Pride: A Tale of Two Paths

There's no escape from binaries

Two roads diverged in a wood. And I - I took the road less traveled. And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost

Here’s something you may have noticed. Binary is not a popular concept.

I’ll pause for a moment to allow the shock to pass.

Now that you’re back, I will own up to the charge of having keen insight into the obvious. But that is the point. The Obvious itself would appear to be an endangered species. And “Binary” as a concept is one of those obvious things which seems obvious to fewer and fewer people.

Call it “Either/Or” or “Binary”, or “The Law of Non-Contradiction”, or “Double Digit Banana” (Take a bow, Alfred Kahn), this is a rose to which our Western culture holds its nose. The reason for such antipathy lies in a narrative, an account of things which is based on two (yes, two!) great myths of our times: Freedom and Choice. But this will be the subject of a later post. What concerns us presently is the disfavor into which the either-or-ness of life has fallen.

“Pride”, as we observed previously, is a phenomenon with a long history. That history is, in fact, a central theme of Scripture. It’s embedded in the progressive revelation of God, our humanity and human predicament, and the movement from the world’s beginning to its end. In the Bible’s narrative, it appears as one of many binary realities which form the fabric of life and offer clues to its meaning. And there is no escape from these binaries, however fiercely they are contested or denied.

Genesis Revisited

The Bible’s book of beginnings, Genesis, presents us with an immediate awareness of dualities. God speaks, and there is light, which contrasts with an otherwise dark condition. God separates the light from the darkness, and there is Day and Night.

Likewise, there is an ordering of the heavens and the earth which contrasts with a formless void. Waters below are separated from waters above, and there is an expanse called Heaven, and an Earth below.

Finally, in distinction from all other plant and animal life, God makes Man in his own image. God further makes Man male and female. And so the game begins.

When we read on, we find this order challenged, and God’s commands questioned. Genesis 3 introduces us to an evil which previously had no place in God’s creation. But through the serpent’s deception, the male and female who alone bore God’s image and possessed his domain turn away from God and his words. Why?

So when the woman saw the [forbidden] tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

This description is far more telling than we might expect; for it reveals the transformation of Eve from a postion of dependancy and trust in God to an assertion of independance and self=sovereignty. The questions and assertions of the serpent raise Eve’s awareness of a goodness which she might discover on her own. The fruit of the forbidden tree must be good, she reasons. And food is food.

But a self-discovered goodness isn’t the only draw. The serpent’s queries suggest that there is, as well, a wisdom waiting to be discovered. Eve would be in a position to know what God knows, and all mysteries would be solved.

That Pride is at the root of this devolution is suggested by the words of John: For all that is in the world - the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life - is not from the Father, but is from the world. (1 John 2:16) The three-fold description is not an exact parallel with Genesis 3, and is not necessarily the intention of John’s point in its context. But the picture it draws suggests a parallel understanding of human inclinations toward self-defined goodness and wisdom, whose roots are not drawn from God, but the fallen world in which we live. Pride is the road well-traveled, and it defines itself in direct opposition to God’s truth. Pride’s very existence is the product of the binary choice which was set before the Man and the Woman.

From there, the binaries keep appearing: a decree from God which delineates the story of the offspring of the serpent, and the offspring of the Woman; the parallel tracks of Cain and his descendanHowts, on the one hand, and Seth and his descendants on the other; the hubris of the inhabitants of Shinar whose aspiration is to make a name for themselves, and the unassuming life of Abraham, whom God intended to make great; the rivalry between Jacob and Esau which lead to two different nations and destinies.

As if that weren’t enough, the ancient story of Shinar is recapitulated in the kingdom of Babylon, the city whose name becomes synonymous with Pride, and whose king meets his end in accordance with prophetic utterances.

How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my thrown on high…I will ascend above the height of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High. (Isaiah 14:12-14)

This reference is clearly alluded to in Revelation 17-18 concerning the entire system of unregenerate society, whose pride knows limits:

…since in her heart she says, “I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I will never see. (Revelation 18:7)

Bablylon’s destiny is that of the offspring of the serpent, the upending of Bablyon at the hands of the Medes and Persians, and he devil himself. Babylon is the City of Man whose course will end with the appearing of the heavenly ciinvitesty, the new Jerusalem.

This narrative framework is commended to the Church in order to remain faithful in suffering and rejection, when to all appearances the world seems forever unassailable and triumphant. It is the root of the New Testament’s calling for Christians not to imitate the world’s pride and prejudices, nor to love the “social imaginary” of a world which has no windows to the light of the knowledge of the glory of God which is in the face of Jesus Christ.

As C.S. Lewis put it, if you’re always looking down, you never see the God who is above you.