Dear Posterity,
How many times a day are you bombarded with messages like, “Believe in yourself,” “Look to the power within,” “Stay true to you,” or trends like #imawarror #fallinlovewithyourself #doyouboo #ichooseme #staytruetoyou #powerwithin #selflover or #selfactualization?
But what if the best thing you could possibly do is NOT look to yourself as a standard? G.K. Chesterton delightfully mused:
“Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.
If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter. Actors who can’t act believe in themselves; and debtors who won’t pay. It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail because he believes in himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one’s self is a hysterical and superstitious belief.”
The sooner we come to the end of ourselves and realize we’re not enough, the better. What freedom there lies in knowing that we are the Great I-Am-Nots. The truth is, human virtue of its own nature tends to rust or rot. “Man must have just enough faith in himself to have adventures, and just enough doubt of himself to enjoy them,” writes Chesterton.
He continues by stating that if our faith comments on government at all, its comment must be this: the man who believes he should rule is the very one who should not. The world’s hero may say, “I will be king”: but the Christian saint must say “Nolo episcopari.” If the great paradox of Christianity means anything, it means this—that we must take the crown in our hands, and go hunting in dark corners of the earth until we find the one man who feels himself unfit to wear it. We cannot crown the exceptional man who knows he can rule. Indeed, he who trusts in his own heart is a fool (Proverbs 28:26). Rather we must crown the much more exceptional man who knows he can’t.
This is a vital defense to working democracy.
Likewise, insisting that God is inside man means that man is always inside himself. However, by insisting that God transcends man, man has transcended himself. By insisting on the transcendence of God we get wonder, curiosity, moral and political adventure, righteous indignation. With a “divine power within” mantra we get introspection, self-isolation, quietism, social indifference—in short, we get Tibet.
So then, if a man is not to believe in himself, in what is he to believe?
Believe in Christ. His energy is truly from outside this world. Only then can a man soar. In other words, “Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly.” Pride cannot rise to levity.
With every esteem and respect,
