Ours is an increasingly individualistic culture of self-promotion characterized by social media, iGadgets, selfie sticks, and virtue signaling. We devote so much energy to being thought well of; we want others to think of us as we want to think of ourselves, as successful, moral, intelligent, better than average. In such a context, humility seems downright retrograde. Humility and its cognates conjure humus, soil, as in being low as dirt. Who would ever want to be thought of as lesser, smaller, weaker, in short, as pathetic? Why on earth should anyone think humility is commendable, let alone a virtue?
Rather than continue playing word association games, let us seek a definition. Following Thomas Aquinas, my teacher James Keenan defines humility as “the virtue of knowing one’s place.” Such an understanding of humility excludes self-loathing; knowing your place does not mean thinking of yourself as less than you really are. For people suffering from low self-esteem, humility entails realizing your life has value, that you are worthwhile, that you are capable of important and meaningful things.
We shouldn’t let ourselves get carried away, however. The opposite of humility is pride, the vice of thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought. In the Bible pride is the first sin committed, the sin which brings about the fall of humanity described in Genesis 3. In their pride the man and woman reject their rightful place as beloved creatures of God because they want to be like God themselves. The price of this pride is the destruction of relationships. It’s difficult to love others when you think you’re better than them. If you can’t accept yourself as the person you really are, then you can’t truly love yourself either.
For theologians, those who attempt to speak about the divine mystery, humility poses a special challenge. God radically transcends our understanding, rendering all our words utterly inadequate. Recognizing this, how dare we say anything at all? How much damage has been done to the standing of theology, and of religion in general, by its practitioners pronouncing on subjects beyond their understanding? The commandment not to take the name of God in vain seems applicable to such proud pretensions of knowledge. Far from making faith in God more credible, such presumptuousness often has the opposite effect, bringing faith into disrepute. Would it not be better, more honest, humbly to admit that we do not have all the answers. Faith in God is a journey into infinite mystery, not the means by which we can know everything about everything (a goal of which we are incapable of attaining in any case).
For one of the foundational figures of Western philosophy, humility is the beginning of wisdom. In Plato’s Apology, Socrates accounts for his reputation for wisdom, “I seem, then, in just this little thing to be wiser…at any rate, that what I do not know I do not think I know either.” Humbly recognizing our own ignorance opens us to wonder, to ask questions, to dialogue with others, to learn. In contrast, when we claim to have definite knowledge already we close ourselves off, precluding any learning. In a similar vein, Augustine holds in his De Doctrina Christiana that humility is a prerequisite, not only for interpretation of the Scriptures, but ultimately for understanding God’s love for us.
A lack of humility thus might help to explain the indignant divisiveness currently roiling our society. Thanks to technology, we are inundated with far more information than we can effectively process. It is harder than ever to know our place when the entire world seems to be at our fingertips. We are regularly bombarded with distressing news of injustices, tragedies, atrocities happening across the globe. How can someone respond meaningfully to the immensity of what is wrong in our world? We can post on social media denouncing those we believe are to blame (including those who dare to disagree with us), or advocate for policies we are certain will fix a problem (if only people had listened to us sooner!), thus earning plaudits from the like-minded. But how much concrete good can that achieve? Although we are more acutely aware of all its ills, humility reminds us that we are not able to save the world—only God can do that. Accepting the limitations of our knowledge and ability, we can still do our small part to help heal the world by doing what is right in our own lives. Our place includes being a family member, a friend, a neighbor, a citizen. The best way to do good and find God in our lives is not to think of ourselves, but to give of ourselves to build up those in our midst.