The Utterances of Pride

C. S. Lewis was of the belief that of all the sins, pride is the very worst. I don't consider pride to be so much a sin as a way of thinking, and as such it isn't a sin in the way that murder and theft are sins, but belongs in the same category as hate and greed. More importantly, Lewis thought that pride was the most dangerous of sins, and in that he cannot be very wrong. Pride is more like the spiritual equivalent of AIDS, in that in addition to attacking the soul, it assists attacks from other sins as well.

While we can give a definition of pride that is distinguishable from habits of thought to be welcomed, pride is best explained in terms of what it does, rather than what it is.

The various strains of pride can be sorted into a handful of broad categories. I've named these categories according to the sentiment that they reflect, as depicted by an encompassing statement. Hence the Utterances of Pride.

This is when the proud man sets some aspect of himself up as the standard of good and evil. Examples include:

The Bigot thinks that everyone outside of his group is unworthy of human consideration. He (or she) comes equipped with an array of silly rationalizations, consisting of stereotypes and outright mistruths about the disliked group. Into this category belong not only the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party, but a vast array of characters who present themselves as champions of equality, such as most feminists, most gay rights activists, most civil rights activists, etc.

The Dictator, a selfish control freak, thinks that every person should look to him for permission to act. The Dictator dabbles in every form of pride, so you'll be seeing more of him on this page. The Dictator's hatred of other people's freedom is what places the Dictator here.

The Prohibitionist, a selfless control freak, thinks that a given category of behavior should be abolished, even under circumstances in which that behavior presents no risk of harm; evidence that such circumstances exist falls on deaf ears. For examples of this we have the puritans and teatotalers on the right, and environmentalists and campus speech code proponents on the left.

The Neo-Pharisee, who thinks that everyone not sharing his interpetations on every issue must be cast out of the assembly.

The Egalitarian, who believes that nobody should be happier than he is, and therefore demands, under the pretext of making all people equal, that in all things nobody be permitted any degree of superiority to him.

The proud man is very slightly right, in that the differences between him and another are sometimes indicative of something wrong with one of the two. The errors are the assumption that something is wrong, and that it's with the other guy; there errors lead the proud to trespass. In contrast, God is entitled to proclaim that all which is not of Him is evil, because it's true.

While there's nothing wrong with taking credit with things we did on our own initiative, the proud man takes credit for what others have done:

The Bigot holds up his ancestry, gender, inherited wealth, parentally-inculcated religion, or something else he did nothing to gain as proof of his moral worth.

The Pharisee holds up his spiritual rectitude as something he worked to obtain, when in fact we are born spiritually right, blow it entirely by our own choice, and get it back only when we submit to God's plan for restoration.

The Dictator acts as if everything good done in the nation was a result of his leadership, when the fact of the matter is that dictators do nothing more than terrorize and impoverish their subjects.

Again, the reason this utterance is false is because many of our good qualities, when not an outright gift of God, are obtained with the assistance of others. The rest of the positive qualities—honesty, courage, self-control—are par for the course in the game of life; to boast about them is as ridiculous as to boast about walking or breathing.

As with the first utterance, God is justified in taking credit for everything He has done, for He certainly doesn't need our help, and the man who says "I did it!" for everything he is and does takes credit for what God has done.

The proud man will often be found denying even the possibility of error on a subject of importance to him. Examples include:

The Unconvertible, who reasons "Only bad people go to hell. I'm not bad, therefore I'm not going there," or "if my ideas were wrong, I would have figured it out, instead of cherishing them for all this time."

The Hypocrite in Denial, whose thinking goes: "Doing X is bad. I'm not bad. Therefore, what I did is not X." Thus the feminist denies that she is as sexist as the men she decries, the socialist denies that he is as greedily materialistic as the Mammon-worshipping factory owner, and the atheist denies that he is as narrow-minded about religion as any Bible-thumper.

The Dictator reasons "Are you implying that I am unfit to rule? Guards, seize him!"

Just as the proud man is obviously in error when he claims infallibility, God is well within His rights to declare infallibility. Hence the proud man trespasses on God's prerogatives.

The proud man craves to occupy the thoughts of others. Examples include:

The Bureaucrat, who crafts rules and regulations which do nothing more than require people to deal with him.

The Pharisee, "who loves to be called 'Rabbi' of men, and the chief seats at the feasts, and the greetings in the marketplaces."

The Demonstrator, who obstructs our daily lives and destroys honest shopkeepers' property in order to get noticed.

The Dictator, who has his picture plastered up everywhere.

And again, the proud man claims that which rightfully belongs to God, for only God has the right to occupy our thoughts.

As a consequence of his pride, the proud man excuses himself from judgment, making himself an exception to moral law. Several strains are known:

The First Degree Hypocrite is the obvious example of this variant of pride. The legislator who drinks but votes dry, the celebrity who has an armed bodyguard but advocates gun control, the wife-swapping preacher who excoriates adultery, and the environmentalist who lets logging companies harvest lumber from his property, all exemplify Hypocrisy in the First Degree.

The Second Degree Hypocrite condemns in others that which he excuses in friends. Examples abound in politics.

The Bigot holds, among other things, that crimes committed against his group are worse than crimes committed against other groups. The Klansman thinks it's okay to lynch innocent blacks, but does not permit blacks even the right to defend themselves against unprovoked assault. The radical Muslim rationalizes every injury done to non-Muslims as retaliation for an earlier injury, and claims that everything done to Muslims by non-Muslims was unprovoked.

The Dictator expects everyone to obey him, but would never dream of obeying the people.

Unlike the preceding utterances of pride, the hypocrite does not tread on God's prerogatives. In Christ, God has done that which He commands of us and eschewed everything forbidden to us.