One of the best experiences I have had in theological education is cognitive dissonance. The process of being confronted with a more complete understanding of the biblical message is exhilarating. It drives me to continue learning more about who God is and what He is doing throughout salvation history.

One of the goals of Get More Ministries is to lead people through their own cognitive dissonance experiences because we are refined by the truth in these moments.

In this post, we will talk about: 

• what is cognitive dissonance 
• how people often experience cognitive dissonance in their faith 
• how and why cognitive dissonance is helpful for getting more of God
• why cognitive dissonance is different than deconstruction

WHAT IS COGNITIVE DISSONANCE?

Cognitive dissonance is a state of mental distress that results from becoming aware that one’s beliefs do not match one’s lived experience. 

Those who study cognitive dissonance are often interested in how/why individuals continue to believe their core beliefs (sometimes with greater fervor) even after their lived experience completely contradicts those beliefs. For clarification purposes in this article, we will call this approach the macro study of cognitive dissonance.

The approach I am more interested in for this article is what I’m calling the micro study of cognitive dissonance. Instead of examining how lived experience contradicts the core tenets of religious beliefs, we will discuss how paradigms within one’s religious beliefs are confronted through exposure to God’s word and exposure to alternative frameworks of practicing biblical engagement.

HOW DO PEOPLE EXPERIENCE COGNITIVE DISSONANCE WITHIN THEIR FAITH?

It is common for people to experience cognitive dissonance when they examine their lived experience against their religious preunderstanding. This has been a common occurrence within my life, and I think it can be a very good process.

Our ministerial work at Get More Ministries focuses on guiding people closer to God through biblical engagement. This process inevitably results in cognitive dissonance. Here are the most common ways cognitive dissonance has emerged in our students over the years.

Desperate for More

Some people we work with are what we would consider “desperate for more.” They have a constant desire for more, but they usually don’t know what fulfilling that desire looks like. They know they want more of God, but they also know they lack confidence and are completely intimidated by approaching Scripture. They are desperate for someone to guide them, so they lunge towards any and every available resource they think might help. After trying the latest devotional, they walk away realizing they still feel intimidated by the Bible, and all they’ve done is learn what someone else thinks about a particular passage in Scripture.

While they usually don’t realize it, the frustration and stagnation people experience is usually the result of a biblical engagement framework. Thus, the cognitive dissonance they will likely encounter is this: “the biblical engagement framework I thought led to deep life with God doesn’t actually lead me where I thought it did.”

Lightbulb Moment

Other people we work with are interested in going deeper with God, but they wouldn’t describe themselves as “desperate.” Instead, these are folks who take advantage of opportunities when they arise, and they thoroughly enjoy these opportunities.

The cognitive dissonance they often encounter occurs after being introduced to a new biblical engagement framework or deeper teaching through a common passage, and it is usually in some form of the the following: “how come nobody has ever told us this before?”

These are the moments that help people realize (1) ‘more’ exists, and (2) what ‘more’ looks like. These are also the moments where people need guidance because cognitive dissonance makes us feel fragile.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE IS HELPFUL FOR GETTING MORE OF GOD

I firmly believe that maturity in Christ brings us through encounter after encounter of micro cognitive dissonance. These encounters can either propel us towards Christ, or they can cause uncomfortable overwhelm and result in emotional shut-down.

God is nuanced and sophisticated. We need look no further than the doctrine of the trinity to see that this is so. However, God is also knowable. God has allowed humans to know Him. We cannot know Him as He knows Himself because He is a higher life-form than we are (just as my cat knows me, but she cannot know me as I know myself).

Our knowledge of God has a beginning, and then it grows. God is omniscient and is unaware of nothing. Humans are made in the image of God; we are finite reflections of Him. Thus, we reflect God’s capacity for knowledge in a finite way. We can know, but our knowledge comes through learning. We need to continue to learn more about who God is, what He is like, what He has done, what He is doing, what He will do, and how He has said He will do it.

We increase our knowledge about those things through biblical engagement. The Bible is God’s self-disclosure of who He is and how we are to know Him. We need to examine our preunderstanding of God against what God has said through His word. This process will result in cognitive dissonance. It is inevitable, and it is good because it reveals our incomplete knowledge is undergoing the necessary process that allows it to become more complete.

AREN’T YOU JUST TALKING ABOUT DECONSTRUCTION?

This is an excellent question, and it is not without merit. There is great overlap between cognitive dissonance (as I’m discussing it in this post) and the modern practice of “deconstruction.”

In short, those practicing deconstruction have previously experienced cognitive dissonance, but deconstruction is not the only logical conclusion for someone experiencing cognitive dissonance.

“Deconstruction” is the re-evaluation of one’s religious identity. One point of emphasis for deconstructionists is examining how the religious beliefs of their childhood and adolescence no longer adequately explain their current life experience and shifting worldview. Based on what I’ve observed, religious trauma from one’s youth is a common theme among adult deconstructionists.

Deconstruction overlaps with micro cognitive dissonance as I’ve described it here. Both involve the process of learning and recognizing the gap between one’s preunderstanding and what is actually true. 

The primary difference, as I see it, is that cognitive dissonance is a stimulus. It makes you aware of what (likely) needs to change, but it is up to the individual which path of change they go down. Once cognitive dissonance sets in, the individual has three choices: (1) learn and grow towards a more complete understanding of the truth (micro cognitive dissonance); (2) ignore the cognitive dissonance and double-down on one’s original preunderstanding (entrenchment); (3) replace one’s entire paradigm with one that seems to cohere with one’s life experience (deconstruction). Deconstruction is a potential solution to the stimulus of cognitive dissonance.

In addition to being a stimulus, cognitive dissonance has the potential for expanding one’s understanding of what can be true. Part of what moves someone into cognitive dissonance is feeling the tension of two things that are in conflict with one another but are simultaneously true. An example would be: creation is good, but sin is a devastating marring of that which is good. These two truths are difficult to hold as equally true, but they are not contradictory. In the case of creation’s goodness and the devastation of sin, we need to increase our capacity for what is true so that we hold a more complete understanding.

Because deconstruction is a solution to cognitive dissonance, it focusses more on replacing a previously held belief system with one that is more compatible with one’s lived experience. Despite the conceptual overlap, micro cognitive dissonance is different than deconstruction because it is a stimulus within the learning process that places us at a an intersection: we can reject our original beliefs; we can double down and entrench ourselves within our original beliefs (even though the evidence suggests we should do otherwise); or we can seek the truth (which will likely have nuance) and submit to the growing pains that characterize the learning process.

A FINAL WORD

It has been my experience that experiencing cognitive dissonance within the context of desiring the truth is a powerful aspect of getting more of God and maturing in Christ. As finite image-bearers of God, we must have the expectation that we need to grow our understanding of who God is in accordance with how He has revealed Himself through His word. Micro cognitive dissonance plays a necessary role within that process. It acts as a stimulus that alerts us to what needs to change. These changes don’t have to be “absolute.” They can be nuanced. They can be full of weight and tension. God is nuanced and sophisticated. Therefore, it is good for us to learn how to comfortably hold nuance, tension, and cognitive dissonance.