The Great Sin

I have been reading C.S. Lewis's book Mere Christianity lately.  I am pretty sure that this is actually a re-read, but it has been a long time and I am enjoying it as if it was the first time.

I recently read the chapter with the same title as I gave this blog post.  

If you were to say which is the "great" sin.  What would you say?  Blasphemy?  Murder?  Adultery?  Divisiveness?

C.S. Lewis says that the great sin, "the essential vice, the utmost evil, is pride."  "Pride leads to every other vice:  it is the complete anti-God state of mind."

Wow!  What a thought.  Aren't you thankful that you do not have any pride or self-conceit?  Think again.

Consider the following passage from the book.

...if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, "How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?"  The point is that each person's pride is in competition with every one else's pride.  It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise....Now what you want to get clear is that pride is essentially competitive--is competitive by its very nature--while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident.  Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man...It is the comparison that makes you proud:  the pleasure of being above the rest.  

Do you really listen when others talk?  Do you ask them questions and truly listen to what they have to say?  Or are you always thinking about what you are going to say as if your words are so much more important than anyone else's?

Later in the chapter Lewis says,

...it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.  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 enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.

Of course, the opposite of pride is humility.  Humility is a virtue we as Christians desire since we see it modeled in Christ himself.  Here is the final paragraph in the chapter.

If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step.  The first step is to realise that one is proud.  And a biggish step, too.  At least, nothing whatever can be done before it.  If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.