The Christian and the Christ: can one be rational and delusional?

There is a fascinating article in Slate about an experiment conducted by a psychologist in the 1950s. Three men who each thought they were Jesus Christ were brought in to Ypsilanti State Hospital to live with each other. The premise was simple. Psychologists have known for a long time of cases in which people with delusions about their own identity met others with similar delusions, and very quickly realised that if the other was mad, then they must be too. But if that was all there was to Milton Rokeach’s experiment, it wouldn’t offer anything new. Rokeach had a hunch that there was some connection to be drawn between delusions and one’s sense of identity in general.

After all, your sense of who you are is so fundamental that it is hard to imagine being challenged on it. If everybody I knew began simultaneously to deny that I was David and insist that I was in fact G. K. Chesterton, my reason would tell me that I have two choices: either they are all right, in which case I am mysteriously mistaken, or there is some strange plot afoot in which everybody is conspiring. It is hard to say which you would be more likely to believe. Probably, most of us are inclined to doubt any sort of conspiracy theory. But when the conspiracy theory is more believable than the idea that your mind is playing such consistent tricks on you, clearly this must give us pause.

The article cites an example, quoted by Voltaire, of a man named Simon Morin who claimed to be Christ. He was introduced to someone else who claimed to be “God the Father”, and was instantly struck by his own folly in calling himself Christ. “Mon dieu!”, he must have thought. “This man is clearly mad, but I am doing the same thing!” This moment of clarity was short-lived, and very soon he returned to his prior conviction—inevitably to be burnt at the stake for blasphemy in 1663. It is clear in such a case that rationality can coexist with such delusion. It entered the fray when he realised he was mistaken, and presumably he merely found some rational basis on which to return to his “comfort zone”.

Perhaps we can extrapolate from such cases some general principles about how identity can conflict with rationality even in one who possesses both. Although I fret to call religious believers delusional, perhaps a similar law of nature is to be found in their case. Pure rationality is highly unlikely to lead to the conclusion that God exists, and still less so to the conviction that he exists. And yet, most religious believers are perfectly rational, and can very easily separate this rationality from their firm belief in whatever it is they are supposed to believe. Religious belief, then, may not really be belief at all, but actually identity. The notion that religious believers are supposed to believe is so closely tied with the religious identity that to lose such a “belief” appears to be inseparable from the loss of identity.

In such a context, then, it may be futile to sway theists away from their beliefs by rational argumentation alone. A more effective strategy (if you’re inclined to such things) is first to acquire a better understanding of what constitutes one’s sense of identity, and then to look into ways that people have been weaned away from their false identity in the past.

The analogy between the three Christs of Ypsilanti and theists is, of course, not wholly precise. Differences abound. If I believed I were G. K. Chesterton, I am hardly likely to look too kindly on those who doubted me, any more than I would if they doubted that I am in fact who I am. But religious believers are, on the whole, perfectly fine with the idea that there are those who don’t believe. Theism is generally taught rather than chanced upon by the individual—again, this isn’t the case with those who believe they are Christ. So if they are both delusions of the same kind, there is a clear difference in degree.

Rokeach acknowledged that some of the methods employed in his research were manipulative, and indeed that even despite taking these liberties, he did not come up with much that was genuinely new. Yet it seems to me that further research in this area is crucial if we are to truly understand the workings of the religious mind. The possible connection between religious belief and delusion, however, would likely be too politically contentious to garner much in the way of financial support. If that’s the case, it would be terrible for science.