Ignorance Is Brutal, Arrogance Is Devilish

"For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith."

« Par la grâce qui m'a été donnée, je dis à chacun de vous de n'avoir pas de lui-même une trop haute opinion, mais de revêtir des sentiments modestes, selon la mesure de foi que Dieu a départie à chacun. »

Romans 12:3 · NKJV / Romains 12:3 · Louis Segond

✦ Bernard of Clairvaux · On Loving God · The Three Failures

"We must know, then, what we are, and that it is not of ourselves that we are what we are. Unless we know this thoroughly, either we shall not glory at all, or our glorying will be vain."

— Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) · Abbot of Clairvaux

✦ Three Levels

The First: Brutal Ignorance — Not knowing your own honor. The creature that has reason but does not know it, so it lives like the beasts. Led captive by curiosity, concerned with external things, while the true glory is within. This soul does not glory at all.

The Second: Vain-Glory — Knowing the gift but forgetting the Giver. A kind of glory, but not in the Lord. Real recognition, false attribution.

The Third: Deliberate Arrogance — Knowing the gifts are from God and stealing His glory anyway. Not ignorance but presumption. Not forgetfulness but defiance.

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✦ Bernard of Clairvaux · Ignorance and Arrogance

"And this arrogance is a more grievous and deadly fault than the ignorance of the second, since it contemns God, while the other knows Him not. Ignorance is brutal, arrogance is devilish."

— Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)

"Ignorance is brutal, arrogance is devilish."

— Bernard of Clairvaux · The beast does not know. The devil knows and defies.

The first does not know God. The third knows Him and robs Him. The beast is unconscious. The devil is deliberate. And between them stands the vain-glorious soul — knowing enough to be dangerous, not humble enough to be safe.

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✦ Bernard of Clairvaux · The Chief of All Iniquities

"Pride only, the chief of all iniquities, can make us treat gifts as if they were rightful attributes of our nature, and, while receiving benefits, rob our Benefactor of His due glory."

— Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)

✦ The Mechanism of Pride

The mechanism of pride in one sentence. The gift becomes mine. The received becomes inherent. The given becomes deserved. And the Benefactor is robbed — not of the gift, which He gave freely — but of the glory, which was never ours to take.

Bowen on July 24: a man's pride is ever commensurate with his blindness and alienation from God. Bernard agrees — and names the levels: brutal, vain, devilish. Three distances from truth. Three degrees of forgetting the Source.

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✦ Bernard of Clairvaux · Not Too Low, Not Too High

"We must be on our guard against this ignorance. We must not rank ourselves too low; and with still greater care we must see that we do not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think."

— Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153)

✦ The Balance

Not only the danger of too high — also the danger of too low. Both are ignorance. The soul that denies its dignity dishonors the Giver as surely as the soul that claims the dignity as its own. The correct position is the solid foundation of truth: the gift acknowledged, the Giver credited. No inflation. No deflation. Romans 12:3 — think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.

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Brutal Ignorance

Not knowing your own honor. Living like the beasts while the true glory is within. The soul that does not glory at all because it does not know what it has.

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Devilish Arrogance

Knowing the gifts are from God and stealing His glory. Not ignorance but defiance. The chief of all iniquities. Treating gifts as rightful attributes of our nature.

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Not Too Low, Not Too High

Both directions are error. Denying the gift dishonors the Giver. Claiming the gift robs the Giver. The truth is in the middle: received, acknowledged, credited to the Source.