A morally deceived person is not an innocent victim.
Lies can be useful. For example, if an unmarried man is having sexual relations with his girlfriend, and he believes they are doing wrong before a holy God, he will suffer guilt and the fear of divine punishment. If he is determined to keep having sex with her, sooner or later he will probably choose to be deceived on this issue in order to quiet his conscience. He does not acknowledge to himself that he is deceiving himself; he just does it, and that change in belief in violation of his conscience and Scripture is an evil act for which he is responsible. He believes what he wants.
And to be consistent he must shift other beliefs accordingly. If he once regarded the Bible as completely true, he now will doubt the divine inspiration of at least some of it, because Scripture plainly says sexual relations outside of marriage are sinful. If he once regarded God as a consuming fire who judges sin, he now will need to believe God does not judge people, or he will question whether God even exists. He must rid his mind of troubling truths.
So his choice to deceive himself with one lie inevitably leads to many more self-deceptions. The process resembles a walk from the bright light of day into a cave of deeper and deeper moral darkness, where he now believes falsehoods he never could have imagined believing before his sexual sin began. If his girlfriend becomes pregnant, he now believes in the need for abortion, even a ghastly late-term abortion.
To quiet his conscience, he must find ways to construe abortion as a virtue. Thus he and his girlfriend are, in their eyes, rescuing the unborn child from a life of poverty or from being unwanted. They are courageously defending rights his girlfriend supposedly has over her body. They are making a prudent decision in the best interests of their entire family. He wants to believe this abortion is moral, and therefore he believes whatever he must to make it so.
To be consistent, he must also find ways to frame opposing ideas as immoral. Those who oppose abortions are now regarded as evil because they are intolerant and judgmental. They are trying to empower government to meddle in a woman’s right to control her body. Churches and preachers are the country’s real problem because they impose their morality on others. In this young man’s mind, the moral universe has turned upside down.
Belief is a choice. What we believe is as much a moral act as choices in sexuality or finances. Belief is a moral act for which we are accountable because we choose our beliefs about life’s ultimate issues to suit our desires. Either we want God and his truth at any cost, or we want to satisfy our corrupt desires. Satan could deceive Eve because she wanted what he offered. If we choose to be deceived, we rebel against God, and the consequences are far-reaching.
Continued next week with more on why we deceive ourselves