Written by Douglas Jones
Suppose you wake up one morning and realize that you have been wrong about everything. You opinions about life, about human nature, about your social values, even your opinions about yourself, you realize have been all wrong. As you go through the day like this, you realize that common things you have always taken for granted you now see in a whole new light. The world hasn’t changed, but you have. Things you once thought were important aren’t at all. Things you once adored are now utterly disgusting, while things you once hated you now love. You ask yourself, how I could I have been so wrong before? How can all these other people still be so wrong?
Most people in the world assume that millions of others are mentally out to lunch in exactly this way. Much of the world, for example, thinks that Muslims are seriously disconnected from reality. And animists, those who think that gods inhabit trees and rocks and such, fail the reality check with most other people in the world. In our own society, Bible-believing Christians are looked upon as ignorant bumpkins by the humanist liberal establishment.
Where did we get our beliefs, no matter what they may be? Like most people, you probably picked them up along the way from people you trusted: your parents, friends, teachers. But what if most of those folks were wrong? Maybe you have fallen for a subtle pack of lies? Real deception never looks strange when you are on the inside of it.
Now, I’m not talking about insanity, like thinking you are Napoleon. The more interesting and more plausible kind of self-deception involves less obvious, even invisible things, like moral standards of what is right and wrong, and the rules you follow when you reason things out—we all follow rules of reasoning, we just don’t usually realize it. Sometimes we are following different rules of reasoning than the other guy, and that’s the source of arguments. We also make assumptions about how the world works, and we never question those assumptions. If you are wrong about these sorts of things, if you have made the wrong assumptions, then you could be radically mistaken. You might only realize it when it’s too late, when everything starts to fall apart.
Add all this to the fact that your years on earth have really been very few. And the time anyone spends thinking about the world is minute compared to all that there is to understand. Given all this, isn’t it possible, even likely that you are radically deceived about the world? When you consider how easily and how many people are deceived, it doesn’t seem that wild a possibility that you too are deceived.
In fact, your actions reveal more about your likely deception than your words. For example, when you go to the store to buy milk, you reveal many things about yourself. When you first walk up to the store, you assume that you and the store are two different things, not one. That may sound silly, but millions of people don’t believe that, those who practice most Eastern and New Age religions. When you assume that you and the store are not one, you are rejecting those religions. When you walk down the same dairy aisle and select the same kind of milk you have bought before, you assume that the world is not chaotic, but orderly, regular, and divided into particular kinds of things. You assume that the same store and the aisle and, unless they have run out, the milk will be there. By assuming that, you are rejecting humanism and the theory of evolution, which says the world sprang up accidentally and therefore there can be nothing that is really predictable.
When you stand in line with other people, expecting them to respect your space and your person, you reveal your rejection of moral relativism and your deep trust in absolute moral standards of right and wrong. When you calculate your available money, compare the price of the milk, and make the exchange with the clerk at the register, you’re engaging in a complex array of thought processes involving nonmaterial rules of reasoning, thus again showing your rejection of materialism and evolution.
In short, when you do something as simple as buying milk, you accept and reject all sorts of views. You act like you reject many popular religions and scientific claims. In fact, given the sum of what you assume and reject just when buying milk—you act just like you believe that you live in the world described by Christianity. The world you assume exists when you buy milk only can exist if Christianity is true. In other words, the assumptions of non-Christian religions just do not fit reality. If New Agers and Buddhists were consistent, they could not buy milk, because they think that the store and the milk and they are all one. If humanists were consistent, they could not buy milk either, because they have no basis to believe that the store that was there yesterday will be there today, nor, since their beliefs system rejects moral absolutes, do they have any reason not to just steal the milk. These people may verbally reject Christianity, but they cannot live by rejecting Christianity. They profess non-Christianity, but assume Christianity. They live like Christianity is true and as though their non-Christianity is false.
Non-Christian thought ignores this, of course, because it has no answer for such obvious and massive self-deception. But Christianity does. The Bible explains that we have rebelled against God, and so we try to make up grand scenarios in order to evade Him. We try deceive ourselves, believing religious theories invented by men that are disproved by reality, religious theories that no one can live by—in open rebellion against the God of the Bible. Such evasion isn't a just an error. It is warfare against our Creator, and it deserves divine capital punishment. Or, you can pray to embrace the mercy found in Christ, the God-given substitute sent to take our punishment so that we can be reconciled to God. That's the heart of Christianity—peace with God, with no more radical self deception about the world.
So, the next time you go to the store to buy some milk, think about Christ's work—which made even that possible.