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Some of us relish playing a game called “devil’s advocate.” Over lunch, a friend told me about an epiphany he had many years ago. A mysterious person appeared to him and charged him with a mission, the meaning of which my friend still ponders. Trading on the strength of our relationship, after listening and asking questions for a while, I ventured: “Okay, I’m going to play devil’s advocate. Couldn’t that very potent, very personal, very real visitation possibly have been a dream fabricated by your unconscious mind?”

A devil’s advocate takes a position to test the strength of someone else’s position, probing for weaknesses that might help the other person think about it more critically and clarify things more accurately, or at least consider alternative interpretations.

The Roman Catholic Church created the office of devil’s advocate in 1587. Pope Sixtus V established the position to question the qualifications of a person being considered for canonization or beatification, so that the process didn’t progress carelessly or easily. The job of devil’s advocate was to be skeptical, to look for problems in the evidence presented of a candidate’s character and saintliness, even to make the case against the miracles attributed to the individual. The office was abolished in 1983 by Pope John Paul II. The number of canonizations and beatifications has soared ever since.13

Sometimes we may owe it to our friends, especially those who are unaccustomed to thinking critically about their beliefs—those who are cocksure, dogmatic and intolerant of those who see things differently—opportunity to see things from another point of view. Oliver Cromwell wrote to the Church of Scotland, urging them to repudiate their mule-headed allegiance to King Charles II: “I beseech you, by the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”