Cognitive dissonance

Those of you who are advisors on our donor advised funds may have received an attractive, ecologically friendly shopping bag over the Christmas holiday, a thoughtful gift from Edward H. Robinson, NCCF’s President. The bags bear the slogan “Faith working through philanthropy”. What, you might wonder, has this to do with cognitive dissonance?

Cognitive dissonance is the mental conflict that arises when one attempts to adhere to two opposing concepts.

In the realm of religion (isn’t it all-encompassing?) three examples come to mind. The first is the scriptural admonition that we are sojourners in but not of the world. How can we be in but not of? The second is the contradicting distinction between ‘poor in spirit’ (the first beatitude) and ‘poor of spirit’ (Mother Theresa’s observation about Western materialism). The poor in spirit are blessed, the poor of spirit are not. How can the materially wealthy who have poverty of spirit also be blessed?

The third relates to the environment. God created the world and ‘saw that it was good’ and gave us dominion over it (Gen 1:26). We are to cultivate rather than consume it and to pass it on undepleted to succeeding generations. However, St. Paul states that the earth ‘groans’ for the new creation (Rom 8:20), and we ourselves espouse the credal hope of the ‘life of the world to come’. We ‘build forever’ while believing that the ‘ever’ for which we build will end.

Many of us do not think of such things and are therefore not cognitive of them. Hence we suffer no cognitive dissonance. However, those who do reflect on such matters might logically wonder how these conflicting concepts are to be handled. The remedy is charity. Charity minimizes – even harmonizes – cognitive dissonance by broadening the focus of our energy to include the wellbeing of others.

Charity liberates us from selfish attachment to the things of this world and enables us fully to enjoy the gifts of creation without being dominated by them. With such detachment we are in but not of the world. Charity obliges us to concentrate on our shared humanity rather than on our own wellbeing. Regardless of how abundant our material possession may be it converts our poverty of spirit into poverty in spirit. And, because our concern is for the wellbeing of others charity inculcates in us a sensitivity to their – and therefore our –  ecological environment. While we anticipate the ‘new Eden’ we carefully safeguard the one we’ve inherited.

Faith engenders charity and philanthropy is one of charity’s manifestations. By providing its philanthropic financial vehicles  NCCF facilitates charity’s efficacy.

Unrelatedly, another kind of dissonance occurs when charity is absent: societal dissonance. This would be the default position when the example of the Good Samaritan is ignored by all of us individually and critical human needs go unaddressed by the private sector. Here, as a necessary consequence of the inevitable social dissonance, centralized government assumes control.

Somewhere in his writings Theilard de Chardin, the Jesuit paleontologist/theologian, predicted that the world is destined to be subject to one of two universal forces: either totalitarianism or charity. NCCF serves those who would prefer the latter.