Tip# 49 Humility Doesn't Work That Way
Feb. 7th, 2016 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastAmong the Christians who most feel it their duty to evangelize or practice apologetics, there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what humility is and how it works. In some ways, this misunderstanding is understandable. In pure text, it's easy to think of humility as nothing more than not thinking too highly of one's self. But, it's a bit more complicated than that in practice.
Many of the mistakes I've dealt with in previous posts can be reduced to a lack of humility in practice. And, merely saying "be humble" wouldn't work for people who make some obvious mistakes in their understanding of humility in the first place.
One obvious mistake is restating the hubris with one divine step between. "It's not me saying this, it's God." And, my common response is that hubris does not become humility when you hide it behind God.
Another is the common refrain that one should be calm and not offended because the Christian in question believes that "I'm just as much a lowly piece of filth incapable of doing good as yourself." The thinking seems to be that you can cancel out hubris with enough self-loathing.
Both of these mistakes seem to try to say the same thing. "Technically speaking, I am humble." Whether this is as a guard against an accusation of hubris or a guard against being challenged on what you say, or a desire for we nonbelievers to be impressed with your humility, it doesn't work. You aren't humble for talking that way. Your superiority complex is either matched with a shield or an inferiority complex. And, yes, people can, simultaneously, have a superiority complex and an inferiority complex.
Humility, if you want to achieve it, can take effort. It can take admitting your fallibility even where you feel so very certain. It can take admitting that the reality isn't always what's most convenient for your worldview.
And, it can take not assuming the worst in others in order to believe that you're superior... more on that next tip.
Many of the mistakes I've dealt with in previous posts can be reduced to a lack of humility in practice. And, merely saying "be humble" wouldn't work for people who make some obvious mistakes in their understanding of humility in the first place.
One obvious mistake is restating the hubris with one divine step between. "It's not me saying this, it's God." And, my common response is that hubris does not become humility when you hide it behind God.
Another is the common refrain that one should be calm and not offended because the Christian in question believes that "I'm just as much a lowly piece of filth incapable of doing good as yourself." The thinking seems to be that you can cancel out hubris with enough self-loathing.
Both of these mistakes seem to try to say the same thing. "Technically speaking, I am humble." Whether this is as a guard against an accusation of hubris or a guard against being challenged on what you say, or a desire for we nonbelievers to be impressed with your humility, it doesn't work. You aren't humble for talking that way. Your superiority complex is either matched with a shield or an inferiority complex. And, yes, people can, simultaneously, have a superiority complex and an inferiority complex.
Humility, if you want to achieve it, can take effort. It can take admitting your fallibility even where you feel so very certain. It can take admitting that the reality isn't always what's most convenient for your worldview.
And, it can take not assuming the worst in others in order to believe that you're superior... more on that next tip.
Hubris
Date: 2016-07-06 02:56 pm (UTC)"I happen to know the mind of God on this subject," they say. "The Creator of the Universe has taken the time to inform me (but not you) about the proper length of women's skirts."
"No, He didn't say anything about why malaria exists. It was just about the skirts. Why do you ask?"
-- Amtep