Why Do People Reject Truth?
One of the least understood issues in human life is why different people can look at the same information, conditions or circumstances and draw opposite conclusions. Some look at the expanse of the universe and the clouds and how the human body works and know instinctively that God created these. Others look at the same things and conclude there is no God and believe the universe occurred from random chance starting with nothing. People look at social and political information and often migrate to polar opposite views, each strongly held. The examples are endless, but how do different people have such divergent views on the same subject when presented with the same information?
The Bible deals with this issue, of course. Although the answer is multi-faceted, there are some key principles involved. The discussion must begin with the fact that the Bible declares there is such a thing as truth, and also that there is non-truth and/or lies, and that there is right and wrong. Philippians 4:8 says "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Therefore the phrase "it's all relative" is false. "It" is not all relative. There is truth, and there are lies. John 8:44 says "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." And a mixture of partial truth and some lies is also a lie. People can sort them out to a degree if they are honest and willing, and especially believers can sort out truth from lies to a larger degree if they understand the Bible, since the Bible is the standard for absolute truth. Unbelievers can sort out basic truths about many things in life, which is why God gave mankind logic and a divine order for mankind to live under, and it is available for all. But unbelievers do not have access to absolute truth since it is only discerned by the human spirit using information from the Word of God, and they have neither a human spirit nor spiritual access to the Word.
There are two main overarching factors which affect truth acceptance or rejection. The first is the formation of core beliefs by learning, because those core beliefs strongly influence how a person views the world, spiritual issues, and so on. The second main factor which affects truth acceptance or rejection is how the soul of the person functions, and there are proper and improper processes which can occur in the soul. We discussed the issues related to soul malfunction in the chapter on the soul and human spirit, and those issues will be applied here in the context of truth rejection.
With regard to the first of the two overarching reasons for truth rejection, namely the formation of core beliefs by learning, we need to start by examining how humans know anything at all, and therefore how core beliefs are developed. And it is the core beliefs which are important since they can guide people into either being able to sort out truth from lies, or into accepting lies as truth. That could require a separate book, so we will only summarize the issues here. Core beliefs are firmly held views about important things which in turn drive how we think about the world, God, the divine order on earth, and anything important to us. This is where the human soul and spirit come into play. As noted previously, the human soul is imparted at birth, but it is empty of information. Information taken into the soul is processed and stored, then the person uses it to form core beliefs over time based on what they have learned mixed with individual biases and preferences. This in turn drives how a person perceives the world and all subsequent information they receive, and also what they care about. These core beliefs are usually in categories, with each person having a set of beliefs about values, God, relationships, politics, society, and practically everything of interest in life. These build up norms and standards in the format conscience in the soul, which are then used to evaluate everything in life and judge things to be true or false, good or bad, moral or immoral. And a conscience can be either correct or incorrect depending on what is put into it, and can allow a person to avoid the truth if not properly developed with accurate information.
People generally learn information in one of five basic ways, 1) by empirical sensory information (sight, smell, taste, sound, feel, etc), 2) by memorizing basic factual information, 3) by rational reasoning (developing new information on one's own), 4) by proving something scientifically on their own, or 5) by accepting information as it is provided by others (called "faith"). Humans learn very little by rational reasoning, which requires deep thought about a subject and drawing new conclusions which have not been previously learned. This is what Albert Einstein was famous for doing. Then one must ask why that information is accurate, and he was often inaccurate as was later learned. Regarding scientific proof, very few people can prove things scientifically for themselves, except basic math and such, so most scientific information is learned by faith, not by proof since it must be proven by each individual in order to be proof to them. Then there are the senses which tell us a lot empirically about the things seen, observed, heard, felt, tasted, etc. and most of the raw data which enters the soul comes in empirically through the senses. But the senses teach very little about what is behind the things sensed. For instance, were the things around us created by God or was it all just an accident of nature? The senses cannot provide an answer. Although the senses provide most of the inputs in life, they generally do not form core beliefs, just sensory data which allows us to move around in the world and interact physically with it. Knowing not to put one's hand into a fire is important information, but not a core belief, just self preservation. We memorize a lot of facts, but that does not develop core beliefs. By far the majority of what is learned by humans which becomes core beliefs comes from accepting information as it is presented by others, namely by faith. Faith is not limited to religion, not even close to it. Schools are a faith-based method of learning, with an occasional lab for demonstrations to the senses. Faith is accepting the authority of another to convey information, then generally accepting what they say. Reading, conversations, internet sites, friends, media, and other sources of information are also faith-based learning. Of course, the information can be true or false, or a mixture of the two, or can be misunderstood. Humans accept most of what leads to their core beliefs during their lifetime by faith, but the key to whether the things learned are true is in the source of the information.
Most people do not realize the degree to which they relied on faith to come to their present state of core beliefs. They went to school and learned by faith apart from proof most of what became their core beliefs. Were the teachers providing truth, fiction, theories, opinions, or otherwise? Usually it is an mixture. If the information is self-proving like basic math, whereby you have one item in your hand, then pick up another and then have two, that is not about core beliefs. But with regard to core beliefs people learn and accept many things from the internet, media, friends, etc., but they did not require proof for most of that information, and some or much of it is false or mixed lineage at best. The test for faith and the validity of the resulting information is in the source. The source of the information in the Bible is God, and He is the only source for absolute truth. There is no more trustworthy source. The source in school or on the internet is always fallible. And if God and Christ are rejected, what is the source of the information which is used instead to form core beliefs? Nothing proven, and often a jumbled and discordant collection of inputs which led to a set of core beliefs, whether strongly or loosely held, which were never proven and often can be summarized as an eclectic conglomeration. Therefore if the core beliefs are wrong, it will be difficult for truth to get through to the person in the affected areas. Sometimes only certain core beliefs are misguided. Most people have a mixture. It is only those core beliefs which are based on the Word of God which line up with absolute truth.
The Bible is clear about certain basic truths, that God exists, that He created the universe, and that salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. These are some of the numerous absolutes revealed in the Bible. Christians accept Biblical teachings because we believe the source is God, and that God cannot be wrong. Some mock and deride the faith of believers by saying proof is required before such things can be believed. That is a literal impossibility for most things of importance, whether related to God or other issues, but certainly when discussing the origins of the universe, God and His plan, salvation, the soul and human spirit and all such things. The origin of the universe and many things related to God are not provable because God does not want them to be provable, since He requires us to live by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7) Non-creationists believe in the unbelievable, making enormous leaps of faith across great chasms to come to conclusions which are entirely unsupported, yet they claim that science is on their side. However they change their unproven theories constantly, basing core beliefs on a set of ever changing theories which are unprovable. Additionally, the lines between scientific proof and computer models have become blurred in order to declare something scientifically proven, when the outcome of models is by definition not proof, but is based on variable assumptions fed into the models by fallible and biased humans using limited information. If they knew enough to fully feed a model, then the model would not be needed since the issue would be self-proving.
Once a person has developed core beliefs, the key to why the truth is so often rejected lies within the soul. The soul has components as discussed previously, and the soul can use different parts to form beliefs, to come to conclusions, and ultimately to think. God designed a primary and logical pathway for thinking, which involves the various logical components of the soul advising the soul's heart, the engine of integrating information, generating conclusions and emitting expressions from the soul. Recall that the heart is not the emotions as is often erroneously stated, but rather the thinking and processing engine of the soul which interfaces with the outside world and with God. The logical advisors to the heart are the mind, conscience, memories, and other component advisors, and for the believer it also includes the human spirit which processes and stores spiritual information. God is the author of logic, and has given it to the human race as a gift. But there is a lifelong battle in the soul of each person over which advisors the soul's heart will listen to when making decisions, whether it will be the logical advisors or the sinful nature backed by an out-of-control emotions, which are an illogical duo. The logical advisors are normally aligned in opposition to the sinful nature, with its sinful tendencies and lust patterns which seeks to gain the upper hand as an illicit advisor to the heart. The soul's emotions can revolt and take the side of the sinful nature, aligning in opposition to the logical advisors, making bad decisions more difficult to avoid. This can lead to feeling one's way through life rather than thinking one's way through. The emotions do not think, so they merely respond to either the heart backed by the logical advisors or else to the sinful nature. The emotions were designed by God to respond in pleasure to the heart in alignment with the logical advisors of the soul, however the emotions can also misalign with the sinful nature. This makes the emotions the wild card of the soul, sometimes aligning with the logical advisors, and sometimes aligning with the sinful nature. When the emotions become the near permanent ally of the sinful nature, the two combined overwhelm the heart and essentially stage a coup, taking over the thinking making it an illogical process in the affected areas. And since the sinful nature is the ally of Satan, the person becomes allied with Satan's Cosmic System which at its core is a system of lies and illogic, and is opposed to God and truth. This is how the emotions can create instability inside the soul when allied with the sinful nature, and if severe enough it can result in overall mental instability. The emotions in the soul are meant to respond to what the heart concludes, not to advise it, so the emotions are not one of the logical advisors to the heart. So when the logical advisors are set aside in favor of the sinful nature which has gained the alliance of the emotions, logic and truth become victims, and lies can be easily accepted. This most often happens as a result of seeking continuous pleasure at the expense of responsible behavior, which trains the emotions to revolt and support the sinful nature. As pleasure and "fun" become the main goals in life, responsible actions take a back seat. And since unbelievers have no human spirit, the sinful nature's influence is harder to avoid and therefore can more easily become the dominant influence on their heart. When the heart of the soul is taken over by the sinful nature backed by the emotions, the logical advisors of the soul, including the human spirit for the believer, are mostly shut off from influencing the heart, while the sinful nature and emotions run the soul. Over time the logical advisors even become corrupted, as the mind and conscience take on distorted patterns and cease to be capable of logic. At that point, rejection of truth is not only possible, but rather becomes locked-in as the norm. This can be isolated to certain areas of life, or it can be broad-based, so this does not mean they cannot properly apply what they have learned about a specific subject area such as math, engineering, sports, welding, teaching or such since that information can be applied as rote memory and apart from emotional interference if the person chooses to do so. The emotions are usually not concerned about the mundane subject-based areas of life so they allow application of subject-specific memory to those areas without undue interference.
Therefore we can see why so many people look at truth and call it a lie, and also why a lie is called truth. Some people look at life from the viewpoint of the soul under the control of the heart accepting the advice of the logical advisors inside the soul, and they generally see the true reality of the situation. Other people look at life from the viewpoint of the heart under the control of the sinful nature backed by the emotions which are out of control, and the resulting viewpoint can reject truth no matter how compelling and obvious it is. In this latter state the person literally cannot think clearly in certain areas since neither the sinful nature nor the emotions are logical or rational. Therefore the inputs which are able to get through to the heart are from these non-thinking sources, and the person's soul can become more and more out of control. This explains why different people can have such divergent views on the same subject when presented with the same information. The key is whether the soul is under the control of the heart accepting the advice of the logical advisors inside the soul and the human spirit for the believer, or whether the soul's heart is under the control of the sinful nature backed by emotions which are out of control, relegating the logical advisors of the soul to a position of low regard. These two viewpoints are 180 degrees out of phase. If this out of control state inside the soul exists long enough the heart will essentially be bypassed by the combined sinful nature and emotions, which end up doing the "pseudo thinking" for the person. But in reality it is not thought at all, but rather pure Cosmic System emotional expression from a soul which is out of control and under the near-total influence of the sinful nature.
The sinful nature aligned with the emotions sets up roadblocks to truth, denying it access so that it is not even considered. The primary logical advisors of the heart are by-passed, and the soul must use alternate pathways to form its expressions to the outside world. These "alternate pathways" explain why such divergent views are not only possible, but entirely "logical" to the person firmly holding illogical views. The sinful nature teamed up with the wild card emotions becomes the primary alternate pathway for expressions, and one of the main keys to understanding the issue of truth reception vs. rejection. The sinful nature and emotions end up doing the "pseudo thinking" for the person. In reality it is not thought at all, but rather Cosmic System emotional expression from a soul under the dictatorial control of the sinful nature supported by a fluttering emotion, which results in a soul which is unable to think logically or see the truth. Trying to change the mind of someone locked into this condition using facts and logic is futile, since facts and logic go through the logical advisors to the heart, which have been by-passed. The roadblocks of the soul, the sinful nature allied with the emotions, do not let logic in to even be considered. This is the meaning of "hardness of heart" in the Bible, since the heart is hardened off and displaced as the primary mechanism of logical integrated thinking as God designed it to be. Hardness of the heart is a Bible analogy to hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis), whereby the heart of the soul is barely able to operate due to being shut off from the flow required to allow it to function. So also the roadblocks to the soul's heart shut down the flow of logic, and the thinking processes grind to a halt. "They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts." (Ephesians 4:18) The only way to counter and overcome the sinful nature-emotions lock on the soul is through a very intensive study and application of the Word of God, but at this point that becomes very difficult.
Although totally illogical, Cosmic System lies make sense to someone who has a soul locked into a sinful nature - emotional freeway through the soul. Of course, such people can choose some areas of life to wall off from this status, and the sinful nature of each person has different areas of focus, which drives the soul expressions in different ways. This often results in a dual personality, sometimes mild or sometimes resulting in neurosis or psychosis. So a person under hardness of heart generally does not reject all truth from all sources, but typically chooses certain areas of life as a focus where they turn off their rational lie detector. Therefore this status is not necessarily all or nothing, so it can either be isolated to certain subject areas or it can be widespread, since there can be pockets of logic if the person has built up strong standards in those areas, but overall the soul is able to easily reject truth in the affected areas. If this continues long enough it usually will become broad-based, often with some specific areas of interest becoming all-consuming with an associated passionate approach to illogical expression. This is also where mental gymnastics come into play, using irrational tools such as denial, dissociation, compartmentalization, and self delusion instead of logic to enable the person to believe the unbelievable. The emotions therefore back the sinful nature to prevent rational thinking, while at the same time enabling illogical mental gymnastics, even among people who pride themselves as being superior in "knowledge"; but their knowledge is ultimately foolishness. The emotions cannot think so they become a domineering queen which reigns over a dysfunctional soul directed by the queen's Rasputin in the form of the sinful nature. Only the heart can think by integrating the inputs from the various logical advisors such as the conscience, memories, and so on, but when it is by-passed by the sinful nature allied with the out of control emotions, the person literally cannot think clearly about certain subjects, but can only emote within the cosmic system jumble of pseudo information, which are lies.
The person who emotes their way through life will especially reject the truth when it comes to issues which relate to God and other important information which Satan opposes, and that is another key to why truth is rejected. Satan tries to interfere with people seeing God as the source of truth, but what is less understood, Satan also interferes with important areas of life which God has ordained for an orderly society under which people can make decisions about God and His plan. These areas include nations, politics, economics, the media and many other issues since Satan wants to distort them and entice individuals and groups of people to join Satan's side and clean up his mess while opposing God's plan and His rules for nations, society, authority, human interactions, and so on. Politics often becomes one of these all-consuming passions for illogic since it is an area which Satan tries to influence, since it is associated with power, and Satan constantly seeks to influence those with power. Therefore Satan especially focuses on gaining advantages at certain strategic areas of life, such as politics and the media, since they are one of the most efficient and effective ways for Satan to broadcast lies into the general population. Satan is the "father of lies" and Satan's Cosmic System is fueled by lies. The primary areas of truth rejection often begin with God and spiritual truths, and are followed by other areas where Satan has specific interests in influencing the future of history. Remember why this matters to Satan, that he is highly focused on changing the outcome of his sentence to the Lake of Fire. Satan has few remaining options, so he tries to affect the outcome of human history in an attempt to prevent God's prophecies from coming to pass, attempting to show God to be a liar just like Satan, therefore no better than Satan. Satan's blasphemous plan may not look like a rational one, but he has already failed at all his primary plans, so at this point distortion of truth is one of his few remaining options to somehow prove God is unfair or a liar. That is why the world is so full of lies, because Satan is entirely focused on destroying truth wherever it exists, especially among believers who seek the truth of the Word, but also among unbelievers in areas where Satan can influence the future course of history to his presumed advantage. Therefore Satan directs his lies toward the human race as he attempts to alter his decreed outcome. Most people of the world are inside Satan's Cosmic System, and they are therefore influenced by that system to promote Satan's lies. This becomes another primary reason why people can have such divergent views on these issues, namely this outside influence from Satan's Cosmic System. And when this combines with the internal influences from the soul with a hardened heart under the control of the sinful nature and backed by the out of control emotions people can gravitate toward a lie no matter how convincing the truth may be if it is in their sinful nature's area of focus. When a person is consumed with lies they are also consumed with its ugly cousin hatred because they go together. Liars are haters and haters are liars. That pretty much defines Satan as a creature, a liar filled with hatred. Truth rejection is therefore highest among those subjects where Satan is most interested, which starts with God and spiritual truths, and proceeds into areas which can affect the future outcome of human history, and where people tend to gravitate with their passionate illogic. Nothing can be proven to a person under such circumstances. Logic is replaced by whatever feels right. But the sinful nature takes over to determine what is "right", so that means wrong easily becomes right, therefore the conscience becomes distorted. This is the ultimate answer to why different people look at the same information, conditions or circumstances and draw opposite conclusions. It is the answer to why people reject the truth in favor of the lie. It is the answer to why Satan's plan is so popular among people. It is also the answer to why so many people will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire apart from God. If their soul is out of control, dominated by the sinful nature in alliance with the emotions, they look at the truth and call it a lie, and they look at a lie and call it the truth. The longer they do so, the easier it becomes. The soul develops untruthful ruts into which the next thoughts fall and ride through uninterrupted by rational thinking.
There are two methods of corroborating what we have learned and believe to be true, and both are established by God. There is common sense, which lines up with what the universe reveals to us, and there is absolute truth, which is revealed by God in the Bible. God designed the universe to reveal to people the proper way to live, even for unbelievers. The universe provides feedback loops to encourage and discourage certain types of behaviors, shows what works over and over again, and what does not work. Some things have good outcomes, and some things bad outcomes. Responsible behavior, hard work, fair play, and good manners are generally rewarded, and irresponsibility in these areas is generally punished. Of course there are random outcomes and unfairness, but generally we learn that certain types of behaviors repeat with certain types of outcomes. Then there is the truth from the Word of God, and that is absolute truth. We have faith in God that the Bible is truth, and that is part of our belief system. As we grow in the Word the Holy Spirit provides a spiritual feedback loop which demonstrates to us that our faith was correctly placed in the Word, and our faith is justified to us over time. Therefore common sense and the Word of God both serve to keep us in line with the truth, if we choose to do so.
People who reject God and the Bible must by definition accept something else. Once they reject God they can easily accept irrational theories regarding how the material universe came from nothing, and developed from nothing into something, then that something became what the universe is now. By any definition that is a succession of miracles. So unbelievers do believe in miracles after all since the probability of that happening has been calculated as being zero. Literally zero over infinity. Such theories require an unbeliever to have far more faith than Christians who believe in God and believe the Bible that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. The universe itself is testimony to the existence of God and to what the Bible reveals, and these things support our faith. Therefore the faith of believers is far more logical than the faith of unbelievers. Our corroborating evidence is revealed in the universe, and also in the results we see from God working through believers, which also supports what the Bible reveals. Romans 8:16 says "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children." Our faith is not blind, but the faith of unbelievers in what they believe is blindness inside of darkness. Unbelievers cannot prove many of the theories they accept which form their core beliefs so they must accept most by faith, yet they seek to deny this. That faith of unbelievers in choosing to accept what they believe can be very strong. But they regularly believe things which are unbelievable, and they do so with no proof whatsoever even though many of them insist proof is required to believe anything. Oddly, this does not dissuade many unbelievers from their belief systems. Even so, there is an explanation for why people are able to engage in such illogical logic. Which brings us to our main point of why and how people so often reject the truth, even though the truth is much easier to believe since it makes so much more sense.
The revolt in the soul which leads to irrationality causes other serious issues for the person, as the mental state will deteriorate over time. The resulting mental instability leads to locked-in arrogance which rejects many types of authority, and promotes other mental sins such as hatred, jealousy and envy which cause a severe narrowing of mental tolerance and a near total inability to accept any form of truth in the areas of sinful nature-emotion dominance. When this truth denial becomes non-selective it becomes a neurosis or psychosis, but most people do not reach that level of across the board truth rejection. Some areas usually remain fact-based due to long held beliefs which cannot be ignored, and these can remain islands of rationality in a sea of irrationality. But even so, a mental tsunami from the sinful nature-emotion alliance can wipe out even such islands of rationality, especially when mental sins are intense and all-consuming. In a broad spectrum takeover of the soul by the sinful nature backed by the emotions, the sinful nature causes patterns of mental sins to come to the forefront which combine into a group of sins to further blind the person to the truth. These mental sins can overwhelm the soul and cause a shutdown of the heart, at least in certain areas of life. The person then lives on the lusts of the sinful nature. These lusts are not always the carnal type, but rather power, monetary, superiority, and many other lusts are equally possible. Generally, the mixture of lusts and sins distort the world view. Smug arrogance of superiority based on Cosmic System self-centeredness and self absorption are the means of self esteem, which is a house of cards. Cosmic System devices such as self delusion, self absorption, transference, and denial reject the logical deliberations of the soul, and result in a soul which is out of control, unable to process information in a logical manner except of course in narrow areas of mechanical skills and wrote memory application to a job or hobby. The mental sin combo of arrogance, envy, jealousy, and hatred rejects truth and authority other than one's own. Such people live on lies as their basis for a world view, and truth is a casualty. Isaiah 59:4 says of them: "no one pleads a case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments, they utter lies; they conceive trouble and give birth to evil. 5 They hatch the eggs of vipers and spin a spider’s web. Whoever eats their eggs will die, and when one is broken, an adder is hatched."
Rejection of truth is not usually a matter of intelligence (IQ). Intelligent and highly educated people have the ability to believe untruths just