The Will to Believe

In his book The Will to Believe William James asserts that regardless of the amount of evidence supporting a particular belief, no one will believe anything that he does not want to believe. Conversely, regardless of the amount of evidence refuting a particular belief, no one will stop believing anything he wants to believe. While we might hesitate to believe that anyone would hold onto a belief system that they knew to be in error, my experience has convinced me that James was absolutely correct.

Most people do not search for truth; they search for validation. They delude themselves that if the majority of people believe one thing, they are justified—or at least safe—in believing it too. It does not matter that the particular ideology under consideration has proven repeatedly to be in error. If it appeals to the person in question, he will almost always embrace it as “truth.” In fact, it does not matter what belief system is espoused; if the person trusts the group where it originated, he will usually sign on without giving it a second thought.

A few years ago I was sitting in a business meeting at a small Southern Baptist church that our family was attending at the time. There was a heated discussion among some of the members concerning a change that part of the congregation wanted to make in the worship service. During the course of the debate, someone mentioned the Southern Baptist Convention—just the name, not what they had said about the matter being discussed. Immediately an elderly woman who had been a Baptist “all of her life” exclaimed loudly, “I don’t have any idea who the Southern Baptist Convention is, and I don’t have any idea what they believe, but I trust them completely!”

I do not remember how the matter was resolved, but I do remember thinking that no amount of discussion was going to make any difference. The congregation was divided, and neither side cared whether their position was scripturally sound. They had made up their minds based on absolutely nothing other than what they wanted to believe.

Unfortunately, this tendency to believe whatever we want to believe is not new. One of the most interesting examples of this appears in Chapter 28 of Deuteronomy. Moses gathered the people of Israel to give them instructions before entering the Promised Land. It was a short list of instructions, and it would have been easy for everyone to follow them.  Moses even told the people what would happen if they obeyed and what would happen if they failed to obey :

“If you fully obey all of these commandments….these are the blessings that will come upon you: blessings in the city, blessings in the field, many children, ample crops, large flocks and herds, blessings of fruit and bread, blessings when you come in, blessings when you go out.” (Deut. 28:1-6)

“If you won’t listen to the Lord your God and won’t obey these laws I am giving you today, then all of these curses shall come upon you: curses in the city, curses in the field, curses on your fruit and bread, the curse of barren wombs, curses upon your crops, curses upon the fertility of your cattle and flocks, curses when you come in, curses when you go out.” (Deut. 28:15-19)

The people of Israel had lived for forty years under God’s protection. They had crossed the Red Sea on dry ground and then watched as God closed the waters over Pharaoh’s army and destroyed them all. They had been given water from a rock and received bread from heaven every day. They had been led by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. They had spent forty years experiencing God’s Grace and goodness every day of their lives, but when the time came to make a choice, many of them chose to harden their hearts and tell themselves that they would prosper in the new land whether they chose to obey God or whether they chose to follow their own evil desires.

As Christians we cannot emphasize enough that God means what He says, and that when we turn away from Him to follow our own desires, we are lost. It does not matter whether we have countless others on our side or whether we find ourselves standing totally alone, the only winning side is God’s side.

Ultimately, every man and woman makes a choice. We choose life or we choose death. We choose what we will believe, and we choose what we will discard. I hope that every person reading this will choose obedience to God and a life of blessing, both in this world and the next.

For more articles and books by Joyce Swann, visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/.