Conflict has both proximate and ultimate causes. A proximate cause is an event that is closest to, or immediately responsible for causing, some observed result. This exists in contrast to a higher-level ultimate cause (or distal cause) which is usually thought of as the “real” reason something occurred.

Here is an example to illustrate the difference between proximate and ultimate causes. Let’s take the example of a sinking ship. One may ask: Why did the ship sink?

Proximate cause: It sank because a hole developed beneath the waterline. Water entered the hull, and the ship became denser than the water which supported it, so it could not stay afloat.

Ultimate cause: It sank because it hit a rock which tore open the hole in the ship’s hull.

In fact, one could go back with ultimate causation and say it’s because the navigation system was malfunctioning and didn’t see the rock that caused the hole. And going back even more, it was the poor design of the engineers that built the ship that caused the navigation to malfunction.

In this chapter, you will learn that the proximate causes of conflict include competition for scarce resources, poor communication, etc., while the ultimate cause of conflict is the depravity of the human heart. This difference is an important one, as we will see because to address conflict properly, we must target the ultimate cause.

Four Primary Causes of Conflict

The four primary causes of conflict derive from our four fundamental relationships.

We discussed earlier that conflict results from a failure in four key relationships. Four major causes of conflict fall neatly under the four types of relationships.

The four fundamental relationships give us the four primary causes of conflict.

Material

Competing over scarce material resources (economic resources such as money, equipment, property, time, space, food, etc.) is a big source of conflict. For example, overpopulation increases scarcity, denies people enough space to live, and promotes competition over material resources–resulting in conflict. Competition over scarce jobs, promotions, places on a team, girlfriends, and boyfriends can also cause conflict.

Emotional + mental (psychological)

Personal causes of conflict stem from diversity/differences between us (recognized and unrecognized). People are unique, with unique paradigms, worldviews, philosophies, perceptions, expectations, priorities, ideas, values, and DESIGN (dreams, experiences, spiritual maturity, interests and passions, gifts, and nature/personality). Failure to understand and properly manage these ontological differences between people causes or feeds conflict. Mishandling of these differences in being between humans, which are all uniquely created cause conflict. Because of brokenness, these differences, which should make for beautiful and strong relationships, become a source of conflict.

Some examples of differences between people that cause conflict include differences in:

Values, goals, gifts, philosophies, thoughts, beliefs, worldviews/paradigms, callings, etc.
Plans, goals, methods
Race, class, gender, age, ethnicity, language
Communication styles, dress styles
Personality/temperament differences
Identity

Social

Social causes of conflict can be broken down into three major types:

Relational (Interpersonal) issues are also a common cause of conflict.
Social structures/systems, institutions, organizations, and political systems can cause conflict if the way they are built, sustained, and changed isn’t done right for the benefit of all citizens.
Culture and cultural changes can also be a cause of conflict between members of the same culture and especially between members of different cultures.

Communication problems are a big source of interpersonal conflict. Poor communication results in poor expectations which when not met cause conflict. Making assumptions of what other people’s motives and intentions are and acting on them instead of checking with them is another serious cause of conflict. In Joshua 22:10-34, we see a good example of how making assumptions of others’ motives and intentions almost sent the young fledgling nation of Israel to a war that would have devastated the country. Committing to do the following things will reeducate social or interpersonal conflict:

Don’t make assumptions.
Always speak with integrity. Say only what you mean, don’t gossip, make and keep promises, etc.
Don’t take anything personally. What others say (and do) comes out of the abundance of their own hearts. Out of the evil or good in their hearts, they speak and act. It has little to nothing to do with you. So don’t take it personally. Practice rational detachment.
Always respect the other person. Revere God, respect the other person.
Really listen to understand the other person.

Organizational structure and power differences is also a common cause of conflict within hierarchical organizations (political, military, educational, and corporate organizations) as well as families. The exploitative nature of human beings and the power and status differences may leave some people disenfranchised and their perception of their ability to meet their fundamental human needs frustrated.

Relationship management issues are a significant cause of conflict. As such, peacemaking, conflict resolution and negotiation is really about managing relationships with others well, treating them well, respecting them well, and working with them in ways that satisfies their interests and yours.

Because of the relational nature of conflict, even third-party assistance during a conflict can worsen if not well done.

Treating people based on preconceived stereotypes is also a very common source of conflict. With stereotyping, people are not treated, as Dr. King said, on the basis of the content of their character because stereotyping doesn’t allow us to know people as individuals. Instead, we form a hurried judgment about people’s abilities and motivations based on, for example, the color of their skin and the stereotypes we have about that skin color. It’s very easy to see how this would cause conflict. You are not dealing with the person in front of you because you don’t know them, you are instead dealing with some imaginary stereotype.

“An offended friend is harder to win back than a fortified city. Arguments separate friends like a gate locked with bars.” Proverbs 18:19 NIV

These words of King Solomon are crucial to effective peacemaking, conflict resolution, and negotiation. In the field of medicine, a cardinal rule in working with patients is, “First, do no harm,” (or “primum non nocere.” In conflict resolution and negotiation, that rule would be, “first, do not offend.” If you offend people, they tend to attack and criticize and that only gets the negotiations off course.

Other significant causes of interpersonal conflict are:

-Unmet biopsychosociospiritual needs (unmet human needs). Even though we are the most advanced and most rational of all creation, human actions at a conscious and unconscious level are motivated by the need to fulfill fundamental human needs. These needs become the motivations, desires, or interests that underlie every conflict. Ignoring one’s own basic needs and the basic needs of others creates an environment for conflict. Perceived frustration to another person’s ability to meet their fundamental human needs always causes conflict that can be attributed to each of the four primary causes. Unmet human needs can cause conflict as people compete over scarce or limited resources within the material creation such as money, property, time, space, food, etc. For example, this may happen as the try to meet the need of survival-safety-security. Unmet human needs may manifest themselves as causes of conflict in numerous scenarios, such as the following:

Scenario #1: A person experiences loss such as job loss, divorce, or death. This causes so much fear and anxiety, scapegoating, misplaced anger, and leads to conflict. This is a manifestation of the need for control in our lives. The need for control falls under the survival-safety-security need.
Scenario #2: People living in Overpopulated, overcrowded areas with high population density such as some major cities like New York or large slums like the ones in Nairobi engage in fierce completion. In New York rents are high and the cost of living is high. A high population denies people enough space to live and promotes competition. In this scenario, conflict arises as people are trying to meet the survival-safety-security need.
Scenario #3: Competition over jobs, promotions, spots on a team, girlfriends and boyfriends leads to conflict. This also is another situation where people are trying to meet basic needs.

Examples of unmet needs that cause conflict include:

Subsistence, Survival, Security, Safety
Understanding and growth
Connection to community
Creative contribution / expression
Esteem, Recognition, attention, credit, Identity (Identity includes all of the things we identify with which become part of us, such as social groups, friends, foods, schools, songs, dances, etc.)
Self-governance (autonomy) – Control over our lives; Fairness, etc.
Significance and purpose

My acrostic: SUCCESS helps in remembering these 7 categories of fundamental human needs. Much of what causes interpersonal conflicts can be reduced to the struggle to meet basic human needs.

–Change. Any change, especially sudden, stressful change, can threaten/frustrate our ability to meet their fundamental human needs. This can produce fear, anxiety, and conflict. Other types of change that may threaten our ability to meet fundamental needs and cause conflict include: job loss, divorce, death, etc. In some cases, these changes might cause misplaced anger and scapegoating that worsens the conflict.

Spiritual

Sin (or rebellion against God) is a major cause of spiritual conflict. Sin was the cause of the first and greatest conflict (between God and Adam) and has remained the greatest cause of conflict.

Projecting our own moral standards and values onto others almost always causes conflict.

In the preceding pages, we have talked about the proximate causes of conflict –the things that immediately trigger conflict. However, even before there are any triggers, a soil has been created for the seeds of conflict to fall in. The nature of the soil determines whether a site of conflict will thrive or not.

Conflict Flows from the Heart

What are the roots of conflict? Where does conflict start?

Several years ago, I was teaching a face-to-face course on conflict resolution and negotiation, with Servants University, in Austin Texas. As a class activity, my students and I came up with the common causes of conflict. The material in this chapter is mostly from those class activities, topped with some causes from research.

Here is a list of common causes of conflict we came up with.

Common Causes of conflict

Trying to control others
Sense of Entitlement
Failure to love: Being unloving
lack of information
Ignoring the golden rule.
Lack of integrity/character
Poor interpersonal communication (e.g. not enough communication or hurtful communication)
Using your words as a weapon to hurt others.
Grumbling and complaining
Deceit / Lying or misrepresenting the truth (e.g. mis-characterization / telling only half-truths, magnifying/exaggerating things, telling only parts that make us look good, etc,.)
Gossip
Backbiting / Slander (a false and malicious statement or report about someone).
Inconsiderate words – Being insensitive and speaking words that hurt other people.
Judging people and their motives.
Making assumptions about people’s intentions and motives
Ambiguous and vague criticism / improperly giving feedback.
Greed – Excessive love for material possessions that controls the person.
Serving sinful desires.
Resisting change
People pleasing
Avoiding conflict.
Attacking people.
Bad habits / Addictions to bad habits e.g. being unfaithful in our sexual life, pornography, gambling, laziness e.g. lust can lead to adultery, which causes the conflict of divorce.
Self-centeredness
Self-indulgence.
Blind passion
Poor Judgment
Pride / Arrogance. Pride has been said to be the root of all sin.
Defensiveness
Wrong/corrupt mindsets
A desire to always be right.
Not admitting our own faults
Focusing on the faults of others.
Unforgiveness > Bitterness
Envy
Jealousy
Breaking your word (Failure with making & keeping promises)
Failing to abide by the rules
Failure to establish clear ground rules
Failure to respect authority
Failure to respect people in general.
Poor boundary setting.
Poor peacemaking & conflict resolution skills. Conflict is bound to happen. Handling conflict can prevent a spark from growing and to destroy an entire hill.
Poor conflict prevention skills. The easiest way to resolve a conflict is to prevent it. An oz. of prevention is worth a lb. of cure.
Poor conflict resolution environment e.g. when third party assistance during conflict is weak. When what William Ury calls the 3^rd side is missing, conflicts can spread beyond their bounds.
When people don’t follow the rules / When competition is not fair
Failure to trust others. If you don’t trust people, you might think they are doing something wrong when they are not.
Lack of fair and equitable standards or rules of operations.
Poor communication skills –Using your tongue to attack, criticize, judge, or demean others others.
Failure to set clear expectations. Setting expectations avoids misunderstanding.
Sin – All sin causes conflict. Yielding to sin causes conflict with God, others, self, and the rest of creation. Serving sinful desires.
Unchecked passionate pursuit of good things that blinds us to the mistakes we are making that are hurting others often causes conflict. E.g. a husband can be so passionate about his business or work that it blinds him to the fact that he is not giving his wife and family the time they deserve leading to conflict at home and in many cases even divorce. Yet, most of the time, the husband honestly loves his family and it’s not his intention to destroy it. Yet, his passion blinds him. Good things that we want too much can blind us and become idols that we follow. In fact, our idols are usually good things that we desire too much. They are perversions of the seven fundamental human needs that are otherwise good things.

As I did this activity with students, one thing I quickly noticed was that the causes of conflict are very easy for students and most of us to enumerate and explain. The difficulty with conflict is managing and stewarding while in the heat of it.

My second observation came from a question I asked my students:

“When you look at the above causes of conflict and any others that you may come up with, what pattern do you see? What do the causes of conflict mainly fall under?” As we looked at the list, we realized that some could fall under poor communication, poor relationship management, etc. My epiphany moment came when I realized that all of the causes of conflict have something to do with character or heart issues. Defects in character are at the core of conflict! If we want to become peacemakers, the focus cannot be outward on techniques and steps to resolve conflict but rather the focus must be inward on transforming our character and becoming the kind of people who are guided from within to make peaceful decisions and resolve conflicts well. Skills and techniques of negotiation and conflict management have their place and we will discuss them in detail in this book, however, when in comes to conflict resolution and peacemaking, the heart is king.

Character development is the only lasting, sustainable, and surefooted way to become a peacemaker and to enjoy strong relationships and the happy life that comes through strong relationships and a life of peace. In essence, the good life comes from inward transformation of character not an outward adornment with accomplishments or possessions.

This is not something that is new, but from that day, it took on a new meaning for me. I began to view character development as both the key to intrapersonal and interpersonal peacemaking.

What does the Bible have to say about the roots of conflict?

Conflict Flows From the Heart

“The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.” Jesus Christ in Matt. 6:45 ESV

“For out of the heart come evil thoughts and plans, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts, false testimonies, slanders (verbal abuse, irreverent speech, blaspheming).” Jesus Christ in Matt. 15:19 AMP

“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”James in James 4:1-3 NIV

The ESV version renders this as: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” James 4:1-3 ESV

From the above passages, we see both Christ and James clearly revealing the ultimate source of all conflict. Our desires, thoughts, words, actions (including conflicts) proceed from the heart. That’s not a surprise because the fall of Adam and Eve has corrupted the heart of man. All conflict starts in the heart and then shows up in the four fundamental relationships.

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 17:9

“The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” Genesis 6:5

The word “heart” as used in the Bible in this context doesn’t obviously mean the mechanical organ that pumps blood in our bodies. Instead it denotes a person’s center of both emotional, intellectual, mental/psychological, and moral activities. In today’s parlance, a good word for heart is character—the inner core of who we are. A more accurate way to view the relationship between character and the heart is that character is the visible representation of an invisible heart. You can “see” or know someone’s character by directly experiencing it through his or her behaviors/habits. The way you know their heart is by experiencing their character. Another way to put it is that character is a reflection of a person’s heart. Only God can see a person’s heart directly. We can know it indirectly by experiencing their character. Yet another way to view it for you who remember your high school science is that character is the phenotype of the heart—the genotype.

By studying a person’s character, we can know their heart—i.e. whether they have a good heart or a bad heart. Every person with a good heart has good character, but a person with a bad heart has bad character. There is no such thing as a person with a good heart who has bad character. A person with a good heart cannot have a bad character, and a person with a bad heart cannot have good character. It’s that simple. Thus, by looking at a person’s character, you can tell their heart.

Remember that having good character doesn’t mean that we don’t make mistakes. People with good character are not perfect. In the same way, having bad character doesn’t mean that we don’t sometimes do some good things. Character has to do with the way a person consistently behaves. It is not defined by the occasional fault or slide of character.

Having said that, the situation is not hopeless for people with a bad heart, which shows up as a bad character. Every bad heart has one advantage over every good heart—that is, it can change. In the same way, every good heart has one advantage over every bad heart—that is, it has changed. It has made the journey already.

Every bad heart has the potential to change. If someone has bad character, instead of us trying to comfort by saying, “I know you have a good heart, you are just struggling”, we should instead help that person work on changing his heart so that he can produce the kind of good fruit that is commensurate with good character. No one is doomed to always have a bad heart.

What this means is that true life-change is a change at the level of the heart, which manifests outwardly as good character. Assuming a good heart and trying to change character is trying to work on the surface while ignoring the core. True change happens from the inside out. It happens at the level of the heart.

Character is the foundation of effective win/win conflict negotiations. Such character, as Stephen Covey wrote in his famous book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has three essential traits: Integrity, Maturity, and Abundance Mentality.

Unchecked Passions and Desires Become Idols

“Dreams usually start out as single-cell desires.” Mark Batterson

“You are a slave to whatever controls you.” 2 Peter 2:19 NLT

We have defined conflict as “an incompatibility (or difference) in desires that leads to a poverty of shalom within interdependent relationships. “

Author and teacher, Mark Batterson once said that “dreams usually start out as single-cell desires.” That dream can then be fanned to grow and transform the world. Every engineering marvel, every technology that humans have ever created that has changed the world started as a single-cell desire that became a powerful dream. In a similar way, all conflicts start as single-cell desires that when not managed properly can be fanned into destructive flames that destroy humans and the world their dreams have built. As the ESV translation of James 4:1-3 put it, destructive conflict is caused by our passions that are at war within us. These are unmet psychological needs/desires that have gained control over our hearts. These consuming desires become idols of the heart that drive us. These unmet psychological needs may include security, control over our lives, recognition, attention, credit, identity, and the need for fairness.

It’s important to emphasize that this kind of passion that causes conflict is usually a perversion of a perfectly normal human motivation. As we have seen before, humans are motivated to meet certain basic human needs. If they are not met, conflict often ensures.

We become enslaved to these idols and serve those desires and needs instead of God who is the ultimate good.

As depicted in James 4:1-3, conflict arises from dysfunctional passions or desires that are not merely motivating us to pursue good ends (as should be) but are controlling us to do evil. Let’s review the passage again.

These desires and passions are at war within us, causing us to quarrel and fight with other humans who are made in God’s image. Because we want something so badly, we become blinded and cut corners, lie, cheat, slander, and do everything to force orders to give us what we want. This kind of passion makes it nearly impossible for us to act lovingly toward those we are in conflict with. It makes us focus so blindly on what we want.

Such desires blind us as to the truth. When we don’t get what we want, we murder. This murder can be literally or through unjust anger in our hearts for that person. In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.” By saying this, Jesus equated anger without a cause to murder. Such idolatrous passion can easily inflame us to blow up what should be a simple dissatisfaction with not getting something into a full-blown raging anger towards the person who appears to be in the way of fulfilling our desires. As such, one may commit the sin of being angry without cause not by the mere presence of discontent by the excessive degree of discontent or anger that is exercised as the person is blinded by this driving passion.

James continues to say this kind of desire and passion causes us to covet (which is a sin) and to fight and quarrel.

In the last part of the passage, James gives an alternative path that one might have used to fulfill the same desire had that desire not been allowed to become an idol in their heart that controls them. James says, “You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

The perfectly right way to have gone about such a desire would have been to ask God and patiently wait for him to provide. Yet, sometimes, even when prayer is made to God, it’s done wrongly. God doesn’t answer prayers to grant people something that is already controlling them and becoming an idol to them, even if that was a perfectly good thing. Our God is a jealous God and doesn’t share his glory with anyone.

Instead of quarrelling, fighting, and murdering to try to get a desire made, we should follow Paul’s words to other believers in Philippi who were also dealing with a conflict. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Phil 4:4-7

How an Idol operates within the heart

“You are a slave to whatever controls you.” 2 Peter 2:19 NLT

Everyone is controlled by something, and we are slaves to whatever has mastered and controlled us. That thing has become our idols.

Each of us has desires and passions–that if not well checked are often evil. Conflict happens when ambition is pitted against ambition. When our desires or passions swell within us, they blind us, and we begin to act as the accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner of those we are contending with. All alone, we accuse them, prosecute them, serve as jury and judge, condemn them, and execute the punishment.

Idols start as small desires. It can be a desire for something that is legitimately good to have – need for money to live, a husband/wife to marry, love from your loved ones, etc. These desires grow to controlling passions and desires. We feel entitled to the things we desire. More than that, we feel that we must have them to be happy and fulfilled. God is the only thing we need to be happy. If there is anything we feel we have to have to live, we know we are dealing with an idol.

When we are dealing with an idol, we become:

The plaintiff -You accuse the other person in your heart of wrongdoing and make a demand for him to comply with your desires.
The prosecutor – You argue the case against him.
The judge – you try the case.
The jury – you decide that he is wrong, all by yourself (or with people who say what your itching ears want to say)
The executioner (punisher) – you punish the person.

Because you are the judge, jury, and executioner, the other person has no chance. You punish them to force them to comply with your raging desires. You could punish them through quarrelling (speaking hurtful words), fighting (attacking them through backhanded competitive negotiation tactics), and murder them through excessive anger. You may also stop talking with them, withdraw fellowship and love, get others to stop talking with them, slander them, turn others against them, tell all their friends what is going on and how they are mistreating you. I’ve known parents who have cried as they everyone who knows their child about how they are getting in the way of something they deserve, in the hopes of shaming their child to change course. This punishment can continue upto litigations in courts and physical murder.

How to tear down Idol Altars

When you have discovered that certain desires and passions have become idols in your heart that control you, you need to to the following:

Repent – Change your mind.
Confess – Tell God and others whom your actions have hurt and ask both God and them for forgiveness.
Surrender to God.
Find your joy in God alone.
Pray and continue to walk in surrender to God.

If conflict ultimately starts in the heart, then we need heart transformation.

Heart transformation—also called life change, self-transformation or character development—is the main channel through which we solve the problem of idol worship which leads to conflict. We must become transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Heart transformation starts by surrendering to God—the source of your values, motivations, etc. Surrendering to a principled centered life in God is, in my opinion, the best way to go start life change. In a real sense, each of us is a slave to something. We are slaves to whatever we have chosen to pursue passionately and with all our hearts whether that thing is good or bad.

We become the slave of whatever we choose to obey. We can be slaves to a way of life that is good for us and helps us accomplish our true lifelong goals, or we can choose a center that leads us in the wrong direction and helps us to climb up the wrong wall.

If you have the wrong center (idol worship), the easiest way to produce life change is to divorce the bad way and marry a principled centered life (God’s way) and stay committed to that. You will essentially become a slave to that way of life, but that will be a good thing because you are committing yourself to serve a way that leads you in the direction you want to go.

Through Spiritual Formation, we learn how to surrender to God and gain freedom from an idolatrous heart. We learn how to become free from slavery to the things that control us.

In conclusion, conflicts arise from defects inside us, not merely from outside circumstances. While there are external causes of conflict, it is important to remember that conflict flows from a heart state that is broken. Conflict is the symptoms of a heart problem. The disease is at the level of the heart. This explains why two people can be faced with the same external circumstances, however, one may handle it in a way that it turns into a brawling conflict with fistfights while the other may handle it in a way that leads to love and strengthening of the relationship. The same external stimulus, different responses. The heart forms the paradigm that interprets everything that happens to us. The difference is not the external situation but their hearts. One can end up bitter in conflict, and the other can end up telling himself a different story that is life giving.

Take the example of God. The Christian conception of God is a trinitarian God. God exists perpetually as three persons who live co-eternally with one another. Even though God lives in a relationship (father, son, and Holy Spirit) with a diversity of persons and roles, there is never a conflict between the persons of the Godhead.

Like God, we live in relationships, and our conflicts happen in these relationships.

Causes of Conflict