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Self-Denial THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG g¢ e lli From the purely ethical standpoint, personal self defense is not only a right but a duty, to be re stricted to the defense of life or female honor (R. Rothe, Ethik, ii. § 894). If life is attacked in such a manner that it can not be defended by flight or by recourse to the protection of the State, and if no purpose is served by its sacrifice except the per mission of a crime, then the one attacked has the duty of opposing not violence to violence, but right to violence. The individual is here fighting not for himself alone, but for social rights, and for moral principle. Martyrdom is a different case; here the duty of bearing witness to divine truth rises above the duty of self-preservation in the same measure as the value of the truth of God above the life of sense. The defense of other goods than life and the sexual honor is morally not so universal a duty, and the measures of self-defense should be proportion ate to the value of the thing threatened. The Bible contains no prohibition of self-defense; Matt. v. 38-39 can not be adduced under the conditions here laid down, and Ex. xxii. 2, 3 is not a general moral precept but a regulation of the Mosaic law. The action of Peter in the garden of Gethsemane was from his point of view justifiable self-defense; the special reason for Christ's rebuke of it is obvi ous. Ethical and juridical constructions diverge on this matter. In all instances the moral sense must intensify the consciousness of duty. On the other hand, the law makes concessions in self-de fense which are untenable in moral judgment. (KARL BURGERt.) SELF-DENIAL: A term, the exact adversative of Selfishness (q.v.), expressing the reference of human will and desire not to self but to the altruistic object (Matt. x. 38-39, xvi. 24-25; Mark viii. 34 35; Luke ix. 23-24). It represents a New-Testa ment idea (arneisthai; aparneisthai). Of self-denial in the sense in which Jesus enjoined it upon his followers the world before him was unconscious, and outside of him has no knowledge of it. Self denial demands nothing less than the renuncia tion of the self and the deliverance of the will from the false egoistic center, thereby virtually abolish ing. or losing the natural life and gaining a new true life-center, by joining the will with the divine, or having one's life hid with Christ in God (Col. iii. 3), not living for self but Christ (II Cor. v. 15; cf. Gal. ii. 20). It involves the exercise of a lifetime. Its first appearance is in repentance. When the divine Spirit takes hold of man, he is thrown into self-conflict. An inclination to truth and righteous ness in him awakens the desire or will to escape from the carnal self. This willing is as yet weak, but God permits the upright to conquer. Regen eration takes place, and self-denial becomes a daily exercise and enters into every contested act or step that makes for righteousness and holiness. It is thus the inner principle of Christian discipleship. With a daily self-abnegation and crucifying of the flesh, the new life in Christ grows, increases in strength, and reaches a more and more complete character. Self-denial becomes habitual. It is con trary to the spirit of the Gospel to prescribe a law to self-denial and convert it into a work of merit.
As a product of the freedom of the regenerate,it possesses ethical value, and is an important means to the promotion of Christian unity, in the suppression of all the motives that violate brotherly love, and the alternative advancement of the gentleness that overcomes an erring one, the humility that serves, and the fidelity that yields in order to win. (KARL BURGERt.)
BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. Martensen, Christian Ethics, ii. 411, Edinburgh, 1882; I. A. Dorner, System of Christian
Ethics, pp 378 sqq., New York, 1887; J. Kostlin, Chnatliche Ethik, pp. 74, 119, 123, 197-198, Berlin, 1899; the literature under 8zLFIsaNBes; and the lexicons under apvcia4m, aaapvcio0m.
SELFISHNESS: A term of late origin for a conception of great antiquity, which means, more appropriately than " egoism," the exclusive reference of human will and desire to self in contrast with the love and obedience by which man is obligated to God by virtue of his created character (Cf. SELF-DENIAL). This abnormal tendency may be regarded dogmatically as the fundamental sin; ethically, as the root of sinful development, and as the concomitant and undercurrent of all natural morality. Man as a dual being, in his personality akin with God, and identified on the one side with the world, had the duty and privilege of maintaining fellowship with God by free grateful love, and first of consecrating himself to God, and then by faithful service of sustaining the world in obedience toward God and likewise sanctifying it for him. In the faithful pursuit of this mission, the image of God was to be realized in him, as the end of his life and development. How he departed from this original career set before him is a matter that pertains to the problem of the origin of evil. Attention is called here only to the difference between the idea that selfishness is the root of sin (J. Miiller) and its alternative, that it originated from sense (R. Rothe). As by a false self-assertion man sought his own life and, independently of God, yielded to the temptations to be like God, he released the impulses of sensuousness within (Gen. iii.). Spiritual apostasy from God resulted in sensual inclination toward the world. Man who, by self-exaltation, seeks to force his own salvation instead of accepting it from above, brings upon himself the punishment of self-humiliation. He becomes a slave to carnality and appetite. The development springing from this. perverse tendency of selfishness may assume either of two commutable and multitudinously intersecting directions-the passion of sensual indulgence and spiritual pride. The sensualist pursues happiness by seeking to conquer the world and finding satisfaction in its goods and joys. From this arises the so-called " battle for existence," offered as a hypothesis for the history of human development. The elements of truth in this are that selfishness recognizes no social obligation. Spiritual pride, on the other hand, feigns to despise selfishness, and aspires to satisfaction in an assumed spiritual perfection. Its motives are the conceit of knowledge and the passion to rule. The sensual man is not without pride, setting up his theory of self-justification and spiritual pride frequently suffers most humiliating disasters when the