Articles
But What If You're Wrong?
In 1999, a professor of psychology at Cornell University initiated a study of individuals and their abilities and their perception of their abilities, and how they correlated, if at all. Without going into the details of the study, the professor and his graduate student assistant found “students who scored the lowest in these cognitive tasks always overestimated how well they did – by a lot. Students who scored in the bottom quartile estimated that they had performed better than two-thirds of the other students.” In other words, those who did not do well perceived that they actually did better than most of the class.
What this professor and his graduate student found in this study is now called the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and basically describes how many people mistakenly assess their abilities as being much higher than they actually are. This applies to knowledge, too, for further tests showed that those who scored lowest on controlled tests consistently believed they scored much higher than they actually did. [Similarly, those who did well tended to underestimate their scores.] This false confidence is why 80% of people in another survey believed that they were better than most drivers on the road [a statistical impossibility]. This misconception is problematic, to say the least, because we would like to believe the guy who tells us he knows what he is doing actually knows what he is doing and won’t blow us all up when he pushes the wrong button or mixes the wrong amount of chemicals. This ‘illusion of confidence,’ as it is now called, is dangerous! Charles Darwin was right on this when he wrote, “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.”
Dear reader, how much more dangerous is this ‘illusion of confidence’ when we are speaking of spiritual matters! How many are confident that they know what the Bible teaches? How many are confident that they know what God wants of us? How many are confident that they are forgiven of past sins and saved? These are not light matters, friends and brethren; in these things we must not have a false confidence that we are right on any of these things, for the consequences are eternal!
How can we know whether we have this false confidence? How can we ensure we don’t get to the end of life and face the Lord in the final Judgment, only to find out our confidence was misplaced? Is this even something to worry about?
Deceptions Abound. In spiritual matters, it is simply unwise to believe that anyone and everyone who claims to be speaking the truth [i.e., God’s word] is actually doing so. John warned the disciples of the first century, “many deceivers have gone out into the world” (2 John 1:7), ones who denied Jesus as having come in the flesh; he also warned, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). Likewise, Peter warned there were “false prophets among the people…And many will follow their destructive ways” (2 Pet. 2:1, 2). To even think that anyone and everyone who claims to be speaking God’s will should be believed goes against the very warnings against false teachers, false prophets, and deceivers! Deceptions abound!
The Tactics of the Deceivers. As the old saying goes: “Forewarned is forearmed.” We would do well to know the tactics of those who are in the world now, deceiving the unsuspecting and those who are guilty of having that false confidence. Hear Paul’s words to those in Rome: In his closing words, he warned of “those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned,” noting that they “by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple” (Rom. 16:17, 18). The ESV translates this as “the naïve,” which is not incorrect. The original Greek word simply means one who distrusts no one; in other words, they are gullible and will believe anything someone tells them. That could be extremely dangerous!
Furthermore, let us consider that our spiritual adversary is the greatest deceiver of all (cf. Rev. 12:9; 2 Cor. 11:14), and he will appeal to every man in a way that highlights his desires, and uses those desires against him (cf. Jas. 1:13-15) even as he convinces the deceived that he is doing a good thing. He and his workers will “speak great swelling words of emptiness, [and] allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error,” and “promise them liberty” (2 Pet. 2:18) while the end result will actually be enslavement (cf. John 8:34; 2 Tim. 2:26). If we are not on guard against “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16), he will use them against us and we will be deceived into thinking we are right with God when, in reality, we are far from Him and not pleasing to Him at all.
Be Aware Of Self-Deception. Many sincere people are on guard against outward assaults on their faith, but are naïve to the reality that much of the danger of having a false confidence in spiritual matters comes from within. We can deceive ourselves into thinking we know more than we do, that we know what is right, that we are doing what is right, or that we are actually living a life that is pleasing to God. From my observation, this is the biggest problem our society has amongst those who profess to be believers, for they say they believe, but their lives demonstrate something quite different than what God’s word says. Quite often, this is because they have deceived themselves into thinking they know how God wants them to live when the life they live is actually a life that pleases them, and they have convinced themselves that God must certainly approve because He is so loving and gracious.
James warned the early disciples, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (Jas. 1:22). He would go on to say it was not the self-deceived, but the “doer of the work” who “will be blessed in what he does” (Jas. 1:25). We can convince ourselves we are ‘good people’ until time ends, and we can convince ourselves [and others] that we are living a life pleasing to God until we stand before Him in the final Judgment, but that does not make it so if, in fact, we have not done what He said we must do, and are not continuing to do what He said we must do. Knowing something about God, knowing something about Jesus, and even being able to quote multiple Bible passages is not all there is to pleasing God. We may think “going to church” is good enough [at least once or twice each year], or we may think being “good” most of the time is enough, but such are merely various forms of self-deception.
I am of the mind that many who call themselves ‘agnostic’ are simply too lazy to find the answer. Unfortunately, many more people who call themselves believers have an ‘illusion of confidence’ that they are saved when they know little to nothing about what God requires of men to even be saved. Many are confident — falsely so — that they are right, and have no interest in hearing otherwise. It is one thing to think you are right, and maybe something else to know you are right. You say you are right, but what if you’re wrong? — Steven Harper
