Theme Of Pride In C. S. Lewis Mere Christianity

Pride. Something that all of humanity struggles with and those who think they do not struggle with it, struggle the most. Both, C.S. Lewis and Flannery O’Connor describe their views of pride through their writings, Mere Christianity and Everything That Rises Must Converge. Both authors view pride as a negative quality, but they reveal this in different ways. I agree with both authors in their explanations and views of pride. Pride is a great sin, but I also believe that our acknowledgement of pride can produce the great virtue of humility. In C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, Lewis discusses the great sin: pride. He describes pride as the utmost evil according to Christian teachers. “Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God

Nothing makes man feel more superior to another than when he has the power to control him. Lewis believes pride is the chief cause of having enemies or rivals. It is the primary reason families experience such enmity. It not only causes enmity between men, but also between men and God. Those who are eaten up by such great pride, although they say that believe in God, cannot believe in God. They believe in an imaginary God. Lewis’ point is that, “They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people” (124). We are constantly looking for God’s approval rather than applying the virtue opposite of pride, humility, to our lives which would allow us to understand that we are so incomparable to God and need to live our lives for Him rather than ourselves. This humility, which has the possibility of resulting from recognition of our pride, can bring clarity and positivity to our lives free from

The first one being that, “Pleasure in being praised is not Pride” (125). When we are rewarded for something we have done well our pleasure comes from the fact that we have pleased someone we wanted to please, not in ourselves. When we delight in ourselves, we become unsatisfied with praises, and the worse we become. Although pride is the great sin, we must not believe it is forbidden by God because he is offended by it. God wants us to give ourselves to Him because when we do that we will become humble. Lewis shows his agreement when he states, “delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life” (127). To accomplish this goal of humility we must first acknowledge our