On Pride
“The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate” (Proverbs 8:13).
Pride is one of the eight deadly sins; it is, according to the witness of tradition, pride that was the foundation for Satan’s fall from grace. Pride, it is also said, was behind humanity’s desire to take Godhood for itself – to try to become, by nature, what was to be a gift of grace (hence, false theosis). Pride, indeed, always comes before a fall, because pride assumes a nature which is non-existent, and therefore, creates the conditions by which the fall will happen.
“The beginning of man’s pride is to depart from the Lord; his heart has forsaken his Maker. For the beginning of pride is sin, and the man who clings to it pours out abominations. Therefore the Lord brought upon them extraordinary afflictions, and destroyed them utterly” (Sirach 10:12-13).
But where does this pride come from? Jesus answers this for us: “And he said, ‘What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a man’”(Mark 7:20-23).
Jesus shows us that pride is something within us; it is a kind of self-deception which prompts us to believe ourselves to be something we are not. It is not just ignorance of one’s true status, but it is an attempt to cling to a kind of status one does not possess. We want it, we believe we deserve it, but we do not do what needs to be done to have it, or the kind of spirit to keep it if we have it. Pride leads us away from self-correction; it has us ignore our own personal faults. It is because of this that pride leads to a fall, because if we do not see our faults and work to improve ourselves, all we will have done is allow the base of our existence to crumble beneath us, bringing us down in the process.
Buddhists have conveniently organized pride into seven different kind, as we find in this summary by Vasubandhu:
What is pride?
There are seven types of pride: [ordinary] pride, extraordinary pride, extreme pride, egoistic pride, exaggerated pride, pride of inferiority, and wrong pride.[1]
Let us look at what each of these categories mean; as you read through them, consider how what is being described might be affecting you. As you do so, note that different levels of pride. The greater the problem, the more serious a need there is for reform. But this does not mean that those who suffer less from pride than others get off from needing reform: even the most subtle kind of pride should be dealt with, because it is liable to grow if left unchecked.
Ordinary Pride: Here, one looks at someone else, finds themselves superior to them (in some quality that one finds meaningful), and glorifies oneself because of this fact. It can also be when one looks at someone who is considered great, and you are their equal, and one glorifies in that fact as well. The error is not in the misplacement of one’s status as much as the meaning of that status. It comes from a lack of charity, a lack of love, which leads one to downgrade others for not being their equal.
Extraordinary Pride: Here, one begins to think better of oneself than one actually is. Hence, if someone is your equal in status, and you think yourself better than them, or if someone is your better, and you think yourself their equal, you have fallen for extraordinary pride. Here, one can see that one’s pride is based upon a falsehood, though it is not the fullest extent of pride one can have.
Extreme Pride: Here, one looks down at everyone else as one’s inferior; even one’s superiors are considered by this person as beneath the one who suffers from this kind of pride.
The process from ordinary pride to extreme pride is not difficult to discern: one begins with the ordinary, more common, forms of pride, but, instead of trying to stop it by humility through love, they begun to accept the feelings associated with it. This makes one slowly develop greater and greater views of themselves, letting what good qualities they possess get to their head, until they think there must be no one who is their equal. In the relationship between God and creation, it is this kind of pride which is the foundation for false theosis.
Egoistic Pride: This is probably one of the more difficult forms of pride to understand from a Christian standpoint. Sthiramati explains it by saying, “Egoistic pride, then, is the swelling up of the mind that originates from the mistaken view that the five grasping heaps – which are devoid of a self and do not belong to a self – constitutes a self and belong to a self.”[2] What does this mean? It is the false thoesis which we have described above. It is the attempt to assume one’s created nature (made up of the ‘five heaps’, i.e, different aspects of being) is uncreated and eternal, a self (atman) which needs no other. The problem with much of Buddhist-Christian interaction is this misunderstanding of what is meant by a “self” by Buddhists and what is meant by a self by Christians; both are focused on the fact that we are contingent and conditioned, while egoistic pride is the attempt to associate our conditioned experienced as unconditioned and unqualified, that is, to believe we are God by nature.
Exaggerated Pride: This is the false view of thinking one has attained some sort of ability which one actually has not. It is of course the base by which many forms of pride develop. For example, if one thinks oneself extremely educated, but is not, the consequence is that one will end up with extraordinary or extreme pride. This is a common problem for all of us; we want to assume greatness for ourselves, and we do this by misunderstanding our skills. But what is important about this kind of pride, beyond the fact that it helps sustain other forms of pride, is that it is not relational. It does not require us to consider ourselves in relation to someone else, it only requires us to think more of ourselves and our abilities than we should.
Pride of Inferiority: This is a subtle kind of pride, because it assumes a kind of humble status. Here, one looks at someone’s superior, and, while admitting them to be one’s better, they think there is less of a distance between them and their better than their actually is. So one assumes a kind of greatness, but limits it with an imperfect humility. It is, in many ways, more difficult to overcome because the humility, which should serve as an aid, actually gets in the way of real reform here.
Wrong Pride: The last kind of pride is like exaggerated pride, but instead of a pride in one’s achievements and abilities, it is a false pride in one’s moral character. It is the false assumption that one possesses virtues which one does not have. This is a difficult form of pride to overcome, and it serves, like exaggerated pride, as the foundation for other forms of pride.
“A man’s pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor” (Prov. 29:23). Pride makes us cling to a false perception of the self. We must counteract our pride with rightful understanding of who we are. To be lowly in spirit is to be open to the prompting of grace. Only the one who dies to the self can overcome pride and receive the resurrection in glory. This is the message of Christ. “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24). It’s not easy. But then again, the healing process rarely is.
Footnotes
[1] Vasubandhu, “A Summary of the Five Heaps” in Artemus B. Engle, The Inner Practice of Buddhist Practice: Vasubandhu’s Summary of the Five Heaps with Commentary by Sthiramati (Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2009), 234.
[2] Sthiramati, “A Detailed Commentary on the Summary of the Five Heaps,” in Artemus B. Engle, The Inner Practice of Buddhist Practice: Vasubandhu’s Summary of the Five Heaps with Commentary by Sthiramati (Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 2009), 294.
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Henry, what is your impression about the cognitive and spiritual development of the woman and the man in Genesis? How could they have pride if they are innocent and have no knowledge or wisdom concerning suffering and evil?
Ronald,
Again, the fall is always a complex question, and I do not know if I can give sufficient answers to everything. Within the context of the discussion here, while there was innocence, there was, one could say, willful ignorance as well. The pride comes from Satan’s temptation: “you can be like God” — you can become God’s equal (in nature). God had already given an indication they are to experience something great, but also that they are created by him, not of the same nature as him. What they knew (they were dependent and had their origination from God) they thought “maybe I am wrong” and so took Satan’s bait to try to assume a position greater than theirs (“I can be God’s equal by nature; I can be the God of my life without any dependency”). But once that was accepted, there the willful ignorance (since they could have contemplated and seen it is absurd) led to the pride, and thus the fall. In this way, I do think position of ignorance on the cycle of dependent origination is sustained.
I hope that makes some sense?
Being created in the likeness of God would be unknown to them. There is so much in those passages that indicate that they did not know God except in the limitations of the physical senses.
I think that pride comes in when they awaken to the knowledge of good and evil and how small and vulnerable they are in the finite limits of being human. Pride seems to develop out of this awareness to protect the human psyche from being nothing in the vastness of God’s creation and that is where fear of God’s immense power comes into our relationship with God. I also believe that pride is involved in the interpretation of Genesis and this pride states that the interpretation is correct as stated in the catechism and is not open to discussion. That is willful pride as well and is based on fear.
I wish I could sit down with you for a while and discuss this in more depth.
Henry – have you read any of Daniel Quinn’s books? In his novel “Ishmael” he argues that the fall was when humans changed from hunter-gatherer to farming – in effect taking their fate out of God’s hands in nature and putting their faith in their own ability to feed themselves from the surpluses generated by farming.
Matt,
I have not; I know there is considerable theology interest in the relationship between pastoral life and city life and its association in the OT, and city life was in a way an expression of this attempted self-deification (with the Tower of Babel the greatest example of this).