C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity has a whole chapter called "The Great Sin". In it he describes the sin of Pride. Very illuminating.
"Take it with money. Greed will certainly make a man want money for the sake of a better house, better holidays, better things to eat and drink. But only up to a point. What is it that makes a man with ($100,000) a year anxious to get ($200,000) a year? It is not the greed for more pleasure. ($100,000) will give all the luxuries that any man can really enjoy. It is Pride--the wish to be richer than some other rich man, and (still more) the wish for power. For, of course, power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers..... What is it that makes a political leader or a whole nation go on and on demanding more and more? Pride again. Pride is competitive by it's very nature. That is why it goes on and on."
"That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear themselves very religious? I am afreaid it means they are worshipping and imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imaginging 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 toward their fellow-men.
"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 about yourself altogether."
"The other, and less bad, vices come from the devil working on us through our animal nature. But this (Pride) does not come through our animal nature at all. It comes direct from Hell. It is purely spiritual: consequently it is far more subtle and deadly."
Guilty. So much for my morning devotions.
"Take it with money. Greed will certainly make a man want money for the sake of a better house, better holidays, better things to eat and drink. But only up to a point. What is it that makes a man with ($100,000) a year anxious to get ($200,000) a year? It is not the greed for more pleasure. ($100,000) will give all the luxuries that any man can really enjoy. It is Pride--the wish to be richer than some other rich man, and (still more) the wish for power. For, of course, power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers..... What is it that makes a political leader or a whole nation go on and on demanding more and more? Pride again. Pride is competitive by it's very nature. That is why it goes on and on."
"That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear themselves very religious? I am afreaid it means they are worshipping and imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imaginging 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 toward their fellow-men.
"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 about yourself altogether."
"The other, and less bad, vices come from the devil working on us through our animal nature. But this (Pride) does not come through our animal nature at all. It comes direct from Hell. It is purely spiritual: consequently it is far more subtle and deadly."
Guilty. So much for my morning devotions.
