Humility

The answer, as with most things Christian, is both readily graspable and impossible: humility. It’s right there in ancient wisdom:

“Fools fold their arms
and consume their own flesh”—
Better is one handful with tranquility
than two with toil and a chase after wind!
(Ecclesiastes 4:5-6)

Our Lord says the same:

Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, “O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.” But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 18:10-14)

Remembering that we’re all limited beings is helpful in two ways. First, it foregrounds my own ignorance, the fact that, ultimately, I know nothing; I am a wretched ex-ape trying to crawl my way through darkness. What I preach now as if it were intuitive, I knew not last year. The cause I know is just today may be proven mere vanity tomorrow.

Second, it keeps me conscious of that same ignorance in others. Life is, for the most part, the blind leading the blind, the unduly certain tugging along the slightly-more skeptical. Not only am I blind, but those whom I would seek to lead are themselves as deaf and as dumb as I am. If Augustine could not know what he loved when he loved his God, what hope do I have of certainty?

That realization brings me back to earthiness, to a certain respect for simplicity. Keeping such a thing close to the heart can feel nearly impossible as an academic. And yet, what else is there but vainglorious questing? Surely, I will have my opinions; I will stand by them. I will even try to convince others, especially the “simple” that there’s more to the world than they realize. But such self-surety must be tempered by the fundamental brokenness and inadequacy of myself and others. As with all things worth knowing, we’ve known this for a long time, only to let its truth disperse in the air, rather than live in our hearts:

The sayings of the wise are like goads; like fixed spikes are the collected sayings given by one shepherd. As to more than these, my son, beware. Of the making of many books there is no end, and in much study there is weariness for the flesh. The last word, when all is heard: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this concerns all humankind; because God will bring to judgment every work, with all its hidden qualities, whether good or bad. (Ecclesiastes 12:11-14)