The Truth Hurts

One of the greatest blessings of the wrong beliefs that so often cause problems for us is that they are nearly always irrational. If they were not, it would be so much harder to spot them. But there is nevertheless a challenge in this, because confronting our own beliefs tends to be painful. Through pain, we develop highly emotional reactions to anything that might challenge the beliefs we hold.

For example, if you’ve grown up in the church, as I have, then you might feel that a line of reasoning which begins to turn against something you were taught is wrong, even heretical. Then, when you experience the somatosensory discomfort which is a natural reaction to any question which raises such deep uncertainty, it is easy to interpret it as spiritual confirmation that you are on the verge of crossing the line.

Just because one believes in the spiritual doesn’t mean that one can’t misinterpret it. In fact, I have come to believe quite the opposite: that spirituality is nourished by an earnest search for the truth, even amid opposition. In the original Greek of the greatest commandment, when Jesus talks about loving the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, the word He uses for “mind” is dianoia. It means something like, “to use the mind back and forth,” and is meant to reflect considering an issue from all angles to arrive at a balanced conclusion, and probably also to suggest Socratic dialect, which even then was the golden standard for investigating an argument’s merit and searching for contradictions. After all, we want the truth, don’t we? And if something is really true, then it would only be strengthened by such an inquisition.

I think it’s important to understand that deception—and especially self-deception—is inherently isolating. Naturally, if you’re telling an intentional lie, then you are attempting to create distance from the truth—from reality we might say. Because of that, you’ll tend to avoid topics and possibly hide things physically in order to maintain the illusion, and it typically has a distancing effect on relationships that grows stronger proportional to the intimacy of the relationship.

But the effect of self-deception is more subtle, because most of it usually happens subconsciously. Sometimes, there are direct lies we tell ourselves, we call these rationalizations. But even more prominent is the subconscious redirecting of attention: the discomfort we feel in response to truths or lines of reasoning, that subtly prompt us not to bother with them. Most often, it is not the outright lies that get us into trouble, but the elephants in the room that go unaddressed.

Much of the pain that causes us to withdraw like this is due to fear. Human beings hate being uncertain for prolonged periods, and in many cases or brains will latch on to even a bad explanation is being preferable to none, especially if we might be required to give up a belief on which much of our life is based. Our social image is also a part of this. Admitting that you don’t know or aren’t certain of things that everyone around you is (or claims to be) is a form of admitting weakness, and most of us hate that.

But beneath the surface, most people aren’t really doing much better than this anyway, because there is a considerable gap between what most people say they believe and what they do. Few Christians, for example, really live as if they believe everything in the Bible. Of course, to some extent, we are all hypocritical because we all sin—but that’s not what I mean. I’m talking about persistent behaviors that the individual would defend or rationalize. These might be sins, or they might be aspects of faith that you have not yet fully accepted and integrated—and they won’t be unless we are willing to accept some discomfort and fully confront them.

I think the main takeaway is that we can’t close the gaps between what is true, what we believe, and how we live until we first acknowledge them. We ought to adopt something similar to the scientific method with respect to all of our beliefs: that inquiry and challenging questions should be encouraged, that mistakes are productive insofar as we are willing to learn from them, and that just because something seems to hold true doesn’t mean it’s the whole story.

In doing this, we may lose some peace of mind in the short-term. But do you really feel at peace with simply pushing troublesome ideas out of your head for the rest of your life, pretending they don’t exist? This is textbook repression, an immature defense according to the wonderful researchers of the Harvard Grant study. Ultimately, a confrontational attitude will not only give you more peace with your beliefs in the long-run, but you’ll rediscover the joy of discovery, and the freedom to engage conflicting beliefs cheerfully.

Have a blessed, wonderful day!

Dr. Alex Loyd