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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

"The Great Sin"

Apparently I am enjoying quoting people these days. So here is another one for you from CS Lewis' Mere Christianity in his chapter called "The Great Sin"

"There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault which makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. The vice I am talking of is Pride....

Pride is essentially competitive...Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone....

For pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense." p.121-128


There's more to come on this topic. Check back again soon! ;)

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