Pride Corrupts Religious Knowledge Through Self-Examination

St. Paul addresses the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 8:2, warning those who placed high estimate upon philosophical comprehension of religious truth: "If any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." Pride injures religious knowledge in two critical ways.

First, it limits the quantity or extent of knowledge. When a believer pauses to review and boast of his spiritual gains, he ceases advancing. Like a traveler ascending the Alps who, having reached the first ridge and glimpsed the lower valleys, imagines he has exhausted Switzerland—the self-complacent spirit prevents surveying the whole field. The moment a Christian dwells upon his knowledge of God or himself with self-satisfaction, he creates an eddy in the flowing stream of self-reflection, whirling instead of moving forward. Even modest knowledge, when boasted of, becomes absorbed in the pride of the heart and disappears entirely.

Second, pride damages the quality or depth of knowledge. The mind that computes distance traveled stops traveling. A man who fixes attention upon sinful habit sees its odiousness with increasing clarity—but the instant his attention shifts from the sin itself to consideration of his own exploration, his sense of iniquity begins to fade. Conversely, he who contemplates the character of God with no side glances at himself, bowing in reverence and awe before Elohim, is carried forward from vision to vision. True knowledge requires perpetual humility, never pausing to measure one's own progress.