In yesterday’s post about Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, I ended with a short discourse on the nature of sin as pride, drawing on Neibuhr, and relating to this moment in American political history. I just want to expand a bit on pride, by drawing on Augustine a bit, in the hopes of illuminating the point I was making a bit.
In Book XIV, near the very end, Augustine writes,
“We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self. In fact, the earthly city glories in itself, the Heavenly City glories in the Lord. The former looks for glory from men, the latter find its highest glory in God, the witness of a good conscience…The one city loves its own strength show in its powerful leaders; the other says to its God, ‘I will love you, my Lord, my strength.’
Consequently, in the earthly city its wise men who live by men’s standards have pursued the goods of the body or of their mind, or both. Or those of them who were able to know God ‘did not honor him as God, nor did they give thanks to him, but they dwindled into futility in their thoughts, and their senseless hear was darkened: in asserting their wisdom’ – that is, exalting themselves in their wisdom, under the domination of pride – ‘they became foolish…”
When Augustine writes here of the earthly city, we can think of the powers that be, in Washington DC and beyond, in order to gain some understanding. And when we make that move, it becomes clear that Augustine might either have had a glimpse into the future, or knew the tendencies of humanity all to well!
The political moment exemplified right now by Donal Trump, Brett Kavanaugh, and this whole sordid political regime can be discerned in words like “glories in itself,” “loves its own strength shown in its powerful leaders,” and “self-love reaching the point of contempt for God.” I don’t speak in this comparison of Trump’s overwhelming narcissism, lack of intellectual curiosity, or idolization of strength over weakness. I also am speaking of the rush by political leaders in the White House, Congress, and the media to ignore the cries of the oppressed, deny the claims of truth and right, and blindly confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, despite what he may or may not have done.
It is pure, unblinking pride that compels these men to ignore the pursuit of justice and truth and push forward so blindly for a political victory. They believe so deeply in their own wisdom, they have such deep wells of self-love, that they can no longer perceive the presence of God in the world. Pride has blinded them; through pride, “they became foolish.”
This isn’t to associate the demands of God with the goals of the Democrat Party in the nomination of Kavanaugh. Rather, this is pure critique of an entire system that is so fixated on a temporal political win in this moment. Augustine, and Neibuhr after him, identified the chief sin of humanity as pride, which masquerades as selfishness and self-love so often. Pride is the motive from which our leaders consistently work – and why identification of God with any political leader, party or nation is idolatrous and dangerous.
Justin DaMetz 