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Evan Rosa: From the Yale Center For Faith and Culture, this is for the life of the world. A podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity.
Miroslav Volf: We seek to be superior to others, I think greatly because we are uncomfortable with who we are. The averse of striving for superiority is internal plague by inferiority.
Evan Rosa: Our culture is dominated by competition, comparison and criticism. Seemingly, everything we do can become a game with winners and losers. The superior, the inferior, but is Melo. Volf points out in his most recent book, the Cost of Ambition. One of the core questions that can hide behind almost any competitive environment is about our own sense of our self-worth.
What is my value? Am I enough? Am I good? Am I loved?
Miroslav Volf: The central question with which we are faced is actually not so much how to be better than somebody else, but how not to be down on oneself for not. Being as good as that other person.
Evan Rosa: In this episode, Miroslav breaks down some of the core questions, problems, and insights from the cost of ambition, how striving to be better than others makes us worse.
Each of these segments comes from our most recent curriculum companion for this book. It's useful for personal reflection or a deeper reading of the text or for book club, small group discussion, a sermon series or any classroom environment, and we're offering these resources to our subscribers for free.
If you're not on our list of email subscribers yet and you'd like full access to a PDF discussion guide and seven videos featuring Miroslav, head over to faith.yale.edu/ambition to sign up and you'll get them all sent to your inbox right away.
Miroslav Volf: The key here is for us to come to appreciate Affirm, and in a very important sense, love ourselves.
I think love ourselves unconditionally. God loves us. Unconditionally not based on the kind of marriage that we show. Anything that makes us deserve, quote unquote, that that love. And I think we're invited into a place where we ourselves can come to appreciate ourselves in our mere humanity, so that our love for ourselves doesn't.
Depend all along the kind of status that we have, acolytes, that we receive what we have achieved, but rather than, it depends on the sheer fact of our humanity.
Evan Rosa: For me, personally, of all the points Miroslav makes in this book. This one cuts to the heart of so much. It touches on one of the most lasting existential questions of our species, offering words of simple comfort, even amidst the chaos and speed of digital life today. That's why we're starting here. And then for the rest of the episode, chapter by chapter, insights for meres love as he covers the theological and anthropological dimensions of competition.
The worry of comparison, A poignant story from Ki Guard about a lily and a bird, an exploration of Satan from John Milton's Paradise lost Jesus' downward journey of humility. The challenge of outdoing one another in showing honor and respect the powerful question of what do you have that you did not receive?
And the core truth in me love's words that quote each of us is glorious by simply being human. Thanks for listening today, and don't forget to head over to faith.yield.edu/ambition for full access to these resources.
Miroslav Volf: I think about this in terms of a child that is being born, a child that is wanted, and then when the child is born, parents tears in their eyes. It says, well, you've arrived. That judgment you've arrived is not based on any sense of virtue of that child, any sense of achievement. The sheer fact that that is a human being who appeared in the world as a child is a source of immense Jordan.
To me, that seems to be almost a comparable of what we are invited to do. As Christians following the example of Christ and following. In fact, the example of God who creates the world, looks at the world and invites us, says, look, it was very good. Look, you are very,
look, you are very
Evan Rosa: chapter one. O Solomon, I have outdone you.
Miroslav Volf: Unfortunately, today we have somehow become blind to striving for superiority as a problem. Actually, we have come to expect from it advances in all domains of life. Right, and undoubtedly that's true. We sometimes perform much better when we compete at the same time, what we forget the effects it has on our own sense of self-worth and our own relationship actually to honoring, uh, others and being able to recognize their own value as well as value of everything that is around us.
One of the ways in which I started first thinking about this, this problem is when I was invited to give a talk at the second, uh, global, uh, Congress on Christianity and sports. And there I used, uh. The competition of athletes, uh, to ask the question, what might be the value of being better than others?
And you can say, well, um, consider somebody like the most famous athlete. I think still his most famous, but certainly was at the time when I was giving that talk. He, Leo messy, he was highest paid athlete in, in the world and certainly being the best was filling his, uh, his pockets, uh, with quite a bit of, uh, cash.
He was one of the most famous. So in terms of fame, in terms of, uh, wealth competition is, is actually great if you are winning. On the other hand, the question that I asked, what is the human, the moral value? Striving to be better than others. And I realized then that sure, it pulls people up in a way, but at the same time it familiarizes.
It makes somebody who felt relatively good about themselves when they compare themselves to others to feel actually. In inferior. The title of the o of the first chapter is, oh, Solomon, I have Al done. You and I have heard that story for the first time, uh, when I was few years back visiting Hagi Sophia, but the guide who was leading us into, uh, and showing us, uh, that absolutely magnificent.
Church, he said before we entered into the, uh, into the sanctuary, there's a story about Justinian who had built this church, uh, in about five years, which was a record, uh, time. And he was completely eager to see how it looked, uh, when it was, uh, when it was finished, when the doors opened, he rushed, uh, and then.
Fell on his knees in the middle of the church and he said, oh, Solomon, I have outdone you. So the entirety of his striving was somehow obviously to, uh, to build a beautiful church, but to outdo the greatest of all kings and the temple that was, uh, the glory of, uh, of Solomon's, uh, reign. Actually. He wasn't just competing with, with Solomon.
He was competing with Juliana, who had previously built a very magnificent, beautiful, uh, church. And she was of a Roman, uh, imperial, uh, lineage. And he was a peasant from Elyria. And what he wanted for this very rich Juliana to do is to give him some of his, her money to put into his, uh, coffers and Juliana.
Was resisting. She didn't want to give in. And how do you resist? Uh, king what she did, she took all the gold that she had, melted it down and put it on the ceilings of her own church to the glory of God. So she too was making sure that she's not outdone. So, so you'll see what's going on, a kind of competi.
At the highest uh, level and the competition that is motivated by religious, uh, sentiments, but it pervades our lives, both religious lives and our secular lives, and we can observe it, I think, in all domains of our lives.
Evan Rosa: Chapter two, the worry of comparison.
Miroslav Volf: You know, when we compare ourselves. Out with others. We compare ourselves because we want to have a sense of ourselves that we are good. We, we assess our goodness with regard, uh, to how others see us and how we stack in relation to others. And that basically means that we are constantly undermined in the very sense that we have.
Ourselves, ourselves, and we constantly are unsure about ourselves. One of the experiences that led me, or observations that led me to write this book is when I look at some of our students, uh, here at Yale, especially. Undergraduate students, they all have come to Yale because they have been at the top of their classes and they have drawn their identity from that kind of success.
They come to Yale and they're one from 5,000 or very similar people, and the rat race begins again. And the sense of, uh. One's worth kind of plummets and suddenly one is depressed. Even though one has been admitted to an Ivy League, uh, institutions, when you think about it, this is absolutely crazy. And the craziness is almost like a definition of life from cradle to grave.
It all domains of our lives. Competitive sports and professional leagues, from education to politics, to economics, to arts, everything is competitive and everything. Motivates us to be as beautiful as we could be, as successful as we could be. But at the same time, everything always erodes our sense of self and stability of that who we, in fact, are one of the most interesting stories.
In the Bible that relates to this topic, uh, especially if you look at it from the eyes of Soren Khar is the story of the little Lilly. Jesus tell. This tells this story as a story about not to worry, not to worry about daily needs. Khar takes it and. Turns it into a story about not worrying about who you are and how you appear before, before others.
And so Kegar has a little bird coming to this wonderful little Lily that was growing next to a brook and baby became friends, and that little bird was a naughty bird and started whispering into the ear of Little Lily how it has seen. This gorgeous lilies elsewhere, and pretty soon a little lily started feeling bad, uh, about herself.
And then in the course of their friendship, they decided that the bird should peck very carefully around the roots of little Lily. Take it. Uprooted and carry it so that that little Lilly can be together with those magnificent lilies and somehow take part, uh, in, in their glory and become glorious, uh, herself, the moral of the story.
Of course, uh, you can immediately now it withered, uh, and died trying to be as beautiful as those most beautiful lilies.
The kicker draws from this little Lillian that I think we can draw from The story of this little Lilly is that in a society in which we, uh, live constantly comparing ourselves in all domains of our our lives, we are destined to lose ourselves in constantly being compared and comparing ourselves. In terms of how we perform, how we look to those, uh, around us, and the lesson is we need to discover the intrinsic value of who we are as creatures made in the image of God.
Ki also, uh, picks up the, the figure of Solomon in the same context. He says something like this. So if it's Lily. As Jesus says, was more glorious and beautiful than Solomon in all of his glory than Solomon as a mere human being. Must also be more beautiful than he is when he has all of his regal clothes, uh, and is surrounded by his entourage.
The moral of the story is look into what God has created and it's this mere humanity of ours that's more precious. More precious than anything else that we can do to ourselves to improve our looks, our achievements, uh, how we are perceived by other people.
Evan Rosa: Chapter three, Satan's aspiration.
Miroslav Volf: You know, Milton Satan is this incredible figure who ends up waging war against God and the reason why he ends up waging. War against God is that he who was created by God and is the second in God's entire creation, cannot bear to have God. Be superior than he is. It is this burden of impossibility to live with himself if he isn't right there on, on the top.
Now, uh, many of us can't quite identify with this kind of intense desire to be, uh, on the. But in milder form, uh, we, we all, uh, experience it. Seeing somebody who's, who's above us and everybody else is lower than us, that becomes a, a challenge. You know, people say that, say in, in Olympic games. To be the second is the worst position to be.
It's worse than being the third. When you're the third, you say, at least I made it up to the that stand when you are second. Oh, I couldn't make, to me on the top, and I think that's embodied in Satan's aspiration, but what is truly most interesting in this thing is the consequences that it has. God has created, for instance, a beautiful world.
Satan. Now the, the throne looks at that world and doesn't see beauty. He sees only something that needs to be put under his reign so that he would be even as the throne, maybe somehow comparable, possibly even greater, uh, as God is. So I think one lesson of that story is that if you index your sense of who you are.
To the position that you have nothing then that you possess will have intrinsic value in and of itself. You will devalue it. I put it this way, you drive a little car, that car runs perfectly well, uh, you know, serves you well, doesn't break down. Then one day your a neighbor parks next to you, uh, uh, some, some really great, a great car, a a, a beautiful Audi, uh, Porsche, whatever.
And suddenly. Your own card, which was serving you so well, becomes devalued, highly inferior to what your neighbor had. Its value hasn't changed. What has changed is your judgment about it because you're comparing it with with something else. And when you stop and think about it, this is kind of insane.
Striving for superiority, devalues everything that, that we have that we see around us. If it doesn't somehow contribute to me being better than somebody else in Paradise Lost, uh, Satan, uh, strives superiority of God and plunges the whole humanity into, into misery in Paradise Regained. The central event in Jesus' life from Hilton's perspective is his temptation by Satan, and now Satan actually tense Jesus so that Jesus would.
Be made the greatest if he would just recognize superiority of, of Satan. So again, the striving to be greater than Alexander the great, uh, than any of the Roman uh, emperors is how Satan tries to get Jesus to recognize Satan's superiority and therefore. For Satan to regain his kingdom, whereas in fact, it was salvation that occurs through Jesus' resistance to striving for superiority instead of striving as the the him in Philippian says he.
Decides to take a human form so as to be a servant of all, and just as sucher, he is raised into God's glory. Because God's glory is not to strive for superiority, but to attend to those who are in need.
Evan Rosa: Chapter four, outdo one another in showing honor.
Miroslav Volf: So often when we think in terms of honor, we think of it in comparative ways. I can be honored only if I feel that I am more honored than somebody, somebody else. You have a very interesting inversion of this concept. In the writings of, uh, apostle Paul in Romans, he writes, I do one another in showing honor.
Honor the other person more than you yourself, are honored and expect them to honor, honor you. So in a sense, what you have here. Is rather than climbing over another person, uh, to get, uh, into the position of honor, you serve the other person and elevate that person. And precisely in that is that your Honor, uh, consists, you know, and Christ, you see this movement from equality to God down to being a servant.
Even the lowest of God's creatures. This, in many ways is such an amazing story because it shows that the character of God lies precisely in elevating that which is down thro and that which is forgotten in many ways. And what is shown is. That God doesn't so much care for God's honor as much as God cares for the wellbeing of even the smallest of God's uh, creatures.
Luther has a, a comment when God creates heaven and earth, at one point in Genesis, God declares the earth. That emerge as good but not heaven. And he says God cares more for our home than for his own. It's a creative way of reading, uh, the text, but I think it expresses this fundamental attention that God.
Gives to human beings and it's that, that we are called to emulate and it's that that is enacted in the story of Jesus. We seek to be superior to others, I think greatly because we are uncomfortable with who we, who we are the averse of striving for superiority. Is internal plague by inferiority. And so the central question with which we are faced is actually not so much how to be better than somebody else, but how not to be down on what self for not being as good as that other person.
The key here is for us to come to appreciate. Affirm and in a very important sense, love ourselves. I think love ourselves unconditionally. God loves us unconditionally, not based on the kind of marriage that we, uh, show anything that makes us deserve, quote unquote, that that love. And I think we're invited into a place where we, ourselves.
Can come to appreciate ourselves in our mere humanity, so that our love for ourselves doesn't depend along the kind of status that we have, acolytes, that we receive what we have achieved, but rather that it depends. On the sheer fact of our humanity. You know, I compare this and think about this in terms of a child that is being born, a child that is wanted, and then when the child is born, parents with tears in their eyes says, well, you've arrived.
That judgment you've arrived is not based on any sense of virtue that the child, any sense of achievement. The sheer fact that that is a human being who appeared in the world as a child is a source of immense joy. To me, that seems to be almost like comparable of what we are invited to do. As Christians following the example of Christ and following.
In fact, the example of God who creates the world, looks at the world and invites us to. Says, look, it was very good. Look, you are very good.
Evan Rosa: Chapter five, what do you have that you did not receive?
Miroslav Volf: Well, one of the ways in which we can push against the idea of striving for, for superiority is to ask the question, what makes us to be who we are? Do we ourselves and our achievements makes us to be who we are. And I think once we start thinking this way, there's a kind of lie.
For instance, somebody who is very. Obviously successful. Uh, suddenly you ask, well, why is that person successful? And has that person given themselves their existence, their talents? Uh, you said, well, that person has worked very hard, but has that person given themselves ability to work, uh, so hard. And you can reflect upon how much actually of who we are.
We owe to ourselves and how much do we owe it to luck to our parents to place where we have been born. The thing is, you don't know where to draw that line, and so for you to kind of praise yourself for some kind of achievement ends up involving a lie, even if you just observe our lives. But the truth about us is that we have been created by God and that God holds us in existence over the entire span of our lives.
We have been given to ourselves by God. So God has given ourselves to us. Which is to say our wives are, are a gift. And that's why Apostle Paul has this very fascinating question that he asks Corinthians, who are really interested in being superior. And the question is, what do you have that you have not received?
Pause. And the expected answer is, uh, I don't have anything. And the next question is. Why do you then boast as if you have not received it? And the response is because I'm a jerk.
So Paul's point in asking these questions is kind of self-awareness. Uh, insight into who we actually as human beings are, and outta that insight, insight that we have been given to ourselves follows that what we have, uh, is there for us to be in communion with others and to honor more, especially those who have not been given as much so that there would be.
Equality and in, in one Corinthians 12, that's exactly how all motivates, why we should honor those members of the body that do not have as much honor so that they would be, there would be equality. And I think that's what we are striving, striving for. So recognition of truth about our ourselves, and that's a beautiful truth.
That allows everybody to come in. The communion of those who all have been created by God and together, uh, are the size of God's glory.
Evan Rosa: Chapter six, the Biblical discomfort with striving for superiority from Jesus to Genesis.
Miroslav Volf: If one looks around and if one reads Bible, one sometimes has impression. That striving for superiority is a tool that God uses to achieve God's purposes. Maybe the best example of of this is a story of Jacob, but next best to it is a story of Joseph in, in Genesis. But we also see that between the lines.
Their striving for superiority has been condemned if they read carefully, and what one ends up then having is that God, as the saying goes, knows how to write straight, even UNC crooked lines, and a sense that God uses striving for superiority as God uses many other of our biases. Isn't justification actually to commit those biases.
They're redeemed by their use, but they are in the need of redemption and therefore we should follow. The example of Jesus Christ and let God straighten our crooked paths.
Evan Rosa: Conclusion against striving for superiority.
Miroslav Volf: I think one of the reasons why I wrote this book is that I have seen how many deleterious effects striving for superiority. Can have and we can observe that it actually has. In striving for superiority, we wreck havoc on lives of other people. And what we often do is we create in our trail people who themselves are interiorized left feeling that they are inadequate.
Then strangely enough, also striving to claw themselves up to that superiority, but never being able actually to achieve or to see that the goal itself may be difficult and may be deeply problematic. And for me, this is a, this was a lesson, lesson of the eel, a worm, if you want, in our culture that is undermining our.
Health as individuals and also as people. And my hope is that this radical stance of Jesus Christ who did not hold equality to God as something to be desperately grasp on, but released it and went down, came down to serve all of us giving his life for us. This is the pattern. Life of Christ, and it's in this pattern that the salvation of our souls and our culture lies.
Thank you so much for reading the book, thinking about it, and I hope it's a journey of self discovery, a journey of the road into healing. I want, and I wish for all of us to be gripped. By this vision that we have enacted in the life of Christ and that we come into our own wholeness. As we meditate on it and as we work hard to rediscover the beauty of our mere humanity.
Evan Rosa: Again, thanks for listening today, and if you're interested in receiving full access, not only to this curriculum on the cost of ambition. But a variety of resources in addition to the podcast and head over to faith.yale.edu/ambition, you'll receive a PDF discussion guide and access to seven videos immediately in your inbox.
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For The Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center For Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured mes la Volf. Production assistance by Taylor, Craig and Macy Bridge. And special thanks to Aaron Smith and Bob Hossack at Brazos Press. I'm Evan Rosa and I edit and produce the show For more information, visit us online at faith.yale.edu where you can find past episodes, articles, books, and other educational resources that help people envision and pursue lives worthy of our humanity.
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