused to criticize what is theologically an error because of false humility often combined with a sense of compassion that remains impervious to the truth, with the result that it is no longer fashionable today to speak of theological heresy or for that matter truth as such. In all authentic spirituality, however, the demand of the truth is the highest demand upon us.
-Seyyed Hossein Nasr,
The Garden of Truth: The Vision and Promise of Sufism, Islam's Mystical Tradition (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), pp. 126-7.
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