Pride is the cardinal sin that affects all aspects of peoples conduct. It is cardinal in the sense that it is deeply rooted in man; it is evil, stupid and should be avoided. The essence of pride is the assumption of self-sufficiency. But the permanent fact about people is precisely that they are not self-sufficient, either physically, emotionally or spiritually. These finds echo in the popular saying that no man is an island.
Peoples pride, which turns them away from God, leads them to many forms of over-indulgence since they try to satisfy an infinite need with finite entities. People therefore love things more than they should in relation to what they can do for themselves. Their love for another person can become virtually destructive of the other person, since they try again to derive from that relationship more than it can possibly give. By so doing, appetite flourish, passion multiples and there is a desperate attempt to achieve peace by satisfying all desires. The soul becomes seriously disfigured and is now complicated in envy, greed, jealousy, trickery, panic and a pervading restlessness.
It is apposite to note that, if things cannot substitute for a person, neither can any finite thing or person substitute for God. Pride makes people to confidently expect that they can achieve true happiness by loving objects, other persons and themselves. While there are all legitimate objects of love, peoples love of them is disordered when these are loved for the sake of ultimate happiness. Disordered love consists in expecting more from an object of love than it is capable of providing. It also produces all forms of pathology in human behaviour. It does not take long for disordered love to produce disordered community. The rigorous and persistent fact is that personal reconstruction is possible only by reordering love, by loving the proper things properly.
As humans, we can love ourselves properly only as we subordinate ourselves to God for there is no other way to overcome the destructive consequences of pride than by eliminating pride itself.
