How should we regard ourselves? Is self-esteem a good thing?

SELF-UNDERSTANDING AND SELF-GIVING
Who are we, then? How should we think of ourselves? What attitude should we adopt towards ourselves? These are questions to which a satisfactory answer cannot be given without reference to the cross.

A low self-image is common today

The Honest Body Project photographs a woman hugging her son and proudly showing her postpartum body.

A low self-image is comparatively common today. Many people have crippling inferiority feelings. Sometimes their origin is in a deprived childhood, sometimes in a more recent tragedy of being unwanted and unloved. The pressures of a competitive society make matters worse. And other modern influences make them worse still. Wherever people are politically or economically oppressed, they feel demeaned. Racial and sexual prejudice, and the trauma of being declared 'redundant', can undermine anybody's self-confidence. Technology demotes persons, as Arnold Toynbee once put it, 'into serial numbers punched on a card, designed to travel through the entrails of a computer'. Meanwhile, ethologists such as Desmond Morris tell us that we are nothing but animals, and behaviourists such as B. F. Skinner that we are nothing but machines, programmed to make automatic responses to external stimuli. No wonder many people today feel worthless nonentities.

"I love me. I am not conceited. I'm just a good friend to myself."

Apotheose of Venezia (1585) by Paolo Veronese.  Apotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level.

In over-reaction to this set of influences is the popular 'human potential' movement in the opposite direction.  'Be yourself, express yourself, fulfill yourself!" it cries.  It emphasizes the 'power of positive thinking', together with the need for 'possibility thinking' and 'positive mental attitudes'. With the laudable desire to build self-esteem, it gives the impression that our potentiality for development is virtually limitless. A whole literature has grown up around this concept, which has been well described and documented by Dr Paul Vitz in his book Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-worship. 'Psychology has become a religion', he writes, 'in particular a form of secular humanism based on worship of the self' (p. 9). He begins by analysing 'the four most Important self-theorists' namely Erich Fromm, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow and Rollo May, all of whom, with different twists and turns, teach the intrinsic goodness of human nature, and the consequent need for unconditional self-regard, self-awareness and self-actualIzatlon. These self-theories have been popularized by 'transactional analysis' ('I'm OK; you're OK') and EST (Erhard Seminar Training) which Dr Vitz rightly calls, 'an amazingly literal self-deification' (pp. 31 ff.). He also cites an advertisement in Psychology Today as an illustration of 'selfist jargon': 'I love me. I am not conceited. I'm just a good friend to myself. And I like to do whatever makes me feel good ...' (p. 62). This self-absorption has been well captured in a limerick:

Narcissus

Narcissus by Caravaggio depicts Narcissus gazing at his own reflection.

There once was a nymph named Narcissus,

Who thought himself very delicious;

So he stared like a fool

At his face in a pool,

And his folly today is still with us.

Love your neighbor not yourself

Outside the box sermon illustration: Love Your Neighbour as Yourself by Eric Dye

Unfortunately, many Christians seem to have allowed themselves to be sucked into this movement, under the false impression that the Mosaic command, endorsed by Jesus, that we love our neighbour as ourselves is a command to love ourselves as well as our neighbour. But it really is not. Three arguments may be adduced.


We know how we would like to be treated, and this will tell us how to treat others

Moses Receives the Tablets of the Law (painting by João Zeferino da Costa, 1868)

First, and grammatically, Jesus did not say 'the first commandment is to love the Lord your God, the second to love your neighbour, and the third to love yourself'. He spoke only of the first great commandment and of the second which was like it. The addition of 'as yourself' supplies a rough and ready, practical guide to neighbour-love, because 'no-one ever hated his own body (Eph. 5:29). In this respect it is like the Golden Rule to 'do to others what you would have them do to you' (Mt. 7:12). Most of us do love ourselves. So we know how we would like to be treated, and this will tell us how to treat others. Self-love is a fact to be recognized and a rule to be used, not a virtue to be commended.

The concept of sacrificing ourselves in order to serve ourselves is a nonsense

Artwork depicting the Sacrifice of Jesus: Christ on the Cross by Carl Heinrich Bloch

Secondly, and linguistically, the verb is agapao, and agape love means self-sacrifice in the service of others. It cannot therefore be self-directed. The concept of sacrificing ourselves in order to serve ourselves is a nonsense.

People's love will be misdirected from God and neighbour to self

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1887, Art Institute of Chicago

Thirdly, and theologically, self-love is the biblical understanding of sin. Sin is being curved in on oneself (as Luther put it). One of the marks of 'the last days' is that people will be 'lovers of self' instead of 'lovers of God' (2 Tim. 3:1-5). Their love will be misdirected from God and neighbour to self.

Renounce the two extremes of self-hatred and self-love, and neither despise nor flatter yourself

Religion Overthrowing Heresy and Hatred, by Pierre Legros the Younger (1695–1699). Marble, H. 3 m (9 ft. 10 in.). Church of the Gesù, Rome, Italy.

How then should we regard ourselves? How can we renounce the two extremes of self-hatred and self-love, and neither despise nor flatter ourselves? How can we avoid a self-evaluation which is either too low or too high, and instead obey Paul's admonition, 'think of yourself with sober judgment' (Rom. 12:3)? The cross of Christ supplies the answer, for it calls us both to self-denial and to self-affirmation. But before we are in a position to consider these complementary exhortations, it tells us that we are already new people because we have died and risen with Christ.

Source:  Stott, John R. W. The Cross of Christ. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986; reprint, 2006, pages 267-269.