The Truth About UsSample

 Our Cognitive Biases

One of the leading people in the field of cognitive science is Daniel Kahneman, who’s won a Nobel Prize for his work as a moral psychologist. As we examine his work, this becomes obvious: We simply can’t trust what we see, because we lie to ourselves so often and so easily. Kahneman argues that we’re “hardwired to delude ourselves.”

We can easily see the speck in somebody else’s eye. But the plank in our own? What plank?

In fact, there are more than a hundred recognized cognitive biases, and so many of them are rooted in our desire to divide the world into the “Good People” and the “Bad People” and see ourselves as one of the former. We engage in little shortcuts, so many ways of fooling ourselves, and we’re largely blissfully unaware.

We want to think we’re good, based on a relative standard. But God doesn’t look at the outward appearance. He looks at something we can’t see: the heart (see 1 Samuel 16:7). We’re all capable of doing wonderful things, but if we’re being perfectly honest, our motives remain a mystery even to ourselves (see 1 Corinthians 4:1–5).

“The heart is deceitful above all things,” the Lord famously says in Jeremiah. “Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

So let’s admit it: We’re biased. We don’t see things clearly all the time. In fact, we can’t objectively see what’s driving us, or anyone else, at all. We can’t pretend we’re good when we don’t even know our own motives. We can be wrong about a lot of things.

Where does this leave us? It sounds like we can’t definitively say where anyone else stands with God. It sounds like we can no longer confidently divide the world into the Good People versus the Bad People. And sure enough, it sounds like the proper response to God is exactly what Jesus was saying it should be, exactly like what the tax collector cried out in Jesus’ story (Day 1): “Have mercy on me, a sinner.”

What trusted friend or loved one could you ask to help you see beyond your own blind spots about yourself?