In this pair of talks, Fr. Anthony examines why discernment so often fails in the Church—not because of bad faith or lack of intelligence, but because discernment is a matter of formation before it is a matter of decision. Drawing on insights from intelligence analysis, psychology, and Orthodox anthropology, he shows how authority, moral seriousness, and modern systems of manipulation quietly exploit predictable habits of perception, producing confidence without clarity. True discernment, he argues, is neither technical nor private, but ecclesial: formed through humility, ascetic practice, and participation in the Church's communal rhythms, where judgment matures over time through accountability, repentance, and shared life in Christ. --- Talk One: Why Discernment Fails Expertise, Authority, Manipulation, and the Formation of Perception Fr. Anthony Perkins Introduction Brothers, I want to begin today not with Scripture or a Father of the Church, but with a warning—from someone who spent his life studying failure in complex systems. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, in The Black Swan, writes this: "You cannot ignore self-delusion. The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know. Lack of knowledge and delusion about the quality of your knowledge come together—the same process that makes you know less also makes you satisfied with your knowledge." (pause) Taleb is talking about intelligence analysts, economists, and technical experts—people who are trained, credentialed, experienced, and entrusted with judgment under uncertainty. But if, just for a moment, you change one word in your mind—from expert to priest—the danger becomes uncomfortably familiar. We wear cassocks instead of suits, but the temptation is the same. Not arrogance. Not bad intentions. But unintentional self-delusion born of taking our calling to serve well seriously. A Necessary Pastoral Safeguard Before we go any further, I want to be very clear—because this matters. Taleb is not accusing experts of pride. He is not describing a moral failure. He is describing what happens to the human mind under complexity. And clergy live permanently in complex systems: human souls suffering families conflicted parishes incomplete information real consequences The danger is not that we don't care. The danger is that experience can quietly convince us that we are seeing clearly—especially when we are not. A Lesson from Intelligence Work When I worked in military intelligence, there was a saying—half joking, half deadly serious: The most dangerous person in the world is an intelligence analyst in a suit. At first, that sounds like gallows humor. But it isn't. The danger wasn't that analysts were malicious. The danger was that analysts don't just possess information—they interpret reality for others. And here's where psychology matters. Robert Cialdini has shown that one of the strongest and most reliable human biases is deference to authority. People are far more likely to accept judgments when they come from someone who looks like an authority—someone in a suit, a lab coat, or standing behind an official desk. Jonathan Haidt adds something crucial: people formed in conservative moral cultures—cultures that value order, continuity, and tradition—are especially inclined to defer to legitimate authority. That's not a flaw. It's one of the strengths of such cultures. It's one of the strengths of our Orthodox culture. But it carries a cost. Because when authority speaks, critical perception often relaxes. And when authority speaks with confidence, coherence, and moral seriousness, people don't just listen. They trust. And they trust in a way that they, like us - the ones who guide them - feel connected with the truth and the Source of all truth. But in our fallenness our sense of certainty may be driven by something other than a noetic connection with the deeper ontological of truth. Scripture about the devil appearing as angel of light (2 Cor 11:14-15) and wolves going around in sheep's clothing (Mat 7:15) are not just designed to keep us from trusting everyone who offers to speak a good work; a spiritual meaning is that our own thoughts can be deceptive, appearing as angelic and meek but lacking true virtue. All of this, combined with the seriousness of our calling, should reinforce our commitment to pastor humbly and patiently, erring on the side of gentleness … and trusting in the iterative process of repentance to bring discernment and healing to those we serve. From Suit to Cassock In intelligence work, the suit mattered. In science, it's the lab coat. In the Church, it's the cassock. When a priest speaks—especially confidently, decisively, and with moral gravity—people don't just hear an opinion. They receive guidance. And that means any blind spot—any overconfidence, any unexamined habit of thought—does not remain private. It spreads. Why This Is Dangerous (and Why It Is Not an Accusation) This is where Taleb's insight comes sharply back into focus. The most dangerous situation is not ignorance. It is: incomplete knowledge combined with confidence amplified by authority received by people disposed to trust Taleb is not accusing experts of arrogance. Cialdini is not accusing people of gullibility. Haidt is not accusing conservative cultures of naïveté. They are describing how human beings actually function. And clergy live precisely at the intersection of all three forces: complexity authority moral trust Which means discernment failures in the Church are rarely loud or obvious. They are usually calm, confident, sincere—and despite this, still wrong. And unfortunately, still dangerous. We are susceptible to the same temptations as everyone else. In order to serve well, we need to cultivate a combination of humility and confidence: confidence because we are called and trained to do this work; humility because we are not experts in everything, are still incompletely formed, and the problems in our communities and in this world are incredibly complex. Another Lesson from Intelligence: this time, counterintelligence The challenge of being right all the time is not just that we can't know everything, but that there are powers of the earth and what I call the marketers of the air that are trying to manipulate us. And, alas, not matter how serious or smart or well-educated we are, we are still vulnerable to their wiles. During the Cold War, American intelligence analysts and operatives were taught to keep everything they could about themselves private. This was because we knew that the spy agencies of the Soviet Union were actively collecting information – what we called dossiers - on everyone they could so that they could develop and exploit opportunities to use us. The Soviets didn't need to convert us. They didn't need to convince us. They needed: our habits our reactions our trusted assumptions our unguarded patterns Their dossiers were less about facts than they were about about leverage. And it worked. My first assignment in the Army was as an interrogator. It was a similar deal there. The work of getting information out of someone gets a lot easier when you have information about them, about their histories, about their fears, about their motivations. And here's the unavoidable turn. Today, advertisers, platforms, and political actors possess dossiers that would have made Cold War intelligence officers and interrogators weep with envy. They know: what angers us what comforts us what affirms us when we are tired when we are lonely what makes us feel righteous And clergy are NOT exempt from their data collection or their use of that data. In fact, we may be especially vulnerable, because we are tempted to mistake moral seriousness for immunity. And advertisers, platforms, and political actors with all their algorithms do not do this alone. The fallen powers of the air have been studying us and our weakness even longer than Facebook. More committed men than us – here I think of St. Silouon when he was young – have fallen victim to their machinations. And now they have more allies and useful idiots working with them than ever. Porn addiction and religious polarization – even within Orthodoxy – show that these allies (BIG DATA and the DEMONS) are having their desired effect. Discernment Is Not Being Bypassed—It Is Being Used Here is the hard truth. Most modern manipulation does not bypass discernment. It uses malformed discernment. It works because: our instincts are trained elsewhere our attention is fragmented our emotional reactions are predictable our confidence exceeds our perception This is not a technology problem. It is not a political problem. It is a formation problem. Psychological Bias Is Not a Moral Failure At this point, I could list all the biases that set us up for failure: confirmation bias availability bias motivated reasoning affect heuristics But that would miss the deeper point. Biases are not bugs. They are features of an untrained mind. And the Church has never believed that the mind heals itself through information alone. Which brings us to the Orthodox diagnosis. Discernment Is Formational, Not Technical In the Orthodox tradition, discernment is not a technique for making decisions. It is the fruit of a formed person. And that formation involves the whole human being and all three parts of the human mind: the gut, the brain, and the heart. The Gut / The Passions This is the fastest part of the mind. In our default state, it is the real decision-maker. It reacts. It protects. It simplifies. It is trained
