The eCrozier

What the heart desires, the will chooses, and then the mind justifies.

The above unattributed quote succinctly describes how sin so often works its way through our hearts and then into our behavior in the world. We’re moved to desire someone or something, we go after the desired someone or something, and then (and only then) do we concoct in our minds a justification or a defense for why it is we were right in choosing who or what we desired.

Our Book of Common Prayer is full of prayers that recognize this pattern in all of us. In the 5th Sunday in Lent we hear: “Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise.” The Prayer Book assumes our “unruly wills and affections” need the intervention of grace before we can love what God desires as opposed to what we desire. On the 6th Sunday of Easter, we pray: “Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire.” This Collect assumes human desires is marred by sin and require God’s love to be poured into our hearts before we can begin to love God “above all things.” These are just two examples. Read through the Collects of the Church year and you’ll see this pattern.

In 1957, in his “A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance,” psychologist Leon Festinger described a psychological phenomenon where the heart, will, and mind play this game of justification trifecta. Festinger argued the human mind doesn’t like inconsistencies. He wrote: “Cognitive dissonance can be seen as an antecedent condition which leads to activity oriented toward dissonance reduction just as hunger leads toward activity oriented toward hunger reduction.” So, just as a hungry person will seek food to alleviate hunger, Festinger argued, people who experience mental contradictions will work to rationalize them and thus reduce the dissonance. Such cognitive dissonance, then, works out this way when it comes to our moral behavior: If our heart’s desire conflicts with our moral code, then our mind will find some way to justify this dissonance away. In other words, we need a way to rationalize our choices as “moral,” even when they aren’t, in order to align them with our heart’s desire. And we’ll often go to great lengths inventing new mental or spiritual yoga moves to do so.

So, how does this work when we apply it to the problem of racism in America? (1) We support a particular person’s action because it benefits us or we generally approve of it; (2) We don’t support racists because racism is immoral; and, (3) That particular person regularly engages in racist words or behavior. Those three don’t jibe, so our mind seeks a way to justify our support of that person’s action. Voilà! The Cognitive Dissonance stew has just been served. There’s no real cure for Cognitive Dissonance other than the Christian spiritual practice of self-examination and repentance where we take a serious personal inventory and open ourselves to the possibility we may be wrong in God’s eyes. After all, our capacity to justify ourselves is, as the Bible might say, “legion.” Read Acts 10:1-11:17 to see St. Peter’s Cognitive Dissonance and how he ends by vulnerably asking, “Who was I that I could hinder God? (11:17b).

+Scott