In certain conditions, the man governed by pride will commit this or that action, not because it satisfies his cupidity—or even his pride, so far as its material import goes—but as a mere confirmation and exercise of his independence, a test of the position of power he derives from his gift of liberum arbitrium. This is the horrible sin of Kirilov, the lonesome atheist in Dostoyevsky’s Possessed, who according to a deliberate plan shoots himself at a moment convenient for the purposes of a gang of nihilist scoundrels, not in order to promote their revolutionary designs, but just to prove his absolute liberty unrelated to any concrete aim or value, the meaninglessness of death, and the nonexistence of God. Here is a key to many an evil deed which apparently lacks motivation, since by virtue of its contents it cannot possibly offer its perpetrator any subjective satisfaction, even a wholly illicit one.

Satanic pride refuses all submission as such

Apart from his antagonism toward the world of values and its serene harmony, the maniac of pride repudiates all submission as such; his non serviam is meant to challenge any kind of authority; he would bow neither to man nor to God. This specific mode of pride, with its quality of supreme malice, may of course appear in various degrees. It may take hold of a person completely, so that he is no longer able to evoke any response to value and becomes a prey to total value-blindness. Lucifer is the prototype of this absolute pride. By analogy, we may class with him Cain, as well as the figure of Rakitin in Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov.

There is also a category of men who are filled with this form of pride in part only. Their pride is similar in nature, but restricted in extension. These would recognize and esteem certain sets of values—such as justice or faithfulness, for instance, and others not explicitly impinging on their ego-worship or their sense of grandeur—but refuse to take cognizance of, and respond to, values like humility, meekness, or mercy. Such men are but partially afflicted with value-blindness, nor do they lack a conditional readiness to submission. What shocks them is not the intrinsic importance of value as such, but only the claim inherent in certain high values which, by virtue of their particular nature, imply a specific negation of pride and invite man to relinquish it altogether. Values of this order, and not the others, evoke such men’s antagonism. Of course, whenever men of this type do display a response to values, it always remains a conditional one, and therefore mutilated and impaired in its quality.

Response to value is fundamental to humility