Think that new start-up airline you founded exists purely because of your personal brilliance and drive? Don’t deceive yourself.
No human being is truly autonomous, but many of us in the 21st Century West have bought into that most original satanic deception, that we are gods unto ourselves. We think we are independent.
The ethic of Western, especially American, individualism has enshrined this idea as a societal ideal. The Horatio Alger story of the “Self-Made Man,” someone who climbs to the heights of wealth and power from a low position through sheer force of character, is one of our favorite legends.
In fact, the word “legend” is a good choice for this belief because it does not reflect the ultimate reality of the human condition. Anything we achieve in this life, we achieve because God, and God alone, made it possible. As the scriptures tell us, apart from Him we can do nothing.
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5
