Last weekend, Lux Mea hosted its 12th annual Intercollegiate Colloquium for the Liberal Arts. The topic for this year was humility, and we read a variety of great writers and thinkers from Confucius and Aristotle to Chesterton and Lewis.
One of the readings was Walker Percy’s “Quiz No. 6,” in which Percy lays out twelve different ways that people think about themselves and asks, “Which of the selves, if any, do you identify with?” What is striking about the different selves portrayed is the fact that most of them define themselves.These selves give themselves meaning either from within themselves or in relation to those around them. This method of definition is a problem because it is a usurpation of God’s role. Only he can define who we are and how we should relate to others.
Modern thought has questioned God and rejected Him. What more arrogant act could we have done? We have used the tools God has given us, namely our reason and powers of observation, to try and explain Him out of the universe and release ourselves from the obligation of living in accordance with the way He has structured things.
This is the age-old sin of Adam and Eve. In their pride they placed themselves above God and disobeyed him, seeking to set up their own ordering of the universe. To create our own order seems freeing, but it is not. Percy says that the lost self is “cut loose and imprisoned by its own freedom…The very attempts to free itself, e.g. by ever more refined techniques for the pursuit of happiness, only tighten the bondage and distance the self ever farther from the very world it wishes to inhabit as its homeland.”
This is the state of man today. John Paul Sartre famously said, “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” Our pride would have us believe that what is best is for us is to be in charge and responsible for everything, but that turns out to be a nightmare.
The Christian self is very different. Percy writes that this self understands that he was created by God, that because of man’s Fall into sin he was estranged from God without hope, but that through Redemption he becomes a son of God destined for eternal joy and fellowship with Him. This understanding of self gives great cause for humility. This understanding sees the self as utterly dependent on God for all things and sees that God, as creator, has the right to command the self to do anything He wishes.
God has commanded us to do many things, among which are the instructions to fear Him, respect parents and civil rulers, submit to ecclesial authority, and love our enemies. For the Christian, humility is living appropriately in this hierarchy that God has established. We need to learn our own place in it and how to treat others in it as God has commanded that they be treated.
In the Summa Theologica Thomas Aquinas says, “Humility makes a man a good subject to ordinance of all kinds.” God is the one who has ordered the universe and our call is to submit to Him and those whom He has placed over us.
Ironically, humility is the most freeing thing for the self. Humility releases the self from the arrogant illusion that it can give itself meaning and allows it to live in reality where it must surrender to God in all things.This is not freedom from obligation but rather a freedom to acknowledge our true place in the universe and submit willingly to its Creator. It is only when we realize that we are dust and ashes before a mighty and holy God that we can accept the true joy He offers.
Pride is a dangerous sin because it robs us of the ability to enjoy God by letting Him define who we are. In heaven we will accept our place with gladness, humbly reveling in the perfection of God’s order.
In the meantime, let us stay on our guard lest we forget our true position, seek to take a station above our own, and, in so doing forgo that which is most valuable. George Herbert put it well:
These are thy wonders, Lord of love, To make us see we are but flowers that glide; Which when we once can find and prove, Thou hast a garden for us where to bide; Who would be more, Swelling through store, Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.
