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- Author: Gregg A. Ten Elshof
- Full Title: I Told Me So
- Category: #books
- The beliefs I have about myself and others do not need to be true to bring me satisfaction. I only need to believe them.
- But, for most of us, self-deception simply doesn’t jump immediately to mind as a significant element in the explanation of our experience. We rarely think of it. Lots of people I talk to have never so much as considered the possibility that they’ve fallen prey to it
- In self-deception, I am both the deceived and the deceiver. I am deceiving myself if I’m managing my beliefs with no regard for the truth. I’m trying to manage my beliefs, but I’m not trying to move myself along toward true belief.
- According to Sartre, to be self-deceived is to avoid using rational standards for evidence whenever it suits our purposes.
- The most common strategies for long-haul self-deception involve the management of attention.
- I’ve found it almost as unlikely that people will change their minds about Christianity at a debate as it is that they will change their sports loyalties after seeing their favorite team lose.
- One strategy, then, for acquiring and retaining beliefs that contribute to your own felt well-being is to attend exclusively or primarily to the evidence as presented by those sympathetic with the desired belief.
- They’re not conducting anything like an objective inquiry into the truth-value of Christian claims. But it’s the belief that they are conducting a more-or-less objective inquiry which is the source of such great comfort for them.
- Nearly all Christians will tell you that they have every intention of being perfected. The only real disagreement has to do with when we will make significant and noticeable progress toward perfection.
- Having received forgiveness because of the work of Jesus on the cross, they’ll live with the expectation that perfection will come to them all at once in the blink of an eye at the moment of passing from this life to the next. As a result, they procrastinate acting upon the clear biblical imperative to put on perfection. And the longer they procrastinate, the less clear it is to them that this is really what they ought to be doing anyway.
- We convince ourselves that perfection isn’t the goal — isn’t it impossible anyway? — and that we’ve got no business taking it seriously or chasing after it, at least not in this life. We
- It’ll help if I can find a church where the pastor regularly reminds his flock that he’s no further along toward holiness than are any of the parishioners in his care.
- Note: I don’t buy this anymore. What is the good of a pastor, who presumably devotes his life to practicing what he preaches, who hasn’t gone further down the road than his flock? What can you possibly learn from him about the road ahead?
Update: Haha, glad I have the Open Highlight in Kindle option, Ten Elshof is speaking sarcastically here, summing up the attitude that I’ll work on perfecting myself … someday …
- any suggestion to the effect that someone else has made significant and noticeable progress toward Christ-likeness puts me at risk of expecting such progress myself.
- Note: Don’t remind me that progress is possible, otherwise I’ll need to confront the fact that I’ve made so little.
- We convince ourselves that perfection isn’t the goal—isn’t it impossible anyway?—and that we’ve got no business taking it seriously or chasing after it, at least not in this life. We
- Sartre calls our attention to the amazing capacity that we have to disregard our own view of ourselves when the view of others better serves us and to disregard the view of others when our own view is more attractive.1
- we exist at all times both “for ourselves” and “for others.” While we have a certain view of ourselves, we’re also interested in being viewed, and in how we’re being viewed, by others.
- Sartre calls our attention to the amazing capacity that we have to disregard our own view of ourselves when the view of others better serves us and to disregard the view of others when our own view is more attractive.
- We switch perspectives because no single perspective consistently delivers the view of things that we prefer.
- To rationalize is to construct a rational justification for a behavior, decision, or belief arrived at in some other way. When we rationalize a behavior, for example, we locate reasons that would justify the behavior were they operational. We then present these reasons to ourselves and others as explaining our actual behavior. But the reasons are mere fictions. They play no causal role in the production of the behavior.
- Finally someone suggests that they should actually get down to praying. So they do, and for the next seven minutes or so, a summary version of Steve’s failings is presented to God as evidence that Steve is in need of rescue.
- they congratulate themselves for having done Steve a service by bringing his sad case before the Lord.
- The assumption in our midst is that if I am making it a practice to give generously, I am free from the most crippling effects of materialism — even if my lifestyle belies a sort of addiction to expensive entertainment, conspicuous consumption, and regularly buying new and nice things for myself.
- The assumption in our midst is that if I am making it a practice to give generously, I am free from the most crippling effects of materialism—even if my lifestyle belies a sort of addiction to expensive entertainment, conspicuous consumption, and regularly buying new and nice things for myself.
- The amount of time, money, energy, and thought devoted to getting all the bumps in proper proportion and all the colors just right seems absurd to anyone not sufficiently immersed in our culture of fixation on body image. But when is the last time you heard a sermon asking whether Christians, as a matter of course, should be pursuing cosmetic surgery, Botox, or abnormally large biceps? We’ve tacitly agreed to leave these issues unaddressed, and only the uninitiated will think to ask them.
- But we never talk about it in church. We’ve agreed not to talk about it. And we’ve agreed not to call attention to the fact that we don’t talk about it.
- Remarkably, though, Christians will often go their entire lives having questions like the one asked in this Sunday school class sidestepped — without so much as realizing that it’s happening.
- Remarkably, though, Christians will often go their entire lives having questions like the one asked in this Sunday school class sidestepped—without so much as realizing that it’s happening.
- “We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of conscience.”
- “We never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when we do it out of
- I’ve never been on staff at a church. But everyone I know who has been seems to have a story to tell about the mistreatment of a Christian brother or sister for the sake of the good of the church.
- The wise counselor is gracious not only in his tone but also in his timing. Not all truths are for right now.
- to crucify something is to put a plan into action that will affect its death.
- If, on the other hand, we are dying to self, we will find that the need for self-deception dissipates over time. We’ll not need to deceive ourselves about the call of the disciple to die to self, since we’ll have heeded that call. We’ll not need to deceive ourselves about the degree to which we’re not yet dead, since we’ll also be aware of the degree to which we have in fact died.
- So let’s not merely use the spiritual language of the cross and self-mortification. Let’s adopt proven and effective plans for putting to death the various addictions that prevent us from moving more fully into the life of Jesus. Let us move out of the darkness and into the light with respect to our sin. The less we have to hide from ourselves and others, the less we’ll be moved in the direction of self-deception. What sort of plan? Try this. Got a
- We do battle with self-deception, in part, by eliminating those aspects of our lives which require it.
- Groups likely to be helpful in the fight against self-deception will be diverse. They won’t just be in conversation with folks who disagree. They’ll be comprised of people who disagree.
- Insofar as I am not yet perfectly like Christ, the imitation of Christ will, at times, feel false, unnatural, and insincere. But if we trust the Master, we’ll obey even when obedience isn’t what comes naturally — even when obedience runs contrary to what we’re feeling at the moment. This isn’t hypocrisy; we don’t act contrary to our impulses in an attempt to fake anybody out. We act contrary to our impulses because we wish to be re-trained. We wish to be something other than what we are today. We wish to be putting off the old self and putting on the new.
- I’m playing. I’m imitating the one for whom the blessing comes naturally. Over time, with the help of the Holy Spirit, that which was once forced and unnatural becomes the reflex response.
- The second problem with fixating on the self-deceptive strategies of others is that I am rarely well-positioned to do anything about the self-deception of others — even if I’m right that they’re self-deceived.
- We play at being Christ’s followers in order to become his followers.
- Insofar as I am not yet perfectly like Christ, the imitation of Christ will, at times, feel false, unnatural, and insincere. But if we trust the Master, we’ll obey even when obedience isn’t what comes naturally—even when obedience runs contrary to what we’re feeling at the moment. This isn’t hypocrisy; we don’t act contrary to our impulses in an attempt to fake anybody out. We act contrary to our impulses because we wish to be re-trained. We wish to be something other than what we are today. We wish to be putting off the old self and putting on the new.
- The second problem with fixating on the self-deceptive strategies of others is that I am rarely well-positioned to do anything about the self-deception of others—even if I’m right that they’re self-deceived.
- Just as often, though, my Heavenly Father refuses to tell me what he’d do in my shoes. I’ve come to interpret his silence in these instances as an invitation to grow up.
- But we must also live with the fact that self-deception will not always be avoidable. We may find ourselves without the resources for double-checking and triple-checking our convictions, and even God may be silent. Often, in such a case, we must carry on in the world as best we can for the sake of God’s kingdom, trusting that he’s grand enough to bring beauty