Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Pride vs. humility

pride-humility-contrastI now come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.
    The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility.

The Vice of Pride according to Lewis – Part 1
C.S. Lewis, “The Great Sin,” Mere Christianity (1952; Harper Collins 2001) 121.

7 comments:

  1. Hello. Great blog you have here.

    I'm actually reading Mere Christianity right now and I'm being blown away by its truth and beauty. Lewis is indeed a great writer, and he has the ability to talk about the deepest truths of Christian theology in simple terms and beautiful language using good arguments and clear and interesting analogies.

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  2. Very happy you checked out Mere C.S. Lewis, Dantecuales jr. Welcome.  I've back from several days off. Perhaps I should've posted Lewis' thoughts on sloth or acedia instead of pride. It's been a rough few weeks, but Mere C.S. Lewis will resume daily posts of quotes from Lewis on Mondays to Fridays. Enjoy and keep your mind sharp for Christ!

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  3. Thanks, Ken.

    I love the Mere Christianity quotes you're posting here. I haven't read Lewis' other works, except the Narnia series. Keep it up!

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  4. Sloth, acedia, welcome to the real world!   ;-)

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  5. Funny thing about humility, when one walks in humility they do not know it. It is seen in others at best as being humble or over-looked entirely. It's one of this things that is easy to see is not more than is.

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  6. I am looking for a quote from one his books, maybe you could help me. He talks about how hard it is to be humble cause as soon as you think you have managed it and look in the mirror and think, what a great person I am trying to be humble, then you are not.

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  7. Hi there!

    There are surprising connections between the description of Pride by C.S. Lewis and the concept of "mimetic desire" by René Girard. Or, well, since they're both Christians eventually those connections might not be that surprising at all. This might be of interest:

    https://erikbuys.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/c-s-lewis-account-of-mimetic-desire/

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