Now that title is a mouthful, 😂😂😂.
Why would pompousness aka arrogance equate to defeatism?
To begin with, let’s look at what defeatism is defined as.
Leo Tolstoy, Russian author, a master of realistic fiction and one of the world’s greatest novelists, Isaak Babel commented that, if the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leo-Tolstoy – tells us in the quote above that the illusion of supremacy blinds us from soberly acknowledging our character flaws that need improving. By default, arrogance then is steeped in defeatism because if we think we are fantastic we have no room for growth.
Without growth we fail.
1 Corinthians 1 vs 26-28 is a hard-hitting piece of Holy Scripture that makes our knees quack at the sobering tone; forcing us to stare into our illusions of grandeur. We come to admit that what we regard as safe measures of self praise is not much in lieu of God’s Holy Perspective.
Let’s stare together…
Throughout 1 Corinthians 1 vs 26-28, Paul juxtaposes what the WORLD thinks versus what GOD thinks.
The lesson is that our arrogance is based on limited beliefs as we only measure through the experience of human existence which is contained in a spectrum we have no idea how limited it is.
WHY would God call human “wisdom” foolish?
1) Dunning-Kruger Syndrome – having a limited knowledge of a subject that creates the illusion of knowledge based on the unawareness of greater knowledge about the subject.
We humans have only consciously existed in this experience of life- inside ourselves, on a planet floating in the universe. We don’t have experience of being anywhere else. (bar those who claim alien abductions, or transcended to who knows where)
In our limited knowledge and experience we, deludedly, examine the world through our understanding, which we know is limited when we experience God which helps us understand that we know very little.
2) Filter Bias – Ever since the Fall of humankind through Adam & Eve (yes, genetics shows we come from a single man and woman) what we see and know of this world is biased within the framework of a fallen world unlike God made it to be. Our interpretation of life is skewed by the filter of sun-consciousness, so we don’t perceive correctly.
3) Thought Illusion – If what we think we think could supersede God’s Beingness, then our think is an authority higher than God, which is impossible because we don’t know everything about everything including everything to know about the future. Our think cons us into god-complex by which we think that the illusion of our thoughts are valid. By default of us not knowing everything, we must admit we are limited, and in order for life to operate as it does without our involvement, we must then admit that something makes it so. God.
It is because of these limiting limited beliefs that we become fools because God exists above of our limitations and limited knowledge.
In short it’s like taking a slice of cake and trying to con ourselves that the slice is a whole cake. What we know versus what God knows is minuscule and this makes our “wisdom” utter foolishness.
God shows us His Power by turning on its head the yardstick humanism regards as favourable. God does this because the root of human aggrandising is supremacy- thinking we are above God- which ultimately is really insecurity.
K. Michelle Pahl, ‘From Famine to Feast’ who writes about eating disorders, describes the insecurity-arrogance paradigm perfectly.
To quote, “I struggle with my sense of self-worth. This makes my struggle with arrogance ironically amusing. You’d think that a belief in your essential “not good enough-ness” would prohibit smug superiority. Apparently, that’s not the case.
Arrogance tends to pretentiousness. When I’m arrogant, I make like an expert. An ugly one. I don’t teach. I lecture. I pontificate. I mock the lack of knowledge, overtly and internally. The behaviour is gross and more suited to an indulged and spoiled brat than to the enlightened and kind individual I’m trying to become. What virtue is there in assuming you’re better than others just because you have a different skill set or area of interest?
As I regularly remind myself, smart is not synonymous with special.” -https://fromfaminetofeast-eatingdisordersandrecovery.com/2020/04/04/arrogance-is-not-required/
K. Michelle Pahl echoes, unbeknownst to her, what Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1 1 vs 26-28.
She says, ‘“Humble before God.” It’s a good metaphor for arrogance.
You are not “head and shoulders” above anyone else.
To be humble, to have humility is to have a modest view of one’s skill set and achievement. A humble person doesn’t believe they’re all that, doesn’t believe they’re better than. Humble people do the best they can at every given moment and don’t look for credit or praise.
They probably don’t smirk either.’
K. Michelle Pahl outlines a stunning list of actions to put the knowledge of God’s Word into practice so that we can climb off our high horse and learn to be better as God defines better as.
A collection of tips to help you develop humility:
1. Listen to other people. Don’t just wait for them to stop talking. Listen. Process. Understand. Listen to other people like you’re not the most important person in the room. Don’t interrupt.
2. Stay in the moment, stay present. Practice mindfulness. Practice accepting what is. Be here and be now. It’s not like you can be anywhere else.
3. Practice gratitude. It helps you avoid comparisons, which leads to rankings, which leads to feelings of superiority and inferiority. Practice gratitude. Discover awe. The world is an amazing thing in a universe that is also an amazing thing. Everything in it is wondrous and fantastic. It’s hard to feel smug when you look at the brilliance everywhere that you had little if nothing to do with.
4. Recognise when you need help and ask for it. Be grateful. We often think we have to do everything alone, either because we have to or because we think we’re the only ones who can. That’s arrogant. Stop doing that.
5. Review your actions and words against the language of pride, which is arrogance’s kissing cousin. Pride is one of those emotions you need to be careful with. Pride is like pepper. A little is good but too much is a very bad thing, indeed.
THE TRUTH: NONE OF US WILL EVER ARRIVE UNTIL JESUS RETURNS AND COMPLETELY PERFECTS US BY TRANSFORMING US FULLY INTO HIS LIKENESS.
Until then, our job is to humble before God as He teaches us to find the win in Jesus as we die to self which is always eager to arrogantly deluded by ego as some imagined formed of a “god”.
#Hayibo 