Pedantry
THE last but one of the Isaianic Woes! is of this content: “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” (5, 21), a sin, to which no people is so strongly inclined as the Dutch people.
Yet the evil, against which this fifth Woe! turns itself, is by no means limited to any one people or national character. On the contrary being wise in one’s own conceit has its root in nothing else than in the common sin of our human heart.
Reason, why the Proverb-poet opposed it, when in Prov. 3, 7 he wrote: “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil,” and likewise the holy apostle Paul opposed it, when to those in Rome he wrote: “Be of the same mind one toward another and be not wise in your own conceits” (12, 16).
From this you learn at once, how this being wise in one’s own eyes is a twofold wrong. On one side one commits the sin of self-conceit, when he presumes to set up his own ideas over against the pronouncements of God’s Word. And on the other side this sin is evident in the love of giving the play alone; in what the Germans call the will to be the Einspänner; always to sing the solo and never being willing to join the chorus, or if you like, in always putting one’s own ideas over against the counsel and the discretion of others.
Either self-conceit, because one will not give in to the Wisdom of God; or self-conceit, willfulness, high-handedness, because one always deems himself to know better than the wisdom of men.
In the chain of the six woes it is linked together, that first from frugal diligence comes the sin of Money; from the sin of Money in the second generation the passion of Luxury; that presently Luxury breaks out in Levity and Wantonness; that after that the frivolous generation will call evil good and argue, as for instance, that free love is superior to marriage; and that from this self-made moral law, which then begins to be predominant, in the end the tendency is born, to oppose also the moral law of that particular circle, and so allow every one a world-view of his own.
Such in fact is the process of sin.
First God’s law is in force, and while one sins against it, he adapts himself to it. Then one refuses longer to become shamefaced, and with the common consent of the frivolous sets up a godless moral over against the moral that brings honor to God. When once this step is taken, comes Babylonian confusion of speech. Then every light-heart in his way claims again to know better. When one no longer bows before God, and thus takes the reins of authority in his own hands, why should he go out of the way of his fellow-men?
Perhaps the other one is wiser, sees further, and is of better insight. But what of that? I am as good as he. I, too, have a rooster that can crow. And I put my insight, or rather my fancy and notion, squarely over against the opinion of whoever it may be.
THAT the germ of the sin also hides in the human heart, you not infrequently observe already in the nursery.
“He is a dear child,” so whispers the mother in confidential tones, but it is “too bad the boy is so self-willed.”
And there are such among children.
Children who always contradict. Who always know better. Who with everything they are told, have some objection to offer. Children with a wisdom of their own, which soon turns into self-conceit, and which at last makes it unbelievably difficult for father and mother to keep house with him.
Though this sin links itself directly with reasoned wickedness, yet in most instances it is overlooked, how at this pass haughtiness and pride mingle themselves in this otherwise sensual process of sin.
Money-greed, wealth, frivolity are sensual of nature, and setting-up a reasoned theory of sin over against God’s Law similarly sprang from the passionate desire to be free with respect to one’s own sensual impulses.
But when it comes to self-conceit, willfulness and high-handedness, the spiritual sin of pride enters in. Then it is no longer calling sin good, the more to be at liberty to sin, but taking delight in contradiction, pleasure in pedantry, satisfaction in putting obstacles in the way of others, and presently being too stubborn and too unruly, to remove the obstacle again out of the way.
This begins in the nursery, from the nursery this evil is carried into the sitting-room, from the sitting-room it goes along to school. From school it goes out into life. And so this miserable condition is born, that in church, in State and in society almost nothing can be built up and nothing can be permanently established, because every time again one stumbles upon this pedantry and contrariness, which holds back, unnerves and paralyzes, and wastes elasticity in mutual bickerings instead of using it in prudent assault on the enemy.
SO you become conscious of the coherence of this sin of pedantry with the “confusion of speech at the Tower of Babel.”
Yet ancient Rome was already aware of this evil, when they spoke of tot capita tot sensus, a proverb borrowed by us in the saying: “So many people so many minds!” Or as we also say: “Every one has a hobby of his own.” Sometimes, even if unfair, translated into that other proverb: “Every bird sings as it has been voiced.”
This does not take away the fact, that the further North one travels, the bolder this driving of the will becomes, and the mind of one’s own dear self. A Northern thinker zealously maintains, that opposing everything and everybody, and always insisting upon having his own way and will, is the inexorable condition of forming a sharply defined character.
Among us, too, our fathers understood so well, that this pedantry was in our blood, that by way of warning they put a bundle of arrows in the lion-claw on the coat of arms, with the first part of the proverb: “By unity the smallest state reaches the top, by pedantry the mightiest goes under,” as legend.
Concordia res parvæ crescunt, discordia maximæ dilabuntur.
Something which we preached, but Rome brought into practice, continually to score off us Christians of the Reformation.
NOW this demon, for this sin of pedantry is really such, would never exert permanent influence, if it did not so seductively present itself as an angel of light.
From that Northern thinker you already learned, that what he is after is character. What is more beautiful than character that is well defined? And what lack is more deeply felt in our times than the scarceness of strong characters? Is it not then worthy of admiration and of praise, for the sake of this substantial character-formation, to cherish and caress one’s own mind and one’s own will?
In addition to this, a brother who always says: Yes, what good is he? Such a nonentity, who always goes with the crowd.
Every man has his own nature, his own way of looking at things, his own calling, and from this course of reasoning, which by itself is perfectly correct, a single-track minded Hollander will at once form the questionable conclusion, which he expresses by the word: idiosyncrasy.
An eccentric man is what becomes of the pedantic school-boy, which shows that what seemed wise ends in stupidity.
But the most dangerous temptation to this sin is still something else.
To row against the stream is sometimes duty. To tack against the wind can sometimes be a holy calling. To offer resistance, even at the cost of convenience and position, can be duty of conviction. So to stand was the honor of all prophets, the glory of the holy apostles, and the Reformers have borrowed strength from it.
Not in uniformity, but in multiformity the splendor of human life comes to light.
And from this as starting-point this demon whispers in your ear, that upon close consideration, always to want something different from the other, is highest wisdom of life, and to tickle your vanity, he adds in underbreath, that you indeed are not the kind of man, passively to follow along with the rest.
Thus the sin of pedantry covers itself by the prophet’s mantle of hero-courage.
He who was himself tempted by this, tempts in turn again others.
And in the end this sin of pedantry breaks all unity of strength, unravels the bundle of arrows, and makes a people go under in faction-mania and wicked bewilderment.
AND therefore the duty is imperative, with the training of our children at once to nip this evil in the bud.
This conceit and pedantry must if needs be driven out with the rod, since for corruption of fruit there is almost no evil that can be compared with the fruit of this poisonous seed of pedantry.
Here too faith is the God-given antidote.
Faith, which on one hand deeply engraves it upon the soul to bow before God and never before men, and which enables and steels you to row against the sinful stream of the world. But simultaneously on the other hand gives you oneness of life’s root and of fruit with the brethren, and by the communion of saints prunes your unholy self-conceit.
In faith are the two powers which both Solomon and Paul put over against conceit.
For Solomon said: “Be not wise in thine own eyes, but fear the Lord.”
And to this Paul added: “Be not wise in your own conceits, but be of the same mind one toward another.”
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