The Humility Paradox

We become partakers in the divine nature

Humility describes a relationship where one is inferior in some way to another. In Christianity, humility describes my relationship to God. I am absolutely and perfectly humbled next to God who created me out of nothing (ex nihilo), a small mortal creature virtually lost in a vast universe. Yet, God’s love for me, demonstrated by my creation in His image with intellect and will, makes me vast in meaning. The Psalmist says it better than I can:

When I look at thy heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have established; what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him little less than the gods (elohim) and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet . . . How great is your name in all the earth! (Ps 8, RSV)

If this doesn’t set you back a bit, you’re not paying attention. To my small mortal mind, the idea of being made “a little less than the gods” smacks of an unexpected arrogance. But wait, lets look a bit closer. The word here translated “gods” is the Hebrew elohim, which refers in the OT not only to the one and only God of Israel revealed to Moses in the burning bush as “I am who am”, but was used to refers also to other mighty and majestic created things such as angels and even occasionally human judges.

So, how are us humans to understand this? Christianity tells us that because we are created in God’s image and likeness, we each have a divine light that allows us to partake in God’s infinite nature in a way appropriate to our limited and finite nature. I do not become God; instead, I become more fully human, more perfectly myself, more perfectly what God created me to be.

Here’s the crazy part. Typically, I would expect to become more fully myself by asserting myself in power, wealth or status. But, not so. This business of becoming more perfectly myself happens only when I permit myself to be humbled by God. Claiming my humble status next to God gives me a stable place from which I can relate to others with modesty, knowing that we all have gifts and weaknesses which can become complementary by working together. The doctor goes to the banker for a loan and the banker to the doctor for medicine. Refusing that humility before God has an effect of refusing modesty and human history shows that life devolves to a constant struggle for power, honor, pleasure and wealth.

Before God, I am humble. Humility teaches me truth about who I am, my strengths and weaknesses, what I can and cannot do. It orients me to God and to the world that surrounds me, therefore orienting me toward authentic greatheartedness by seeking what is great and being worthy of it, by being generous and affirming and by encouraging others to share in it. .