Video Transcript: Psychological Dilemmas

Pastor, my girlfriend and I are pregnant, although we used frozen embryos and I just didn't know what to do. Pastor, I've been embezzling from my company for  the past 20 years. I'm not sure what to say. I had to come clean. What would  you do? Pastor, I am I've been abusing my wife, you know, like she likes to wear a lot of makeup is to cover up the bruises and the shame. I had to come clean.  Where do I go from here? Dilemmas, dilemmas that your people come to you  with, asking you as pastor, counselor, church leader, what do I do? How do I  manage? What does God say about this, and especially God's word given,  that's God's words to us and guidance, and, of course, truth. What do we do as  pastor? You're probably in church leader. You've had some experience with this  for for long time saying, Oh yeah, I tell this person this, or I would assume that,  or that's a good question. And really we have these situations that come to us,  sometimes every week, sometimes every day. For some of you, maybe once a  month or every few months or few times a year, but when your people come to  you in this realm of psychology, what we are doing is we are examining how we  can now apply some of the theories we've been Talking about, operant  conditioning, insights, learning. In this video, we are then following up on the  operant conditioning learning and also how we learn segment. Because from  here we then say, how do we apply, how do we understand and put framework  around psychological dilemmas, dilemmas that come to us, Hey, we're broken  people. We deal a broken world, and we deal with tough decisions almost every  day, compared to decisions of well, do I drink black coffee or do I drive 80 down  the freeway or 25 down a 35 zone make sure I don't attract of the police. What  are these dilemmas about? Let's examine them because of the dilemmas my  goal here, and of course, as part of the psychology course here, is to help you,  then to think through and do some application when it comes to dilemmas,  because that employs your logical thinking, employs using what we now  understand about psychological truths that, Of course, are from scripture, of  course, theory that Thorndike and, of course, Skinner Watson and Kohler have  brought to us. We need to take a look at this, especially with Tolman and latent  learning, the whole latent learning theory of well, I Learn from my experience,  my lessons, and I file it away like a computer, and then bring it out later for  application. Well, here it is, application. Application, of course, has to do with  psychological dilemmas, applying learning theory. Where do I go? You see this  gentleman here to the left or to the right, and he doesn't know what to do at this  very moment. And then you have a funny situation, like this one, with a bunch of  old guys and a few boats here, they're trying to get the same fish, and the fish is  a little perplexed, and the bird just looks on. Funny situations we can get  ourselves into sometimes, well, from the serious and to the funny, we then get  into the spiritual, because all of life is spiritual. All of life as we apply how we  learn, then we then apply it to how we counsel how we then guide how we then  listen and respond how then we help our fellow church members better 

understand how they learn and how they can then navigate through social  dilemmas. Is it heaven or hell? Do I go God's way or go go my way, frankly? And of course, the devil is not that creative. He uses the same thing with fear and  anxiety and division. But God says, go my way, follow me, depend on me. But of course, in our broken state, we are dealing with these difficulties because we  don't see the whole picture. And that's what this application learning theory  helps us to do. God's given us this gift of learning theory from Scripture. Of  course, the truths of scripture to begin with, that Jesus taught lived, he is the  way the life. And of course, if Paul gives us in the Book of Romans and the rest  of his epistles, but sometimes we come to more modern day situations that  they're different than Paul's day, and we have difficulty trying to figure it out. Of  course, God through the Holy Spirit. He blesses us and and guides us through  it, one step at a time and one moment at a time. Because, as we talked about  before in the other video, we learn in steps process, not all at once. That's how  our brains operate. Well, social dilemmas. Social dilemmas. There's a paradigm  of social dilemmas. Here we look at the spiritual, but we go from the spiritual,  then into more specific systems. Framework, a framework to help us and say,  Okay, here's how it operates. Here's how I can take the learning theory from  Thorndike and and Skinner. And of course, in terms of that conditioning, of  course, we're more than just being conditioned and and responding to rewards  and punishment. It's also this whole thing of insight that I feel, and I'll take a  position on this. The Spiritual would be the learning, how we learn from insight  and experience, thanks to latent learning by Tolman, but also inherent in that  comes the whole operant conditioning. We are then conditioned into different  things, and of course, that schedule conditioning and so on. Those things are in  play as well, and we have to sort this out for complex people. So let's look at the theory and see how this works. How does social dilemma theory work? Well, we look at social dilemmas, and we look at the paradigm of social dilemma. First of  all, we look at structural solutions. The dilemma comes we are then faced with  decisions. And it begins this way. We look at structural solutions, costly  defection, sanctions, perhaps not, to prevent free riding completely. We factor in  cost, negative perception, to the alliance with other people, places and things.  Now you add to this, motivational solutions. So structural solutions, motivational  solutions, motivational in terms of increasing trust, also communication, reliance  on verbal reassurance of Alliant Partner trustworthiness, in other words, how we  rely on other people. And of course, we look at the assurance of how our  alliances with particular people. Of course, this gets to be a bit political, how we  then have trusted people in the right places, the right times for the right reasons. And then we also factor in cost analysis together. You add these things together, structural and motivational, and then we come to a result of management,  managing social uncertainty. Because when it comes to managing social  uncertainty, we know that life, in and of itself, has many unknowns. These 

unknowns create uncertainty. Why? Because we don't see the whole picture.  God does. God's kind of like Google Earth, and he he can look, he practically  looks down on everything and sees the whole picture all at once for every single one of us, no wonder God is infinite, omnipresent, omniscient, all his great  theological truths. So for us, we still look through a glass dimly, through that that  window, dimly, things are not always as transparent as we would hope. So  perhaps you're trying to sell a house right now, and which, as a matter of fact,  that's where I'm in the middle of doing and and we're wondering, is the price  right? Am I? Am I giving the right message? Are the buyers potentially out there  really attracted to what we have to offer here? And we don't know, it's uncertain  at this moment that the market is hot, it's good, it's great. But then some buyers  say, Yeah, I want to see that. And a lot of other buyers say, No, I'll pass. And we  just don't know, in the same way we're looking at other situations, as we  consider relationships as well as choices. The choices we make can truly  determine what it is that will happen next, and our faith involved with that it can  be shaken or strengthened. It can be it can waver, or it can be firm. Paul says, I  Corinthians 15 stand firm. Let nothing move you. But life has many  uncertainties, and that's the idea the paradigm be ready. Factor in everything  from physical resources to non physical, from cost to then, of course,  relationships and how that works together so that you're prepared, as Paul says  too of course, the beginning with scripture being with God rather, and then his  word, and of course, the Holy Spirit going ready to go forward in faith, not by  sight, but by faith. And that's what this also, as we redeem this the paradigm and apply it in the biblical worldview, as we trust God to every dilemma, God then  brings us wisdom and insight. The Bible says we ask for wisdom, God gives it  cognitively. Then in psychology terms, God then moves inside our brains to  show us, to lead us, and then we then are able to ascertain the best solutions.  So we take this paradigm and go to the next step of understanding dilemmas.  And the next step is, of course, to look at examples, examples, because the  best way to learn is by example and experience, and of course, to like latent  learning, to take what we did, learn, the trial and error, and file it away. So the  social dilemmas, it says. Here, several the problems that most threaten our  human future arise as various parties pursue their self interest, ironically, to their collective detriment. There's a way that seems right to a man, but it only will lead him or a woman lead her to death. Bible is pretty clear on that. Amazing how  psychology comes out of the Bible, clear and practical. The discipline and  science of psychology helps us to go into Scripture. And eisegesis, exegesis,  bringing it out and putting it into structure. Social dilemma, let's look at some  examples, some examples that help us to better understand how to go about  dilemmas as we trust God through it all. Well, there's the prisoner's dilemma,  quite popular. It's very popular with those who like gaming and also logical  puzzles. This also helps us to better understand and gain clarity of strategy in 

dealing dilemmas. The prisoner's dilemma is a paradox in decision analysis, in  which two individuals acting in their own self interests do not produce the  optimal outcome. As a result, both participants find themselves in a worse state  than if they had cooperated with each other in the decision making process. I  can see Off, off to the left here with the prisoner's dilemma. In the graphic, you  have John and Tom and they can't communicate. And below that, that visual of  John and Tom in jail, you have a prison that is John who says nothing, but, but  then the but then, of course, you have the other part of John who will confess  and testify. These are the choices, Tom say nothing, or confess and testify. Now  let's say that under the John says nothing, he's let off or has a light sentence.  Tom says nothing. He's let off for a light sentence. But then we have the  intersection of John, who confesses and testifies, but then Tom says nothing,  and Tom gets a heavy sentence, and John gets a light sentence. And of course,  you have the flip of this in the Tom confess to testify, intersecting with John says  nothing. Well, John gets a heavy sentence, and Tom gets a light sentence. But  then, as the dilemma, the experiment here goes forward, that last box, we have  John and Tom with unknown circumstances, unknown things. Don't know what's  going to happen to them, and so what happens is that we are then left with still  the dilemma. But this, of course, helps us to guide us through many different  kinds of questions with the same kind of logic and principles, the what ifs so  given that with John or Tom, let's say it's not prison, but it has to do with, of  course, decisions on purchasing the house or purchasing something else, or  maybe a job choice or A marriage choice. The prisoner's dilemma helps us to,  again, apply the paradox to many different contexts, and from there, to be able  to gain wisdom and hope it's kind of like chess with this. Now, I don't play chess, maybe you do, or checkers, you know you're looking at the board the same way, first the next move, and in the same way you have this prisoner's dilemma  saying, Well, what choices do I have and what's the better move if I say this, this will happen or not? Well, we then go from the prisoner's dilemma then to the  moral dilemma in terms of another form of psychological dilemmas and the  moral dilemma given the social dilemma down to the moral dilemma. The moral  dilemma ties in with a social dilemma, because often, when you have a social  dilemma like John and Tom, often there is a moral component, what is right,  what is wrong? We saw that earlier in the other visual of the heaven and hell,  the angel and the devil. That's a silly one, really, but, but really looking at  choices when it comes to the human heart and the cognitive where everything is wrapped up in our brains, let's take a look at these moral dilemmas. What would you do? Of course, we all depend on God first. But given that we're we're  walking in faith, and we trust God, and then people come to you with these  dilemmas, how would you respond? As the Lord leads, let's take that, that dive,  shall we? So that moral dilemma. And moral dilemma is a situation in which a  difficult choice has to be made between two courses of action, either which 

entails transgressing a moral principle. I'll say it again. It is a situation which a  difficult choice has to be made between two courses of action, either which  entails transgressing a moral principle. So do I go to war? For example, the  government says, I do. Romans 13 says you are to go to war because the  government says you must. Of course, we read the other example with King  Saul because God said to Samuel and and his people, if you elect a king, if we  anoint the king here, then he will then put you to go to war. He'll tax you, he'll  make you into slaves, and so on. Or do I marry this person, even though I don't  know her or him that well and been seeing some things morally that I'm not too  keen on, or this job, lot of good income, but will I be sacrificing my ethics?  Choice one, Choice two, choice three. Option one, option two, option three. Lord lead, here's some other more complex examples, and this especially will help  you, I hope, as we think psychologically, but first of all, theologically and then  psychologically, how to best approach our People in ministry? Well, these are  the examples here. The first one is your spouse is suffering. Let's say that's a  person who comes to you and he says, or she says, that he, his or her spouse,  is suffering from an incurable disease that causes them terrible pain, terrible  agony. One day, they decide they can't take it anymore and want to die. Since  they are unable to commit suicide themselves, they ask you, or they ask the  person coming to you, the spouse, the other spouse for help, is not only morally  objectionable, but also illegal in your country. What will you do assisted suicide?  But she can't take it anymore, Pastor, I want her to be relieved of this, and I  know the government says it's wrong, and they will prosecute me as a murderer. If I What should I do? Now? Obviously, it's up to that person ultimately, and of  course, I'm sure you already have a good response to this one, to the person  who is seeking counsel. However, this person may well go the assisted suicide  route because of the emotion, the motivation, which also is another variable to  consider, and we're going to be talking about that in the next video about  emotion and motivation. Let's see the other one. The other example, you are  driving to work one day when suddenly you get involved in a two car crash. A  pedestrian is killed while you are getting out of your car, the other driver comes  up to you in tears, convinced they had killed the innocent passer by. You know  for a fact it was you who did it. There are no witnesses to the accident. You  know that the culprit will be sent to prison for their crime. Will you let the other  driver take the blame? Now, of course, with the first one and now this one, it  could easily be you as the pastor, as the counselor, as a church leader, but  again, it's one of your parishioners. Come and say, What do I do? I I said, I just,  I just didn't say anything. Or Pastor, I was in this accident, and I confessed. How do I handle it? The next steps I know I'm gonna what next? What next? Thirdly,  you're an ER doctor on call. Suddenly, two people hit by a car are brought to the hospital. The witness testifies they were hit by a car when they were crossing  the street, kissing, not paying attention to the traffic. You recognize that one of 

the victims is your spouse, and the other a lover. They apparently had your  spouse's injuries are very serious, and it is unlikely they will survive. The lover  has a chance to pull through, as long as they are worked on immediately. Who  do you try to save first? Now, of course, this is the parishioner coming to you  and your us, pastor or church leader. Well, either church leader, this is you, and  you are serving in that elder role or Deacon role, but this is very sensitive and  crucial extreme. But life has these extremes. Finally, after the ship you are  traveling with had an accident, you find yourself in a 10 person lifeboat, together with 30 people, men and women of different ages and some children. The  lifeboat is too heavy to paddle, and it's filling with water. Unless you throw some  people overboard, the boat will sink, killing everybody in it. What is more, the  most morally acceptable choice. This is a classic, classic case study, classic  dilemma, lifeboat, do I throw over the old person? Do I throw over the young  person? Because he or she can swim, they're young, strong, or I throw over the  beautiful people, because, you know, beauty is not what matters inside the heart everybody. It can get kind of comical at first, but but also very morbid and  sensitive again, these are dilemmas that, in one way or another, can, in fact,  happen. You can't write this at the same time, things similar to this, or things like  this, or these actual things will come to you and people ask or say, I don't know  what to do. I have a dilemma, but we know that God can give us the answer.  See, then there's also the trolley problem, the person can choose to divert the  train from the main track, saving five people on the track, but killing the person  on the other track. What would you do? There's also the Ethics Institute, ethical  decision making method. You study the understand the situation, you identify the values that are involved in all sides. You identify the ethical dilemma, right  versus right, or right versus wrong. I'll add in there to redeem this. Identify the  values that influence your position. Communicate effectively and respectively, a  decision that demonstrates the ability to apply the facts. Identify values that  inform your position and can refer to other sources to or sources or  stakeholders. Now what I like about this decision making model is it incorporates values. Now you can decry values clarification, like lifeboat. But that's not where  I'm headed here. I'm really saying, as we look at values, we look at, of course,  the biblical worldview. What does God say about this? There are some things in  the Bible, though, that Scripture is silent on and we have to have some  framework, some system, to make that decision, to make things more clear. And of course, that's the leading of the Holy Spirit to start with. Don't get me wrong,  yet we do need those. Step. By steps, we mean that that that that filter to take  us to where we need to be, and God will take us there. Boy, some things that  can become very, very difficult. It's good to talk about it, because then God will  help us as we get serious. So there's that decision making method. There's also  Piaget, as we look at moral and the again, just to review quickly, the pre moral,  the hetero, heteronomous or moral realism, the autonomous morality, or moral 

relativism, excuse me, as we look at Piaget he talks about how, again, kids at  age zero to five a little understanding rules as they can't carry out complex  mental operations, also with other forms of or in stage two, rather more realism,  age five to Nine, rules are rigid and given by adults or God, or for this way by  God. And of course, adults are viewed like God. Rules tell you what is right or  wrong. Pretty concrete. And then, of course, autonomous morality, moral  relativism, based on what Piaget said, of course, in the biblical worldview, we  are looking at how things are absolute. And there are some things that are  negotiable, true, but the point of reference is the absolute, such as the 10  Commandments, the law and the prophets. And this is age 10 on upward,  because we do have these dilemmas to consider. But that question is about  worldview. There are different types of ethics that you'll then incur. You'll then  run into when it comes to people who come to you, some will come from a  Buddhist point of view, Daoist. There's some path where we don't know what it  is. Islam, what was the Quran saying Scientology. Wiccan Germanic, neopagan  ethics, Jewish ethics, with a Hellenistic influence, in other words, secular and  then Confucian ethics, as as it applies to Confucius and his writings. Hence, the  religion that was created after Confucius passed away. And finally, look at the  Christian worldview, the biblical worldview. So then we need to then look at, how do we approach these dilemmas effectively? Obviously, there's other  worldviews. They don't work effectively enough. Actually, when we comes to as  CS Lewis says, there's a towel, there's a path in everything. Also, there's a truth  in every belief system. However, Lewis goes on to say, there is a definite rather,  that the absolute truth in Jesus Christ is the truth. Period Jesus said, I am the  Way, the Truth, the life and the story we can apply that to what Jesus said, what  Jesus then modeled, modeling what he said, what he did, how we then, of  course, fulfill the Law and the Prophets. All the Scripture hangs together, and  that's what we can confidently get through these dilemmas with God's help, as  he's given the psychology to understand it with, finally, some words to consider  too, that as we proceed, we can then apply, let's take a look from the world  views of the world then to words that Christians misuse, but also we can then  reframe, repurpose and also use well, such a study most Christians call Bible  study is actually Bible worship. People look at that, but also we need to look at  study as a true examination. Why? Because some people in Christian circles,  believers tend to use like like this. This visual is trying to say that they look at  Bible study is that Bible worship, no we can use our mind and use critical  thinking. Then there's there's truth. Truth is conformity with fact or reality. Truth is dictated by supporting evidence, not mere claims. Simply claiming that  something or someone is the truth is a misuse of the word. However we go back to Jesus, who is the truth? The Word the logos, then morality. Morality is the act  of doing what causes the least amount of harm to others. Christians say that  morality is dictated by God, but the act of doing what one demands is the 

definition of submission, not morality. The moral comes out, of course, what is,  again, what we then the effect of what is absolutely true was absolutely in place, such as, for instance, the 10 Commandments, Thou shalt not murder. Well, the  outflow of that, the result of that, is that I then respect life. That is what is moral  and ethical free will, what Christians can commonly call free will, is actually just  will. In the Bible, God only gave us the ability to choose what we want to do, but  not the freedom to act upon those choices as it is told we are required to do, as  God commands, or we will be subject to eternity of torment, of course, in other  

words, applying to a couple things when we consider free will, Free Will has to  do, of course, with the fact that God has given us the ability to choose, and with  that ability to choose, we can choose our limits. We can't do anything we want  all the time. At any time, no God is in control. God is sovereign, and we affirm  this. But we were given a will, and of course, as we can tell with Adam and Eve's example, Adam and Eve chose to disobey God. We saw the propensity to  choose to obey or disobey. Free will is a bit misleading, but will is absolutely  true. It is absolute. We have a will. And of course, when we turn our will over to  the care of God, that's where God and says, okay, my will become your Psalm.  37 talks about this Psalm where God says, make my desires, your desires. God  says, If you give me the desires of your heart, I will then make them come to  pass and give you peace. Make your righteousness, which is course, God's  righteousness in you shine like the dawn, like the noonday sun. So will. Some  other words to consider adultery. Again, an example here, when it comes to  where is our allegiance, Jesus says that lust is adultery in Matthew 5:28, the  word adultery means having with another person, with a person who is married  to another. The word lust means to have desires. Having a desire to do  something is not the same as doing something, but of course, adultery and  terms of the heart, and of course, where our hearts go, that's what Jesus is  concerned about. And of course, if our hearts are in tune with God, our hearts  belong to God. God then directs our hearts, and that's where the term love  comes into play. Love is an intense affection for someone or something. Calling  God love does mean that his actions automatically fit such a definition. This is  calling it a plane an airplane. Does not mean it is suddenly able to fly. God  doesn't even fit the definition of love given by Paul. But again, God is love as  defined by, of course, John. So what that writer was trying to say is terms of the  act of love. We then want to look at love as a person who is Jesus Christ, but  also love as we love others, Jesus in us, who is love, and of course, as we then  love our brother and sister, as we consider our moral dilemmas. I Corinthians,  13 is pretty clear. Love is kind. Love is patient. It does not see, does not envy, it  does not boast. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love delights in the truth. Who is  Christ? So we go forward in faith everybody, as we apply the learning theory  which God created and it is good. And then also was psychology able to then 

help others, as well as where God then sends help to us as servant leaders in  Christ.