Too Proud to Know God
The Christians are right: it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity--it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that--and therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison--you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
~C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952)
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On this day:
1921 William T. Kirkpatrick, Lewis's beloved tutor (1914 - 1917), dies at the age of 71.
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What an amazing blog. Do you mind if I link to you?
Ace
I often find myself quoting this one (although not always out loud). People around here seem to get very busy condeming the more obvious sins which, I suspect, matter very little. But pride is the big one and we don't reconise it easily in ourselves.
Welcome to The Window, Ace. Of course I don't mind if you link! Come back to visit often.
Mr. Kimi: I think it's so easy to be prideful, especially prideful of your own "goodness". Because it's hard to be good sometimes! So we want to pat ourselves on the back and say, wow, that was difficult.
I am reminded a bit of Lewis's habit of wearing unstylish clothes and that grubby old hat and how his house was unpainted and his college rooms had castoff furniture. He certainly didn't want to give off the appearance of pride, did he?
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