On the Principle of Self-Love (Rewritten).

One of the natural principles built into us, is self-love — the desire for our own happiness. Self-love deserves special attention because it is so easily twisted into selfishness that people sometimes treat it as if it were corrupt or evil in itself.

FIRST.— Theologians and philosophers of the mind generally agree that human beings are created with a principle of self-love, or a desire for personal happiness. Since this principle is built into our nature, it cannot be wrong when it works in its proper place and within its rightful limits. In other words, when we pursue our own happiness while also giving due regard to the claims of all other beings—especially the claims of the Supreme Being—we stand approved and guiltless before both conscience and our Maker.

The command that we should love our neighbor as ourselves clearly assumes that loving ourselves, in the sense of seeking our own happiness so far as that is consistent with the happiness and rights of others, is acceptable. For that reason, people may rightly be directed and encouraged to seek their own happiness. It is even proper to encourage them to seek a relationship with God for the sake—not the exclusive sake, but still for the sake—of their own happiness. To seek a life of faith, or in other words to seek the restoration of the mind to God, may legitimately include the desire for our own highest good. Scripture itself often appeals to this motive as one that can lead people into a religious life. 

"There is not," says Dr. Wardlaw, "any part of the Divine Word, by which we are required, in any circumstances, to divest ourselves of this essential principle in our constitution. That Word, on the contrary, is full of appeals to it, under every diversity of form. Such are all its threatenings, all its promises, all its invitations."

SECOND.— Still, whatever love we may rightly have for ourselves or for other people, the obligation remains to love God, as Scripture puts it, with "all our soul and heart and mind and strength." It is generally agreed that nothing less than the full power of our whole being can meet the claims of divine love. At this point, we need to look briefly at how self-love, or the desire for our own happiness, relates to the desire for God’s glory—and how the two can be consistent with each other. This is an important subject, and it may be one that cannot be fully understood without some measure of personal experience.

The view we believe to be correct is this: the desire for our own happiness, when guided by the Holy Spirit, may take a spiritual direction and serve a good purpose. But as a matter of fact, as we grow in spiritual experience, the desire for our own happiness gradually becomes less prominent and finally fades into practical extinction under the steadily increasing influence of the desire for God’s glory.

More specifically, the process seems to work like this. When we first begin seeking God, we are influenced to a considerable degree by our desire for personal happiness. This fits the way our minds are made, and although it is far lower in kind than what comes later, it is not wrong in itself. But as God, graciously meeting our poor and imperfect way of seeking him, gradually reveals his nature, we begin to love him and seek him for himself. And as the divine glory becomes clearer and clearer, the outward or objective motive—God’s glory—expands and begins to take possession of the whole mind, while the inward or subjective motive—our personal happiness—contracts and recedes. 

In other words, as God enters the soul, SELF moves back, using the word self here in a subordinate and proper sense. One fades, and the other becomes real; or we might say there is a gradual transition from the human into the divine. So the principle we are discussing is not condemned. Rather, it has fallen out of use. It is not rejected as criminal; it has simply become practically extinct because it has fulfilled its purpose. The higher motive of God’s glory absorbs the lesser one. Therefore, when a person, through inward growth, reaches complete or perfected love—which is the true aim of every Christian and the true resting place of the soul—the soul knows its own happiness only as merged in divine happiness; it knows its own will only as surrounded and lost in the divine will; and, in a softened sense of the words, it may even be said to know itself no more, except as existing in God. "God is love. And he, that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God; and God in him."

THIRD.— But there is another way we must consider self-love, or the natural desire for happiness. We mean its excessive and unsanctified form, which we distinguish from its proper and sanctified form by calling it SELFISHNESS. Whatever may be true of rightly ordered desire, selfishness is morally wrong and can never be anything else. In a real sense, I think we may say that the root and center of all moral evil is selfishness—meaning here the inordinate action of self-love. It is true that other principles in our nature can also become excessive, and whenever they do, that distortion involves guilt. But there is reason to say that the excessive action of those other principles grows out of the excessive action of self-love. From this strong root of evil, an influence spreads out—just as pervasive as it is poisonous—and secretly works its way in every direction until it reaches and corrupts every part of the mind. Consider, for example, the social impulse, which is good in itself. Under the hidden influence of selfishness, it often becomes excessive and evil. The same can be said of curiosity, which is entirely innocent in itself and very important, but when it is not restrained by a sense of right and duty, becomes scattered, restless, and insatiable. I think we may reasonably say that every active principle in our nature — even the benevolent and domestic affections, which are so lovely and beautiful when untouched by corruption — can be perversely affected by an evil influence flowing from this source.

FOURTH.— This subject also helps us understand more clearly what is often and conveniently called the LIFE OF NATURE. The life of nature is simply the life of the soul when, in every part of it — in its fountain and its streams, in its root and its branches — it has been deformed, perverted, and poisoned by the influence that spreads from the inordinate action of self-love. It is easy to see that the love of God, which is the true remedy for this narrow and destructive influence, is banished and shut out from any mind under its unholy power. The love of God cannot live in a heart where self-love reigns supreme. 

So the life of nature is not only the life of self; because it is filled with self, it is necessarily without God. And because it seeks only its own ends, it ignores every other claim and despises the true happiness and true glory that are found in God alone. A life that comes from such an evil root and bears such harmful fruit — a life that deliberately chooses human weakness and error as its foundation rather than divine strength and wisdom — can have no shared feeling or united effort with a holy soul. On the contrary, holiness, as an active principle living in the heart, must meet it, search it out, fight against it, and destroy it. This is the great practical warfare. Having been freely justified and forgiven through the blood of Christ, Christians can do no less than put on their armor for this battle, contend step by step, and with divine help strike down this life to its very root — a life polluted in both its origin and its results — so that they may receive, enjoy, and perfect the life of God.

 

---

This is a revision of Part 2, Chapter 5 of Thomas C. Upham's book The Interior or Hidden Life (2nd edition 1844), written with the assistance of Microslop CoPilot. The original chapter can be found here: On the regulation of the principle of Self Love.