Humility, Humility, and Humility

For starters, I'd like to thank you all again for the comments you've made. No matter how rhetorically harsh my response, I really do appreciate everyone's help in pointing out the weaknesses of my proposals. Whoever we are and wherever we are, we must accept the limits of our ability to both understand a certain issue and explain it. As humans, we are steeped in ignorance in any number of areas. There is so much to know in the world, we cannot possibly claim to know it all (or even much of it for that matter). This leads me to what I want to say in this post. I hope I have made it clear how this form of greatness is actually a manifested humility in which we turn from our concerns and we become concerned primarily with what is truly good for others. However, humility lurks closely in both the perfect application of this and its imperfect application. When applied perfectly, we are made humble in that we hold others concerns more highly than our own. When applied imperfectly, we are also humbled at the reality of our inabilities.

The Humility of Inability:

I believe a statement which says that love (as I've described) is impossible for human persons to achieve is more or less a true statement. However, this limit is not a limitation of potential or the possibility of loving, but it is a limitation in either our knowledge of, or desire for, the other person's good. With that, I think it seems simply true that we should struggle to train ourselves--by way of habit--to love others in the way I've been describing for some time now. So, what shall we make of our failures and our inabilities? The answer is humility.

We often fail to love others and fail to treat them as we would want to be treated, this is often because we don't know how to love others and thus can't choose properly which action to take. We are ignorant of so many things in this world, and indeed one of them is how we ought to treat others. We must approach situations in which it is difficult to understand the proper course of action with humility. In these situations our pride says, "There is nothing to be done here." On another hand, our humility would say, "There is something to be done here, I am just not quite sure what it is." Though there may be a true ambiguity in our understanding, there may still be a possible response to the situation. ALL people are deserving of our love. And so where there is a person, there love is required. Humility sees this, and the habit of humility expects this, even in situations where the loving response is unknown to us. Humility helps us not only to accept the ambiguities we face each day, but it also reminds us that we are to be ready to love others even when a certain and concrete course of action is unknown. Sometimes all we can do is act with a sincere intention for another's good.

As I said at the beginning, we must accept the limits of our ability to both understand a certain issue and explain it. Analogously, we need to accept the limits of our ability to both understand a situation and take the proper course of action in it. When we don't love due to a lack of desire for the other's good, we are humbled by the reality that there is a standard that we are capable of, although we fail to achieved it. In this we demonstrate that we lack a power critical to loving, and as I said, this power is the power to desire the good of someone else. Realizing that we are not able to exercise this power to do good should also humble us. This is because we have demonstrated our inability to reach a standard of loving that was possible for us to attain. If we know we can do something for others and do not perform, the internal disposition that is developed by humility is guilt or remorse. In our society today guilt and remorse are bad things; thus, we have gotten rid of many notions of a standard that we are to adhere to in our actions. However, guilt and remorse are not primarily negative, but when they are properly ordered they stir us to feel bad about ways we've failed so we will be reminded to do better next time.

Although, as usual, I am not satisfied with my treatment of all of these points (and the limit of my own mind), I think it's true that when we perfectly apply the form of life I've presented in this project, then humility is required. Also, when we fail to understand what course of action is needed to truly love others, we are to respond with humility. Lastly, when we fail to exercise our ability to love even when we knew the right course of action, we are to be humbled. Thus, if anyone desires to achieve greatness (or at least attempt it), they must be ready to accept humility, humility, and humility, and desire to be the servant of all. Perhaps though, as mere humans, we will never attain the perfect form of greatness that loves perfectly. In that case, maybe, by means of humility, we need seek help beyond what we can give ourselves. Perhaps only One can love perfectly, and the only way for us to begin achieve this form of love is to sit at the feet of the Master and learn.