"How is it that people who are obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshipping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men. I suppose it was of those people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preach about Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world that He had never known them. And any of us may at any moment be in this death-trap. Luckily, we have a test. Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good-- above all, that we are better than someone else-- I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget yourself altogether."--Mere Christianity
2 comments:
I find that questioning the very definition of "pride" is an important way to understand if others or "self" is really "walking or acting as proud". We are all proud, if we are healthy. Pride means that there is a knowledge of and about "self". (Scriptures were written apart from what we know in psychological science.)
"Self" is not a sickness, unless it is demandingness, controlling, or ignoring of the "other"(and psychologists have "names" for these diseases of the mind).
We will differ in how we live our life and understand what is "best", or "good". Difference is not "pride". But, we must understand what our definitions are and then associate with those that will bring about how we understand "good".
Very good, wise, helpful words, which one would expect from C.S. Lewis!
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