Pride, the Root of Man's Destruction

Classical Christian morality has always said that pride is the root of all evil. As Ecclesiasticus(also known as Sirach) 10:14-15 tells us "The beginning of the pride of man, is to fall off from God. Because his heart is departed from Him that made him: for pride is the beginning of all sin: he that holdeth it, shall be filled with maledictions, and it shall ruin him in the end. "

St. Thomas Aquinas tells us "hence it is that pride fulfills the conditions of a first thing, and is the beginning of all sins"-Summa Theologica II-II Q 162. Art 7

Before us then is the witness of not only scripture, but also the witness of the saints. But what makes pride, the bottom-of-the-barrel evil, very fountainhead from which evil flows? Why can't programming computer viruses, or killing bunnies be the root of all evil?

The answer is really quite simple. The man who sins places his own Will above the Will of God. That is, sin is moral evil. God is goodness. He is, as scripture tells us, Truth. And thus we all know that obviously sin is incompatible with the will of God.

Next we all know from kindergarten CCD that God rules. He is sovereign Lord and all things are to be conformed to His Will. This is our purpose and our end, to conform without deviation, our will with God's. As Lesson 1 from the Baltimore Catechism answers the question: "Why did God make us? God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in Heaven"-BC L. 1, Q 3.

So to sin is to reject the Will of the God, and we are made to conform to the Will of God. And not only this, but to sin is to give primacy to our will instead of God's. And what does a man think who does this? He believes that he knows better than God. He believes that his own judgement is superior to the One who made him. And here in lies pride.

In each sin we commit, we falsely believe that our own decision, which does not bend its knee to the Will of the Infinite Creator, is superior to His. Thus, with every sin we choose to commit, we reject the authority of God and set ourselves up, even if only momentarily, as our own god.