Book Review: I Told Me So, by Gregg A. Ten Elshof

“It’s fairly likely that I don’t believe all of the things I think I believe.” This statement, which seems patently false, is one of the first things Gregg Ten Elshof asks his new students – and as counter-intuitive as it may seem, after a little honest probing, the verdict will almost certainly be that the statement is true. By attention management, perspective-shifting, rationalization, and so on, we have all been guilty of intentionally (and effectively) deceiving ourselves, because we are unwilling to live with the painful truth of the wickedness so deeply ingrained within us. Of course, this should not come as a shock to us: did not Paul inform us that the people of this world are guilty of suppressing what knowledge they have, and so becoming vain in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts (Rom. 1:18-21)? That their ignorance is due to the hardness of their hearts (Eph. 4:18)? The problem, however, is that this principle of self-deception, which has been acknowledged and intentionally fought throughout much of Christian history, is very seldom even recognized today. And yet it is having a widespread influence, not just in the world, but in much of the Church. Ten Elshof has laid his finger on a little-noted problem that is perilous and extensive indeed; and for that he deserves thanks.

Ten Elshof is a very perceptive and well-reasoned author, with an ability to bring abstruse philosophical concepts to a popular level without unduly distorting them. He also has a penetrating insight into the workings of the human heart – more than once I was struck with a realization that, unbeknownst to myself, I had indeed, at one time or another, employed the self-deceptive stratagems of which he was speaking. And realizing that, of course, provided me with the opportunity to address those things scripturally.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed with the extent to which Ten Elshof provided a scriptural method of dealing with self-deception. He is a learned and intelligent man, no doubt, and his Christian background and worldview are obvious; but he does not consistently bring that worldview, and the scriptures in particular, to the table in his discussions. He is quite at ease discussing Sartre, Nietsche, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky – but he seems less at home in the scriptures. At the least, he makes markedly less use of the scriptures than of various philosophers, chiefly existential.

This has made for a mixed bag, in my opinion. He has hit upon some excellent insights about self-deception in the Church and in our own lives, and anyone would do well to read them. Not only did I gain valuable understanding into some of my own deceitful stratagems, but I was given pause to consider how some of these stratagems are at play in evangelism, discipleship, Christian growth, etc. Consider, for example, the following incisive observation:

“Sometimes I offer my students a thousand dollars if they’ll simply believe that there is a pink elephant standing next to me at the lectern. I even give them a few minutes with eyes closed and heads bowed to work up the relevant belief. I have yet to have anyone take the deal. They know that nobody will believe them if they claim to have taken on the belief, so they chuckle at the ridiculous invitation. We all know that belief just doesn’t work that way.

Interestingly, though, we see, to forget that belief doesn’t work that way when we go out evangelizing. We present our friends with the rewards and punishments associated with believing, or failing to believe, that Jesus died for their sins and conquered death in his resurrection. We then invite them to bow their heads and take on the belief. When they open their eyes, we invite them to think of themselves as believers – as having crossed over from non-belief to belief.”

Ten Elshof has hit upon a valid criticism here, and he goes on to explain the danger this evangelistic method has for setting up the new “convert” for self-deception. However, he offers no remedy or counterbalance by scripturally explaining the God-given power of the gospel, through the Spirit, to effect that which it proclaims; and in failing to observe that the foolishness of God is stronger than men, by implication he leaves the idea that simply unmasking the stratagems of self-deception is the path we must follow to see real conversions and life-changing experiences of the gospel.

At no point did I become more uncomfortable than when, after insightfully describing common stratagems of self-deception, he began to speak of pursuing a cure or triumph over them. Here, he had very little to say about using the testimony of scriptures to reveal what is in the heart of man, what sin really is, how deeply we are in bondage, and the gospel-means that God sovereignly employs to free the bound sinner. Instead, leaning upon a principle that we are most likely to overlook in our own lives those sins that are most highly condemned in our society, and showing from secular writers that hyper-authenticity is one of our society’s chief virtues (and hence, self-deception a chief vice), he argues that we must “demote” the sin of self-deception in order to combat it – that is, we must learn that it is not as great a problem as we are tempted to think.

Now, first of all, I think the scriptures will indicate to us that any sin is greater than we think, and recognizing that fact is a much greater step in the right direction than minimizing any particular sin because some other may be even worse. But the way in which he provides this “demotion” is especially troubling. He claims (without a shred of scriptural backing) that having the truth is not always a good thing – sometimes it’s better to be deceived. After all, “There’s nothing at all wrong with encouraging the cancer patient’s [improbable] belief that she’ll be healed…”. On the contrary, there is something wrong with that attitude as Ten Eslhof goes on to describe it. We ought to pray for healing, yes, but also reverently to remind this ailing sister that the outcome is in the sovereign God’s hands, that physical healing in this life is not the most important thing to hope for, that it is not a univocal promise from God, and that she ought instead to trust that he will do what’s best, whether it be to give or take away, and that his univocal promises of eternal life in the gospel should sustain her no matter what he decides to do. But even worse than that, Elshof suggests that God created us to be capable of self-deception and that it must not therefore be necessarily wrong. We should be able to deceive ourselves in such circumstances (when the truth of our likely death, the depths of our sinfulness, etc., would overwhelm us) – it is the gift of God to us.

No: but God has created us upright, and we have sought out many devices, not the least of which is our sinful, fallen, perverted ability to employ self-deception. God is the light of truth, and there is no darkness in him whatsoever. Jesus is the “Truth,” we have received the truth, we have been set free by it, and we are to walk in it. Lies and self-deception are not neutral elements that may be rightly or wrongly used, they are sin. Period. And laying the blame for them at God’s door, saying that the capacity for self-deception is a gift from God that we may use well or poorly is flat-out wrong and dangerous.

Furthermore, the practical strategies Ten Elshof suggests are formed more by an extensive knowledge of human philosophy than by the bible. A few verses are employed, here and there – but the bible and what it has to say about putting to death the sins of the flesh, pursuing authentic Christian fellowship, and so on, are not at the heart of his advice. His whole discussion about employing Christian community, for instance, centers not upon what Christian fellowship is and looks like in the bible, but upon avoiding the dangers of “groupthink” as perceived by Irving Janis. And even when he does use biblical principles, as often as not they are shaped by the philosophers. Sartre’s discussion on inauthentic play-acting as a means of obtaining true authenticity, for instance, shapes what it means in the bible to imitate Christ – it gives justification for simply pretending to be like Jesus in order actually to become like him. I simply cannot believe that this is what Paul had in mind when he gave us these commands.

The bottom line is, this is a book which may prove to be very useful in opening up one’s eyes to a very real danger that is not commonly understood or thought about today. It is unarguably insightful in its analyses and could provide thoughts and understandings that will help one to pursue a genuine Christian walk. But at the same time, the book could become another equal danger of a different sort if not used cautiously and soberly. I would recommend that it be read for an incisive diagnosis of a common destructive problem, but only if the reader then goes on to the old Puritans, for example (or better yet, the scriptures themselves), for a truly effective gospel-prescription for treating that well-diagnosed problem.

I Told Me So: Available at Monergism Books

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