Pride and Humility

While Envy and Charity was a difficult capital pairing for me to address, this one is like shooting ducks in a barrel. We're 21st century Americans. We practically define pride.

The sin of pride is that of assigning disproportionate value to yourself or to your accomplishments, possessions, etc. So if I'm a baseball phenom, does that mean that I'm better than other people? In baseball, yes. In life, no. But all too often, we believe our own press. We listen to the admiring acclaim of friends and even strangers, and that acclaim tempts us into thinking that we're somehow more special than other people. The temptation is genuine because on any given scale, we are more capable, more talented, more well-known, more this, more than - than other people. But that just doesn't justify the idea that we're have greater inherent value than anyone else.

To contrast the sin, let's look at the virtue. The virtue of humility is possessed by those who understand their worth relative to other people. Interestingly, it is exactly the same as everyone else in the world. We are all equally worthy of respect, honor and dignity. Such a mindset can only exist when we have a loving attitude about other people. We love others, so we assign them a position that is equal to our own. We don't get fooled into thinking that because we drive a fancy car and have lots of possessions that we're somehow better than they are. We know, deep down, that we're all fundamentally equal.

Why does that take humility? Because of the automatic temptation to believe that we're better, based entirely on our circumstances. We all too often think that the trappings of our lives define who we are. Humility tells us to strip ourselves down, almost literally, to Who We Are. Not What We Own, or Who We Know or any other metric. Just the barest of notions of identity.

When a Christian, Jew or Muslim considers that stripped notion of identity, they turn to their relationship with God. They are a creation of God's will. That realization alone is enough to put everything into perspective. They exist only because God chose to create them. They believe in a life after death, and that this life is a temporary thing. God is so vastly superior to them that they can always look to God for a final sanity check about their place in the universe.

Again, that helps them to see right through the possessions, the positions of power, the physical abilities and successes. They are things of this world, while they have their eye firmly fixed on eternity. It lets them assign a proportionate value to themselves and to their accomplishments, possessions, etc.

To those who do not look to God for a sense of their role in the universe, the task of finding humility is rather more difficult. If God is not a force in their lives, then what is it that will help them discover a sense of humility? An easy way to tackle that is to simply look around at the universe that they live in. Look up at the night sky while in the country to see how impossibly huge the universe is. Look back through time to see the prideful who have risen to great power only to fall to ashes. No man lives forever, and our pride is just a fleeting insistence on our own self-importance. I would think that the only people capable of pride are those who look no farther than the people who tell them how wonderful they are.

If we have somehow sidestepped all the pitfalls of pride, what have we gained in our humility? Is that somehow a statement of "Oh, I'm just not worth anything anymore." Not at all. Remember that humility is based in an assumption that everyone is worthy of equal respect, honor and dignity. Of equal love. That includes you and me. If we think that we're not worthy of the same love that everyone else is, then we're falling into the same trap that has already been described; if I am less than others, then we're right back to people having varying degrees of worth. If I'm less, then others are more. And that means that there are others who are probably less than even me. Blam. Right back to a prideful way of thinking, speaking and behaving.

Whoops. I never answered the question. What have we gained in our humility? For one thing, we've gained a rock solid footing in reality. All the trappings of our lives become translucent as we look around ourselves for substance. What stays solid and real is the people that we meet and that we know and love. We are all peers. Brothers and sisters. We are all capable of and worth of giving and receiving real love. Pride blinds us to that possibility, while humility opens us up to it.

The capital sins and capital virtues are paired as they are because our days are spent choosing between ourselves or other people. Look at each capital sin and you will see a decision to embrace ourselves before we embrace others. Look at each capital virtue and you will see the reverse. Pride is a terrible sin because it sets us up to consciously choose ourselves over others. When we rationalize a sinful way, it is in some ways far more difficult to correct than those temptations that come from our base instincts, such as lust or gluttony.

No matter the source, be sure that the capital virtues are the means to a more fulfilling and happier life. As much as we turn a blind eye to the capital sins, or as much as we tolerate them, or as much as we embrace them, we are only damaging our potential for that fulfillment during our brief lives. Study how to love and you will find the virtues. Indulge your earthly desires and whims and you will find the sins. It's your choice.