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Is it possible for a person to be genuinely deluded and yet possess, at some level, a real love for the truth? Yes. That possibility is both pastorally important and biblically attested, and it calls for a posture of understanding rather than contempt toward those who reject arguments and information that conflict with their current convictions.
Scripture presents figures who are both deeply mistaken and yet capable of profound devotion once confronted by the truth in a way they cannot evade.
1. Saul of Tarsus
Saul of Tarsus is one such example.
Prior to his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, he sincerely believed he was serving God by persecuting Christians. His zeal was genuine, but his understanding was radically disordered. In that sense, he was deluded. He aligned himself against Christ while persuading himself he was defending the cause of God.
Importantly, his delusion did not stem from sheer indifference to truth. He had reasons, inherited traditions, and a theology he believed to be correct. When confronted with contrary information, such as Stephen’s testimony or the integrity of Christian communities, he did not simply ignore it; he reinterpreted it within his existing framework. That is what we can call self‑deception: a pattern in which a person filters out or neutralizes disconfirming evidence in order to preserve a cherished construction of reality.
Yet the account implies that beneath Saul’s misjudgment there was a profound seriousness about God and his will. When the risen Christ confronts him directly, his conversion is not grudging or partial. Once he becomes convinced that Jesus is indeed Lord and Messiah, he reorients his entire life. This suggests that his deepest loyalty, once truth finally penetrated, was not to his former position but to God’s reality as revealed in Christ. His love for truth was there, but for a time it was misdirected and constrained by his inherited interpretive framework.
2. Thomas
Thomas in John chapter 20 illustrates a related dynamic. He refuses to accept the other disciples’ testimony, insisting on a stronger form of evidence:
But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” (John 20:24-25 NASB)
His stance involves resistance to the community’s witness, yet his words also reveal a desire for truth under conditions he deems sufficient.
When Jesus appears and invites Thomas to inspect his wounds, Thomas responds with immediate and profound confession: “My Lord and my God.” His rapid movement from refusal to worship shows that his earlier resistance was not rooted in a settled contempt for truth, but due to a threshold for evidence that had not yet been met. Once confronted with what he deemed sufficient evidence, he relinquished his unbelief without delay.
This suggests that people may reject arguments presented to them not because they hate truth, but because those arguments, as they experience them, fail to cross the threshold of plausibility shaped by their history, personality, and prior commitments. That threshold is not purely intellectual; it is also moral and relational. It concerns what they can, in good conscience, allow themselves to acknowledge as true without feeling that they are betraying their understanding of Scripture, or their integrity to God.
3. Self‑deception, evidence, and moral responsibility
Theologically, we must say that self‑deception is real and something for which a person can be held responsible. Scripture warns that the human heart is deceitful:
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9 NASB)
And Jesus warned his disciples of persons that would justify their persecution.
They will put you out of the synagogue, yet a time is coming when the one who kills you will think he is offering service to God. (John 16:2 NET)
Self‑deception involves not merely lacking information, but actively organizing one’s perceptions so that disquieting truths are minimized or deflected.
At the same time, we should recognize that:
- Individuals differ in the kind and amount of evidence they find compelling.
- Cultural, emotional, and intellectual contexts shape how arguments are heard and what costs are associated with accepting them.
- God’s grace often works not only by providing more information, but by transforming the will, freeing a person to receive truths that previously felt intolerable.
Think back to the previous example of the Apostle Paul:
On the road to Damascus, several things happen at once:
- Revelation: He receives new information in a decisive form—Jesus appears, identifies himself, and exposes Saul’s persecution as opposition to God.
- Conviction and humbling: He is struck down, blinded, and led by the hand; his status and self‑confidence collapse. This is more than data; it is a divinely orchestrated humbling that breaks his resistance.
- Transformation of will: When the scales fall from his eyes and he regains sight, he does not merely update a doctrine. He submits to baptism, joins the community he once persecuted, and reorients his life’s mission around preaching the very truth he had opposed.
In other words:
- Before Damascus, the idea “Jesus is Lord and Messiah” is intellectually present but morally intolerable; it threatens Saul’s entire religious identity.
- God’s grace confronts him, not only by clarifying the truth, but by overturning the inner posture that made that truth unbearable.
- After grace has worked, he can receive, love, and proclaim that same truth, at great personal cost.
Thus, there can be people whose present rejection of logic and information contrary to their beliefs is both a manifestation of self‑deception and yet compatible with an underlying, though obscured, love for truth that has not yet “broken through.” They may sincerely believe they are defending the honor of God or the integrity of Scripture. They may fear that accepting contrary evidence would unravel their identity, community, or sense of purpose. In such cases, resistance is intertwined with complex loyalties, not because they are dishonest or wicked.
4. Implications for how we view and treat such persons
Recognizing this complexity calls for a posture of understanding and patience.
First, it discourages easy judgments. If even someone as learned and zealous as Saul could be profoundly mistaken for a time, we should be slow to assume that our own position is immune to similar distortions, and slow to dismiss others as simply persons that have no love for the truth. Their refusal to accept an argument today does not prove that they lack any love for truth. But it may indicate that either the argument has not yet reached them in a form they can truly hear, or that the personal cost of assent still feels unbearable.
Second, it encourages humility about our role. In the case of both Saul and Thomas, what ultimately shattered their resistance was not merely another human line of reasoning, but a divine encounter that brought together evidence and grace in a uniquely effective way. That does not absolve us from reasoning, witnessing, and presenting information; it means we do so knowing that we cannot, by force of argument alone, guarantee the outcome. Only God sees the heart and knows when a person’s threshold has been crossed.
Third, it provides a criterion for discerning genuine love of truth: not the absence of temporary delusion, but the readiness to change when convinced. When a person, once persuaded, is willing to relinquish long‑held beliefs, status, and community for the sake of what they now see as true, that reveals a deeper loyalty to truth itself rather than to any particular religious or ideological persuasion. Conversely, when someone repeatedly refuses to change even in the face of overwhelming evidence and divine correction, that exposes that their primary attachment may be, not to truth, bur to preserving a particular system of belief.
It’s fair to say that both Jesus and Stephen give us strong biblical examples of how to engage people who are in self‑delusion—though they do so in different ways and at different “intensities.”
Jesus repeatedly encounters people who are convinced they are right but are actually deeply mistaken, the Pharisees, scribes and even his own disciples at times. His pattern includes:
- Inviting self‑examination rather than merely imposing labels
Jesus frequently uses questions (“What do you think?” “Who do you say that I am?”) and parables to lead people to see their own self‑deception, rather than simply telling them they are deluded.
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ “I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:10-14 NASB)
This is a gentle but penetrating way of dealing with those who are convinced they see clearly while they are blind.
In that sense, Jesus is an exemplary model: he takes self‑deception seriously, confronts it truthfully, but does so with a view to repentance and restoration, not merely condemnation.
Stephen: truthful, courageous confrontation of entrenched self‑delusion
Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 addresses a leadership class deeply entrenched in a pattern of rejecting God’s messengers while thinking they are defending Moses and the temple. His approach:
- Traces a historical pattern of self‑deception
Stephen rehearses Israel’s history, showing how previous generations resisted the Spirit and rejected prophets, even while believing themselves to be God’s people. This invites his hearers to see themselves in that pattern. - Names their condition plainly
He ultimately says, “You are always resisting the Holy Spirit… you betrayed and murdered the Righteous One” (Acts 7:51–52). That is a direct, unvarnished diagnosis of spiritual self‑deception and rebellion. Stephen shows how, in some contexts, dealing with self‑delusion requires forthright, courageous naming of sin and resistance, coupled with a refusal to hate or retaliate. He does not accommodate their deception, but he also does not cease to love them.
Also, both Jesus and Stephen explicitly pray for the forgiveness of those who are acting in profound self‑delusion—people who genuinely think they are doing right, or at least feel their actions are justified, while in fact committing grave sin.
In Luke 23:34, Jesus says:
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Here:
- “They do not know what they are doing” captures a kind of self‑deception or blindness: the crucifiers do not perceive the true nature of their act or the identity of the One they are crucifying.
- Jesus does not deny their guilt, but he prays that the Father will forgive them, implicitly asking that God’s mercy overcome their ignorance and rebellion.
This is a direct, divine response to people acting in self‑delusion: Jesus names their lack of true understanding and asks for forgiveness rather than immediate judgment.
In Acts 7:60, as Stephen is being stoned, he prays:
“Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
Stephen is addressing members of the Sanhedrin and others who sincerely believe they are defending God’s law and temple by killing a supposed blasphemer, yet in reality are rejecting God’s Messiah and resisting the Holy Spirit. Their actions are both culpable and deeply self‑deceived.
Stephen’s prayer mirrors Jesus’:
- He acknowledges their act as “sin.”
- He asks the Lord not to charge it to them—that is, to forgive or be merciful to them.
Both prayers exemplify the same pattern: confronting self‑delusion and grave wrongdoing not by hatred or simple denunciation, but by entrusting judgment to God and actively asking for mercy on behalf of the deceived.
Jesus and Stephen both serve as robust examples of how to address self‑delusion—Jesus more through sustained, patient exposure and invitation to repentance; Stephen through a climactic, prophetic confrontation—each combining clarity about error with a heart oriented toward the person’s ultimate good rather than mere vindication.
5. Answering the question directly
So, is it possible to be deluded and yet have a love for the truth?
Yes—provided we understand “love for the truth” not as a static state of doctrinal correctness, but as a deeper disposition that, under the pressure of convincing evidence and God’s gracious confrontation, will ultimately yield. A person can be sincerely mistaken, vigorously defending views that are logically indefensible, and still, at a more fundamental level, be someone whom God is leading toward truth. Their current rejection of contrary logic and information may be an expression of self‑deception and fear, yet not the final word about their relationship to truth.
This perspective allows us to be honest about the reality of error and self‑deception, while remaining understanding, even forgiving, toward those who inhabit it. It calls us to combine clarity in our convictions with patience, empathy, and hope that the God who confronted Saul and met Thomas can, in his time and way, break through frameworks that seem impervious to us.
This also helps explain why self-delusion can be extraordinarily difficult to overcome. Once a person has come to identify a particular understanding with the truth itself, contrary evidence is often filtered through that conviction and dismissed before it receives a fair hearing. Such a person may never, during this life, encounter the evidence, the reasoning, or even the manner of presentation that is sufficient to break through that settled framework. Another individual, presented with the very same facts, might recognize the truth immediately. The difference may lie not in the objective strength of the evidence alone, but in whether it reaches the person in a way that enables them to see beyond the assumptions that have shaped their thinking. In some cases, as with both Paul and Thomas, nothing less than extraordinary divine intervention was required to overturn a deeply entrenched conviction. While we cannot conclude that this is true of every individual, Paul’s example reminds us that some forms of self-delusion may persist until God himself provides the decisive means of breaking through them.