HUMILITY. Unique to Biblical faith, humility is a virtue to which other religions accord no honor and even fail to recognize. Philosophers, except those positively influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition, likewise ignore or belittle it. Thus Aristotle in his masterful systemization of pre-Christian wisdom, The Nichomachean Ethics, praises a high-minded self-sufficiency which is the obverse of ταπεινοφροσυνη. Centuries later Fredrich Nietzsche castigates humility as part and parcel of a perverted morality, that Christian transvaluation of values in which inferior individuals like Paul resentfully metamorphose their baseness and weakness, exalting servility to the apex of excellence. Humility, therefore, is attacked by Nietzsche as a denial of that genuine humanity which will be embodied in the anti-Christian, aristocratic Superman.

Within the framework of revelational theism, however, humility is indeed a virtue, the proper attitude of the human creature toward his divine Creator. It is the spontaneous recognition of the creature’s absolute dependence on his Creator, an ungrudging, unhypocritical acknowledgment of the gulf which separates Self-subsistent Being from utterly contingent being, Kierkegaard’s “infinite qualitative difference between God and man.” It is the bentknee stance of awed and grateful awareness that existence is a gift of grace, that inscrutable mercy which, having called a person out of non-being, sustains him moment by moment from lapsing back into nothingness. Humility, then, is explicated in Abraham’s confession that he is but “dust and ashes” (Gen 18:27). It is explicated again in Paul’s sharp reminder to the inflated Corinthians that man’s position before God is necessarily that of a recipient, a beggar whose hands are empty until divine benevolence fills them (1 Cor 4:6, 7).

Within the theistic framework, furthermore, humility is the altogether right reaction of a guilty creature in the presence of his holy Creator. It is the sinner’s admission that his irreducible insufficiency as a finite creature has neverthless been immeasurably diminished by rebellion against his Creator. In the OT is the cry of the young prophet as he sees the Lord: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips” (Isa 6:5). In the NT it is the apostle’s honest self-deprecation as he reflects on his stubborn disobedience to the truth (1 Cor 15:9; Eph 3:8; 1 Tim 1:15). Humility is the logical corollary of sin-consciousness. Despite his dignity, therefore, his inestimable worth as imago dei, man as a finite agent of rebellion is indeed “dust and ashes.”

It follows, then, that humility is the essence of OT piety. A frequent theme in the Book of Proverbs (3:34; 11:2; 15:33; 16:19; 25:7), it is exemplified by Abraham (Gen 32:10); Moses preeminently, “very meek, more than all men that were on the face of the earth” (Num 12:3); Saul at the outset of his career (1 Sam 9:21); and Solomon whose self-knowledge motivated his sincere self-abasement (1 Kings 3:7). As a foundation of godliness this virtue is classically expressed in Micah 6:8, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” So Rabbi Joshua ben Levi was simply epitomizing the OT when, discussing the comparative merit of various blessings, he insisted: “Humility is the greatest of them all, for it is said, ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, to bring good tidings to the humble’ (Isa 61:1). It is not said ‘to the saints,’ but ‘to the humble,’ whence you learn that humility is the greatest of them all” (quoted by Morton Scott Enslin, The Ethics of Paul [1930], 249).

Humility is likewise the essence of NT piety. How could it be otherwise in view of Christ’s own example? As Paul brings out in the greatest of all kenotic passages, the Savior “humbled himself,” voluntarily abandoning His divine status, surrendering His beatitude and dignity in order to live as a human being on the lowest level of poverty and obscurity, eventually sinking to the bottommost depths of ignominy and agony (Phil 2:5-8). In self-giving agape is the antithesis and contradiction of all self-seeing eros. Moreover, the character of Jesus exhibited nothing of pride or arrogance. Though unflinchingly courageous and at times scathingly outspoken, He was “gentle and lowly in heart” (Matt 11:29). So His teaching on poverty of spirit had no hypocritical ring to it (Matt 5:3). Rather than accepting praise, He bore witness to total dependence on His Father as the Source of His own wisdom and power; rather than grasping for glory, He ascribed all glory to His Father (John 5:19; 6:38; 7:16; 8:28, 50; 14:10, 24). When He stooped to wash the feet of His disciples, Jesus was not indulging in a piece of ostentatious theatrics; instead, He was symbolizing with perfect integrity the whole meaning and message of His ministry. In that act the ground-motif of His person and work broke through, that motif which reached its crescendo on the cross.

Consequently, since imitatio Christi is the NT imperative, the life of the faithful disciple must be a life of humility. Concerned to exalt the Savior as the Savior was concerned to exalt His Father, the disciple declares with the Savior’s baptizer, “He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30). The disciple turns his back on status, security, and success, asking only an opportunity to serve, however inconspicuously (Matt 23:8, 10; Mark 10:35-45). Glorying in nothing but the cross (Gal 6:14), he struggles to achieve a proper self-evaluation, neither unrealistically deflated or egotistically conceited (Rom 12:3). He takes seriously the injunction to make the attitude of Jesus his all-controlling life principle whether in relationship to God or his brother (Rom 12:10; James 4:10; 1 Pet 5:5, 6). In short, the faithful disciple fights a continual battle against that pride which is the root of sin, that egoism which breeds self-centeredness, self-exaltation, self-will, self-sufficiency, self-confidence, self-righteousness, self-glorying, and hence self-delusion with its ultimate fruit of self-frustration and self-despair (Rom 10:2). As he keeps on winning the battle against pride and presumption, he matures in that holiness which flourishes only in the soil of humility.

This virtue is susceptible of gross misunderstanding. Let it be said flatly, therefore, that Biblical humility is not the inverted conceit which disguises itself as lowliness. It is that attitude which results from a fearlessly honest self-appraisal, a self-appraisal which neither minimizes one’s achievements nor exaggerates one’s failures. Humility is not the subtle masochism which enjoys its own debasement. It is not that cowardice which protects itself by a groveling Uriah Heep servility. It is not, moreover, a purely privatistic virtue. It is the child of that radical theocentricity which gratefully acknowledges God’s sovereign bestowal of gifts and His sovereign enablement in service; thus it eliminates the arrogance that destroys community. Completely devoid of arrogance, humility nevertheless rejoices with Mary, “He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name” (Luke 1:49).

Augustine, therefore, was right. The secret of sanctity is, as he gave it triple emphasis, “Humility! Humility! Humility!” Or in the penetrating words of Kenneth Kirk: “Without humility there can be no service worth the name; patronizing service is self-destructive—it may be the greatest of all disservices. Hence to serve his fellows at all—to avoid doing them harm greater even than the good he proposed to confer on them—a man must find a place for worship in his life....If we would attempt to do good with any sure hope that it will prove good and not evil, we must act from the spirit of humility; worship alone can make us humble” (The Vision of God [1931], p. 449).

Bibliography M. S. Enslin, The Ethics of Paul (1930); B. Häring, The Law of Christ, Vol. 1 (1961), Vol. II (1963); K. E. Kirk, The Vision of God (1946).