We will leave our discussion of CS Lewis with some fighting words. (Or at least there will be time in our own lives to engage in some theological reflection to see if we agree as to what Lewis labels as The Great Sin.) Listen to what he has to say before you firmly agree or disagree:
Today I come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no person in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when they see it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves…
This vice I’m talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit; and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility…….According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison; it was through Pride that the devil became the devil; Pride leads to every other vice; it is the complete anti-God state of mind……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 between man and man, but enmity to God. …(Mere Christianity, Book III Christian Behavior, chapter 8 The Great Sion)…
I was once taught that sin is anything that endangers our healthy relationships with God or with others. Pride/Self-conceit keeps us from being fully in relationship. Humility, however, places us in a proper relationship with God and members of the human family. The Great Sin and its flip-side?
NOTE: HERE YOU HAVE READ 15 LINES FROM A 5 PAGE CHAPTER. IF THIS HAS SPARKED AN INTEREST — READ ON IN CS LEWIS.
Prayer
Almighty God, help me to humbly find my place in the world you have made. And help me to know who I am in relation to you and others. In the name of Jesus, he selfless Lord, I pray. Amen.
I continue to pray daily for His direction in my life. Thank you, Steve