The stickler for independence sees his ideal in being able to go through life in a state of splendid indifference to others, avoiding all obligation towards them. At heart (we may refer, in this context, to Chapter 7) it is a certain kind of pride that makes him feel the consciousness of owing anything to others as an intolerable burden. The true Christian will abhor this complex of independence in all its varieties. To him it must be clear, not only that he owes everything to God—that he is, and shall be, a beggar before God—but that he is dependent on the help of other men. He will receive a benefit he is accorded with happy gratitude. The consciousness of being obliged to others will not weigh him down, since he looks upon the duty of gratitude as self-evident and since the ill-conceived ideal of outward independence has no appeal to his mind.

Of course, we are not referring here to the case of benefits accorded with the intention of securing thereby some kind of unjustified influence. It is entirely right to avoid becoming indebted to people whose purpose it is thus to secure a hold on us so as to wring from us this or that illegitimate concession. In such cases it is our downright duty to refuse the benefits we are offered.

Compulsive intellectual or spiritual independence diminishes freedom

If this independence complex—taken in its general and material sense—is a bad enough thing, a similar attitude in regard to one’s intellectual or spiritual possessions is even more to be warned against. It is utterly unreasonable to shy at the idea of receiving any intellectual help or guidance from others, to insist on working out one’s ideas all by oneself and to remain uninfluenced throughout.

Certainly, again, we do well to endeavor to keep our minds shut to all illegitimate influences—the suasions of suggestion, the techniques aimed at producing an impression, etc.—but nothing could be falser than to extend this wholesome caution into resenting the intellectual help of others communicating genuine new values to us, and lifting us to a higher level, as an encroachment upon our spiritual independence.

The desire to elaborate one’s outlook all by oneself is a typical offspring of pride, and entirely at variance with the mind’s true attention to its object. For if we are really concentrated, as we should be, on the purpose (the only justified one as far as our intellectual pursuits are concerned) of enriching our vision of the values and of widening our access to the truth, we shall care little about whether we achieve this through our own forces or with the help of strangers—a question of no objective relevancy at all.

But, generally speaking, the true Christian is aware of the great extent to which he is dependent on the help of others and sees in this inescapable dependence—which is as necessary for the nourishment of a spontaneous inner life as the servile, illegitimate kind of dependence is detrimental to it—a realization of community in which he has every reason to delight.