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The Dangers Of Pride And Self-Hatred

The Dangers Of Pride And Self-Hatred

Last updated on: January 23, 2025 at 4:31 am by Henry Karlson

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The Dangers Of Pride And Self-Hatred 2025-01-23T04:31:06-05:00 Henry Karlson

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No Artist listed: Depression Leading To Self-Hatred / picryl

The world around us is good; it was created by God as good, and so should be treated as good. We should show it due respect, because by respecting it, we respect the one who created it. We, similarly, should acknowledge we were created good, for once again, if we do not do so, we would suggest our creator created something which was bad or evil, and in doing so, we would denigrate God. We must be respect ourselves in the same way we respect the rest of creation. No matter how defiled the world becomes due to our pollution, due, that is to our sin and sinful mistreatment of it, its inherent goodness remains, and the world can be cleansed of all the filth we have placed upon it and healed of all the damage we have done to it. Similarly, while sin defiles us, covers us and corrupts the good which God gave to us, it cannot do so completely. There is always something of the good which remains in us, something which God will use as a foundation for our eventual reformation and recreation with grace, so that we will become the people God intended us to be. This is one of the reasons for the incarnation, so that, though human nature can be said to have been defiled by our sins (in reality, it was not the nature itself, but our mode of engaging that nature which has been corrupted), Christ took that good nature and freed it from the bondage of sin (before, then giving it deifying grace, allowing humanity to transcend itself):

Wake up then, o friend, and acknowledge the dignity of your nature. Recall that you have been made “according to the image of God.” This nature, although it had been corrupted in Adam, has nevertheless been re-fashioned in Christ. [1]

While Christ opened himself up to us so we can be taken in by him and made the person God intended us to be in and through him, he does not force us to do so; to be taken in by Christ, we must likewise open ourselves up to him, welcoming him into ourselves, so that we can mutually share in and be in each other. This can be extremely difficult to do, for, to open ourselves to Christ, we must destroy the barrier which sin has created around us, the barrier which closes us from God’s grace and love. This barrier is the false self we have created for ourselves, the false self which masks who and what we really are as persons. This is why Christ told us we must die to the self; it is not because we are to be suicidal, but rather, we must let the false self be taken away, removing from ourselves the mask of sin so that we can become our true selves, living and acting with freedom, engaging our innate goodness as we act.

Many saints found that for their own lives, the best way to die to themselves, to let that false self go, was to stop thinking and focusing on themselves altogether – for every time they looked to themselves and focused on themselves, they only could see the false self, giving it the attention it needs to become reified. Humility was the answer, but the way they embraced humility can be misunderstood. For they will say we should take no consideration for ourselves, but when they said this, they meant our false selves, because they knew looking at ourselves in and through such a mask, we will be tempted to promote the good we see, the good which remains in the false self, and promote it with pride. Thus, when we read about Abba Elijah and method of salvation which he told others to embrace, we must understand it relates to need of ignoring and rejecting his false self, and not as a way of embracing self-hate:

Abba Elijah was asked, “How will we be saved these days?” He replied: “We will be saved through each of us having no regard for himself.”[2]

It can be quite difficult for some of us to accept the good within, especially when we cannot perceive it. We end up either misconceiving what that good is, and so, end up promoting a false sense of the self, or else we end up denying there is any good within and so end up embracing sinful self-hatred. Humility is meant to help make sure the first error does not happen, and one way to be humble, as was suggested above, is to just disregard ourselves while accepting there is good within us so we know we can be saved. But, to better appreciate that good, to support ourselves, we should treat ourselves as our own neighbor, following the way we discern the good in others. This will help us understand how and why everyone should be seen as equals, because of our common nature, and why, therefore, we should be treated with equal love. Embracing such equality, we will be able to overcome many temptations, especially those vice like jealousy or selfish ambition which James says bring every “disorder and every vile practice” (Jas. 3:16b RSV) along with them.

It is best, therefore, to focus on the good, doing good without consideration of ourselves, but also without detesting ourselves. We should wish ourselves well even as we wish others well. When we are not able to apprehend the good in ourselves behind the mask of sin we have constructed for ourselves, it might be best not to focus on ourselves, for we will only be reflecting upon the false self, false persona, that the mask creates, which means we will end up reifying that false self, even if we try not to do so. We should be focused on our actions, making sure what we do is good, for the more we focus on the good, and the good which we can and should do, and act on it, the more we will undermine the sinful habits which have created the false sense of self which we must overcome. The more that false self is undermine, the more wear and tear will show up in the mask revealing what lies behind it, until at last, the mask is off and we reveal who we truly are to ourselves and to others. We must, therefore, cut ourselves from pride, but also from self-hatred, two opposite dangers of the spiritual path, where if we find ourselves doing well against one, we often find ourselves being taken in by the other. We must go between them, in the middle path, so that we can open ourselves up to Christ, be taken in by him, and find ourselves truly being who and what we are meant to be.

[1] St Leo the Great, Sermons. Trans. Jane Patricia Freeland CSJB and Agnes Josephine Conway SSJ (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1996), 114 [Sermon 27].

[2] More Sayings of the Desert Fathers. An English Translation And Notes. Ed. John Wortley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019; repr. 2023), 127 “Sayings Preserved in Coptic”: C25].

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