Stoicism and Christianity, Part 4: Changeable Outcomes, the Psychological Immune System, and God as Medicine

This post trots out the psychological piece of my argument that certain notions of God may interfere with psychological well-being.

The research I'm citing comes mainly from Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert. Check out his recent book Stumbling on Happiness for a popular account of his empirical work.

The facet of Gilbert's work I want to focus on involves what Gilbert calls our psychological immune system. According to Gilbert, and there is good evidence to believe him, we all possess a psychological immune system. Interestingly, we are often unaware of the immune system's workings, leading many of us to mismanage our lives.

Our psychological immune system is basically comprised of information-processing (i.e., thinking) biases that help us reconcile to our circumstances. That is, all normal, non-depressive folk tend to have some innate psychological mechanisms that aid them in getting through difficult circumstances. Two obvious features of the psychological immune system are habituation (we get used to new situations, even painful ones) and an innate tendency to look for silver linings.

The immune system tends to trigger when we see our situation as irreversible. That is, when we realize that "this is the way things will be" we begin the slow psychological process of settling down and regaining our emotional stability. This can be as simple as spinning events to ourselves to make them seem more attractive. But examples can also be seen in traumatic situations. As an example of this, I think of the story of the Buddha and the mother whose child had died:

Kisa Gotami lived in Savatthi. She married a young man and a son was born to them. The son died when he was a toddler and Kisa Gotami was stricken with grief. Carrying her dead son, she went everywhere asking for medicine to restore her son to life. People thought she had gone mad. But a wise man seeing her pathetic condition, decided to send her to the Buddha.

He advised her: "Sister, the Buddha is the person you should approach. He has the medicine you want. Go to him."

Thus Kisa Gotami went to the Buddha and asked him to give her the medicine that would restore her dead son to life.

The Buddha replied, "I can make the medicine you seek. To make it I need for you to collect some mustard seeds from houses in the town."

Kita Gotami eagerly agreed to collecting the seeds, but the Buddha added one more detail:

"But be sure," the Buddha added, "that the mustard seeds you collect come from a home where there has been no death."

Overjoyed at the prospect of having her son restored to life, Kisa Gotami ran from house to house, begging for some mustard seeds. Everyone was willing to help but she could not find a single home where death had not occurred. The people were only too willing to part with their mustard seeds, but they could not claim to have not lost a dear one in death. As the day dragged on Kita Gotami grew calmer, hearing from house to house how death had visited each one.

At the end of the day as the sun setting Kita Gotami returned to the Buddha still carrying the body of her child. As she approached the Buddha asked her, "Have you found the medicine you were seeking?"

Kita Gotami nodded, embraced the Buddha, and went to bury her son.

The point, psychologically, of the mustard seed tale is that Kita Gotami's psychological immune system--those psychological mechanisms that help us deal with the difficulties in life--could not kick in until she reconciled herself to the irreversibility of her situation. The prospect of a medicine for death prevented her from reconciling herself, in a healthy way, to death. Medicine implies reversibility and that prospect harms psychological health.

This is the link I want to theologically explore, the link between reversibility and psychological health. Basically, there is good evidence to suggest that when outcomes are changeable and reversible we have greater difficulty in dealing with the situation. Interestingly, most are ignorant of this fact. Thus, people tend to like to "keep their options open," to build reversibility or changeability into their plans. The idea is that if you don't like one set of choices you can change to a different set. The trouble is that with the second set of choices as a viable option the psychological immune system doesn't kick in to reconcile you to the circumstance you are current in. Changeability inhibits enjoying the moment and where you are currently in life because you are continually wondering if a different set of choices would be better. We then live in a kind of "grass is always greener" limbo, never fully happy and engaged in life as it stands right now before us.

Here's an example from Gilbert's research. First, answer this question. Which Choice Scenario would you rather be in?

Scenario A: You have to choose between X and Y. Once you make your choice that's it. You are stuck with X or Y.

Scenario B: You have to choose between X and Y. If, however, you don't like your initial choice you can switch at a later time.

Most people would choose Scenario B as it builds in changeability and reversibility. This seems a good thing. Very commonsensical. But recall what we have learned about changeable outcomes and the psychological immune system. A person in Scenario B will be less satisfied with their choice. Less happy. Why? Because the prospect of a switch is sitting there. The choice is actually prolonged. Consequently, rather then getting on with the business of enjoying the choice, the person is still evaluating the choice. And it's hard to like something if you are continually deciding if you like something.

This dynamic has been observed in multiple studies. The conclusion is this: We unwittingly undermine our own happiness by building in too much reversibility. We think reversibility is a good thing but it actually stalls the psychological immune system, those psychological mechanisms that bring a degree of peace and equanimity. In short, many of this are making ourselves miserable because we are misinformed about the mechanics of happiness.

What does all this have to do with God and stoicism?

In my first post in this series I wondered aloud if notions of a hyper-personal or hyper-interventionist (nod to Matthew here) God are interfering with psychological well-being. I think now, in this post, we can see why I'm puzzling about this. Basically, I'm wondering how many Christians are like Kita Gotami, seeing God as Medicine. Not a medicine to heal, but to change, as a continually lingering source of reversibility. Those hyper-views of God place the believer in a situation where God can be appealed to to change or reverse circumstance. Thus, rather than learning to be content in all circumstance we appeal to God to change our circumstance. And this prospect of change, of reversibility, if the the psychological research is true, keeps us miserable. We fail to reconcile ourselves, as the stoics suggested, to life as it stands.