Many religions preach humbleness as a core value. After all, it is difficult not to do so if the fundamental causal structure of the world rests with some form of an omniscient deity. In some religions this is taken to such an extreme degree, that it seems to defy logic to a rational observer. In Christianity, for example, it is a core teaching to always be grateful, to God and Christ, for all the goodness that happens in life, even when the goodness is clearly the result one’s own effort. This goes beyond the more logically justifiable sentiment of “you did well, good for you, but don’t forget to be thankful to God”, but rather has a sense of “the ultimate credit for this good result belongs to God, regardless of the effort you put in”.

You can of course make the case that the Creator of the world is ultimately responsible for everything that happens in the world, but I think that that’s not really the reason for this style of humility, at least not the complete reason. Somehow, God is the main holder of responsibility for one’s success¹, without having to trace the causal link back to the creation of the world. This level of extreme, rationality-defying humbleness, is difficult for me to make sense of. If a project of mine turned out amazing because I worked tirelessly on it for months, shouldn’t I be the one primarily responsible for its success?

An obvious utility of this irrational level of humility is that it acts as a good guard against hubris. When people try to attribute credit to their success using rationality (or not), there is always a tendency to become arrogant and narcissistic. In order to avoid this, you may need to overcompensate by being more humble than what seems reasonable. The perils of hubris could be so significant, that it is worth the cost of being illogically humble to help prevent it.

Another point to consider is that having an extreme level of humbleness when attributing the cause of a result may not actually be entirely wrong, or at least not more so than the more rational way. The causes of most complex events (e.g. any success at some non-trivial activity) are often beyond our full understanding. Things that seem to be the direct result of our actions may, in reality, have deeper causes that are more significant but unperceived. Many secular people will acknowledge that luck plays a (sometimes major) role in how some events turn out. Perhaps the irrational humbleness encouraged by these religions is just another, more structured form of this concept of “luck”, applied universally to all events.