I no longer believe that the vast majority of people, no matter how well reasoned or discerning they might be, can sort reality effectively enough to keep from falling prey to disordered thinking.
People are capable of choosing a box that best represents the amalgam of ideas that reflect truth. They can choose that box and can keep from selecting other boxes that are filled with nothing but garbage and lies, with a few truths mixed in.
But what everyone seems incapable of doing is going into their box that is mostly truth, picking out the stray lie, and tossing out that lie. They simply assume their box is 100% truth, which is a mistake.
Worse, when they do find a stray lie among the truth, they double down on it. And to support their choice to double down, they start exploring the boxes of garbage for proof. After a while, they have spent so much time rummaging through lies, they forget what the real truth is. And they exchange their true box for the lie box.
I think we could go so far as to say that disordered thinking is part of the fall, and that properly ordered thinking cannot happen until sin is no longer present.
But I get the most disordered the further I move from, or the more time I spend away from, God and his Word and all things associated directly with him. Sounds like a Sunday school answer. 20-something me would be rolling my eyes. But that’s it. That’s the big reveal.
I no longer believe that the vast majority of people, no matter how well reasoned or discerning they might be, can sort reality effectively enough to keep from falling prey to disordered thinking.
People are capable of choosing a box that best represents the amalgam of ideas that reflect truth. They can choose that box and can keep from selecting other boxes that are filled with nothing but garbage and lies, with a few truths mixed in.
But what everyone seems incapable of doing is going into their box that is mostly truth, picking out the stray lie, and tossing out that lie. They simply assume their box is 100% truth, which is a mistake.
Worse, when they do find a stray lie among the truth, they double down on it. And to support their choice to double down, they start exploring the boxes of garbage for proof. After a while, they have spent so much time rummaging through lies, they forget what the real truth is. And they exchange their true box for the lie box.
I think we could go so far as to say that disordered thinking is part of the fall, and that properly ordered thinking cannot happen until sin is no longer present.
But I get the most disordered the further I move from, or the more time I spend away from, God and his Word and all things associated directly with him. Sounds like a Sunday school answer. 20-something me would be rolling my eyes. But that’s it. That’s the big reveal.