Truth Really Matters

Consider the life of a fictional woman we’ll call “Jennifer.” Jennifer never marries and has no children, but otherwise is happy and successful. She dies instantly in a car crash at age 30. An alternate Jennifer lives an additional five years, pleasantly enough, but not at the level of her first thirty years, then dies suddenly at 35. A third Jennifer lives 60 years, no marriage, no children, but happy and successful, then dies suddenly. A fourth lives an additional five years, enjoying life generally, but not at the level she did for her first sixty.

With more details filled in, Jennifer’s lives were evaluated in a psychological study, with participants judging the overall quality and desirability of such lives. Surprisingly to some, results showed that the length of life mattered little. Also, the additional five years of ‘mediocre-quality’ life caused a substantial drop in evaluations of that life’s total happiness.

The results particularly confounded Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel laureate in economics, noted for his work in the study of decision-making and behavioral economics. Kahneman hypothesized a distinction between our “experiencing self” and our “remembering self.” The former, living in the moment, can answer the question, “Does it hurt now?” The latter judges the whole, but is insensitive to the passage of time, focusing on peaks and endings.

“In storytelling mode,” Kahneman writes, “an episode is represented by a few critical moments, especially the beginning, the peak, and the end.” Such a perspective in the “Jennifer” study may have attached undue weight to the last five years of life. Kahneman saw this as irrational, but part of the human condition. Kahneman himself was known occasionally to end his vacations a day or two early to make sure he finished with good memories.

The above is taken from “The Death of Daniel Kahneman,” an essay in the December 2025 issue of First Things, a monthly journal produced in the spirit of C.S. Lewis, who saw all of Christendom as Christian, with differences that make little difference. Accordingly, First Things features items by and for Roman Catholics, Greek & other Orthodox, Protestant, evangelical, and even Jewish readers. (Although I find the weight to tip rather heavily in the Catholic direction.) First Things features items on art, politics, public policy, economics, literature, and history, etc.

The author of this essay is J. Mark Mutz, a lawyer and businessman. A quick internet search indicated that he has developed a seminar to foster well-being in the lives of lawyers. On one of his web pages he writes, “Problem drinking, depression, anxiety, loneliness, suicide – all occur at much higher levels among lawyers than among the general public, and for many, these are just the most obvious symptoms of deeper, more fundamental problems.” He admits that “Well-being cannot be engineered to occur . . . (it) is not within our control.” But he clearly hopes that in the traditions and rules of professional conduct of the legal profession there are elements that relate to well-being.

Kahneman died at age 90 in 2024. The circumstances were revealed a year later in the Wall Street Journal by Jason Zweig. Kahneman spent several days in Paris, “walking around the city, going to museums and the ballet, and savoring souffles and chocolate mousse.”

Then he traveled to a clinic in Switzerland which specialized in assisted suicide, where he voluntarily ended his life. In the days leading up, he sent messages to friends, explaining that “the miseries and indignities of the last years are superfluous.” He did not suffer from any particular pain or disability; he was still active and capable of research, writing, and enjoying pleasure, but he was convinced that his kidneys were “on their last legs,” and mental lapses were on the rise. “It is time to go.”

The thrust of Mutz’s essay is this: “When an expert on judgment and decision-making decides to take his own life, we can’t help asking whether his final act confirmed his reputation or undermined it.” Mutz also comments that it provokes the question of how we should approach the end of our lives.

Kahneman called it his “peak-end rule,” that in assessing the value of your life, the peaks and the end matter most, and duration but little. He noted that this effect hinders clear and logical thinking, but he did not seem to think there was anything to be done about it. It seems that “peak-end” affected his own end-of-life decision.

Mutz goes on to analyze whether Kahneman “did the right thing,” noting that Kahneman called the “peak-end” results from the “Jennifer” study “indefensible.” He asserted that life is “a series of moments, each with a value,” and the overall value of a life is “the sum of the values of its moments.”

In a New York Times essay which apparently cited some conversations with Kahneman, Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer write that Kahneman judged his life to be “complete.” But he also denied that his life’s work had any objective significance: “Other people happen to respect it and say that this is for the benefit of humanity,” but he didn’t see it that way. “I just like to get up in the morning because I like the work . . . If you look at the universe and the complexity of the universe, what I do with my day cannot be relevant.”

Here he echoes the existentialism and the absurdity of life perspective promulgated by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Wikipedia’s article on Daniel Kahneman notes that as a teenager he was led to study psychology when he realized that he was more interested in why people believe in God than in whether God actually exists, and more interested in indignation than in ethics. As far as I can tell, Kahneman was an atheist. There is nothing in the articles I read that would dispute that.

Zweig concluded that Kahneman’s decision for suicide was motivated “above all” by a desire “to avoid a long decline, to go out on his terms, to own his own death.” Mutz concludes that he was scared about cognitive and physical decline. For most of us, such prospects are, indeed, frightening.

What motivated me to write about this is my astonishment that J. Mark Mutz – and the editors of First Things – missed the elephant in the room. One of his conclusions is a lament that Kahneman’s “utilitarian calculus” narrowed his life assessment to pleasure vs. pain and that “the possibility that he might learn something new, something significant enough to change his experience of living, was evidently unthinkable.”

The closest Mutz comes to the “elephant” is . . . “Much therefore depends on whether we have an expectation of something beyond the loss, however mysterious that something may be . . . whether we experience life as a dead end or as an adventure in understanding what it means to live well.”

Pitiful. Mutz is writing for a professedly Christian journal. While there are certainly doctrinal differences about salvation among the editors and core readers of First Things, don’t they affirm that how a man stands with God is ultimately vital? It is simple, biblical, soul-bracing truth that “As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” (Hebrews 9:27-28)

Later on in this December issue of First Things, the chief editor, R. R. Reno, in his column “While We’re At It” affirms Paul’s warning in the book of Romans, that all things of this world groan under the weight of sin and death. Reno: “Our only hope is in Christ Jesus, who liberates us from our bondage to the law of sin so that we may fear God and keep his commandments.”

So Reno, although a Catholic, abides with the “elephant” in his life, but he lets Mutz get away with missing the devastatingly vital point: The value of Daniel Kahneman’s life depends utterly and completely on whether he was a born again child of God, via repentance from the sins in his life and by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Kahneman, by reports, had no interest in finding and following the Lord Jesus. Thus, his life and especially his woefully foolish decision to end it himself, was stark tragedy.

I have a similar beef with another column in this issue, Aaron Renn’s review of a book by Christian Smith, Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America.

Religion, especially Christianity Smith insists, is now obsolete: “Most people feel it is no longer useful or needed because something else has superseded it in function, efficiency, value, or interest.” Religion presumably helps one cope with life’s ups and downs, fosters social harmony, and provides identity. Many perceive that it just doesn’t do the job today.

Why obsolete? It’s not that Christianity is extinct. Traditional TV and print newspapers still exist, but might be declared obsolete. For religion, obsolescence was complete by about 2009, its demise coming by (as Smith counts them up) 41 historical developments such as women in the workforce, postmodernism, global capitalism, geographic mobility, and so on.

Smith concludes that religion didn’t lose because secularism won the day; rather, other forms of spirituality, including the occult, have attracted post-Boomers because Christianity has become “fossilized.” He notes that the Emerging Church movement of the 1990s embraced postmodernism to be relevant, but failed to sustain itself and so declined steeply, essentially merging with the progressives – liberals, never actually born again, yet professing Christians.

Renn concludes his review by warning that American religious leaders need to read Smith’s book and take seriously his “powerful cultural diagnostic.”

Sigh. What is the “elephant in the room” this time, that Smith and his reviewer, Aaron Renn, miss? It’s clearly whether the biblical Christian faith is TRUE! These are issues of life and death . . . spiritual life and death for multitudes. I get the impression that Christian Smith and Aaron Renn are at least ‘rooting’ for Christians to get their marketing act together and compete more relevantly with better products and packaging . . . or whatever.

No, the everlasting Gospel hasn’t changed and individuals must come to the Cross individually – still – with humility, repentance and a life-transforming faith. The Bible is clear that in the last days before the Lord Jesus returns hearts will grow cold, apostasy will abound, and yet souls can still be saved. But the Gospel must be preached, clearly, boldly, biblically. (See 1 Timothy 4:1-2, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Matthew 24:11-12, 24, 37-44.)

If only a remnant respond to Gospel TRUTH, then so be it. You cannot manipulate someone into God’s family. They must be willing, eager, and understanding. They must see their sins clearly and choose to repent and trust Christ, with a heart and mind so changed that others can see it too.

I noted this week, as I drafted this essay, that Brigitte Bardot, the French blonde bombshell of the 1950s and 60s, died at age 91. She left the film industry in 1973, calling that world “rotten”and devoted her life to animal welfare. Her devotion to animal rights became legendary. She established her own foundation to support the cause and otherwise withdrew from public life. Among other accomplishments, her foundation is credited with rescuing over 12,000 animals in 70 countries.

It sounds like she did much good. Certainly she earned considerable international respect. But was she forgiven for the sins of her youth? Was she saved? Did she know Jesus as her Lord and Saviour? There is no indication at all and that is generally decisive. A true Christian becomes an active witness for the Gospel’s sake. No witness, no conversion.

Regarding the authors and editors that contribute to a ‘Christian’ journal such as First Things, I marvel that they miss the “elephant” so often. If they are really, truly, genuine Christians, do they not see others as on one of only two roads? Jesus did. (Matthew chapter 7) The difference between taking the road to eternal life – the New Heaven and the New Earth – and the road to destruction – Hell and the Lake of Fire – is such an awesome difference as to dwarf all other choices and distinctions. Look: We can learn much from and appreciate those that contribute to art, science, medicine, economics, public policy, and the like, but while we’re analyzing and appreciating those that contribute to the wisdom of the world, should we not care for their very souls . . . and the souls of those who are influenced by their contributions?

Yeah, I think that, as Christians, we should.

• drdave@truthreallymatters.com