A good idea about how to fix this or that thing wrong with the world is not enough. Our motives and humbleness before God matters too.
Our choice is not that of being pure and whole at the mere cost of formulating a just and honest opinion. Mere commitment to a decent program of action does not life the curse. Our real choice is between being like Job, who KNEW he was stricken, and Job’s friends who did not know they were stricken too – though less obviously than he. (So they had answers!) To justify ourselves is to justify our sin and to call God a liar.
-Thomas Merton, Events and Pseudo-Events, p.?