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Self-Knowledge
IF unconditional readiness to change and true penitence constitute the first foundations of our progress towards the goal which God’s mercy has assigned to us—our transformation in Christ—the next decisive step along that road is the acquisition of self-knowledge.
Self-knowledge is prerequisite to our inner reformation
So long as a man is ignorant of his defects and of their real nature, all his endeavor (be it ever so laudable) to overcome those defects will end in failure. Not infrequently we meet persons who, while sincerely bent on reforming, direct all their attention to merely imaginary faults of theirs, thus fighting against windmills and leaving their real defects untouched. In monastic life this danger is prevented by the discipline specific to a religious order. By his superior to whom he owes obedience, the monk’s attention is directed to his real shortcomings and imperfections (including potential dangers) even before he is clearly aware of them himself. The monk or nun begins the struggle with his or her nature in a spirit of obedience, fighting this or that defect according to the superior’s instructions, though perhaps at first unaware of its actual presence. Herein lies one of the great means for the process of transformation with which monastic life provides the individual. Nevertheless, the final accomplishment of our transformation—the total uprooting of our vices, the levelling of hills and filling up of valleys—requires a thorough knowledge of our defects. We must beware of neglecting the basic part played by intelligence in our psychic life. For all volitional acts are conditioned by cognitive apprehension. The radical extirpation of a defect of character requires an interior knowledge of that defect. To be sure, we are not likely to attain true self-knowledge unless we are already engaged in combatting our bad qualities, though it be from obedience only to extrinsic authority. Still, in order to bring that fight to a successful close, from a certain stage onwards we must be equipped with an interior knowledge of our faults: for not otherwise can we overcome them in a radical and comprehensive sense.
Neutral self-knowledge does not help moral progress
However, the term self-knowledge may refer to rather different things. While true self-knowledge is an important instrument of sanctification, there is also such a thing as a spurious and sterile kind of self-knowledge which is apt to ensnare us into an attitude of egotism far worse than the natural one.
Whenever we take a purely psychological interest in ourselves and thus analyze our character in the manner of mere spectators, we pursue a false and sterile self-knowledge. We then envisage our character not by any standard of good and evil, but in entire neutrality as though we were analyzing some phenomenon of exterior nature. We leave our solidarity with our character to one side, and look upon ourselves as though we were observing some odd stranger. The fact that the person in question happens to be ourselves merely intensifies our curiosity, without changing its quality. We experience ourselves as we would a character in a novel, without in any way feeling responsible for his defects. Nay, as it will presently be shown, such an attitude prevents us altogether from comprehending those defects in their specific moral meaning and import. For, given an essentially amoral frame of reference (as implied by the pursuit of neutral self-knowledge), we are of necessity precluded from consideration of the true significance of our person. First, we are denied the capacity to understand completely a person as such. So far as a person is concerned—that is, a free being capable of rational behavior for which its relationship with God and the world of values is basic and constitutive—appropriate presentation itself is inseparable from appreciation. Secondly, we are even less able to take an adequate view of our own person in regard to the fact that it is our own, since our method of analysis debars us from experiencing responsibility for that person’s conduct. This method involves a fundamental falsification of the perspective in which to place our object of research. It is an arbitrary mutilation of our pattern of comprehension which is sure to warp our vision and to distort our picture.
This type of self-knowledge is not rooted in any willingness to change, and so it is completely sterile from the standpoint of moral progress. People who are wont to diagnose their blemishes in this neutral and purely psychological mood will draw from such discoveries no increased power to overcome their defects. On the contrary, such an indolently neutral self-knowledge will make them even more inclined to resign themselves to those defects as a matter of course. They are more remote from the chance of curing those ills than they would be if they knew nothing about them. They are often disposed to admit their faults overtly, without restraint or reticence: not however from the motive of humility, nor under the impulse of guilt-consciousness, but because they pique themselves on presenting their vices, a psychologically absorbing sight.
Psychoanalysis reveals a similarly sterile and destructive conception of self-knowledge. Its adherents believe themselves to possess a particular capacity for objective self-knowledge, thanks to their elimination of all value viewpoints and their methodic principle of treating matters of intimate human psychology as objects of pure science. The truth is that such a neutrality of outlook, being completely out of tune with the subject treated, precludes the exploration of the depths of personality, and makes adequate self-knowledge impossible. The real nature of a person’s attitudes and decisions and of their spiritual origins can only be comprehended by us if we take our departure from the dialogic situation between subject and object: interpreting his object-references as acts of response. And that remains true, of course, if the person in question is ourselves. Once we disregard the content of meaning and value of the object to which our attitudes are directed, the very meaning of the attitude itself will become impenetrable to our gaze and all our hypotheses as to its origins will be mere arbitrary guesswork devoid of reality.
Thus, any scientific approach in the sense of a purely immanent psychology (built on a disregard of that constitutive trait of object-reference) must fail. It is doomed to fall short of achieving anything like an adequate self-knowledge. Unless we take account of the object that affects us and elicits a response on our part, we are essentially incapable of a pertinent analysis of our experiences. The obsession with a neutral approach brings in its train a general disfigurement of what we pretend to describe faithfully. Everything is flattened out and deprived of its dimension of depth; our deliberate blindness to the inherent meaning of a psychic act compels us to interpret it in terms of mechanical causation, thus dismissing the essential and holding onto the accidental, if not the imaginary.
The inadequacy of this kind of self-knowledge is confirmed by the test of its application to psychotherapy, which has proved highly unsuccessful. If diagnosis itself is dependent on a consideration of the intentional relation to the object, the same is even truer with respect to the overcoming of faults even if they be envisaged from a medical rather than from a moral point of view. What matters most, however, is the complete inability of this method of approach to provide us with any knowledge of a really decisive kind concerning the question as to whether or not a quality, a disposition, or an attitude is positive in value and can stand the test of confrontation with God. That neutral way of looking on things presents to us a shadowy counterpart of the real situation, devoid of the latter’s inherent gravity. The awful problem, with its immense burden of responsibility, as to whether our conduct offends God or conforms to the divine order, is degraded to a psychologically interesting affair. Such a sterilized self-knowledge, empty of repentance and guilt-consciousness, is absolutely unfit for invigorating our endeavor to weed out our vices and debilities.
Fruitful self-knowledge calls us to a confrontation with God
The only fruitful self-knowledge, and the only true one, is that which grows out of man’s self-confrontation with God. We must first look at God and His immeasurable glory, and then put the question: “Who art Thou, and who am I?” We must speak with St. Augustine: “Could I but know Thee, I should know myself.” It is only in recognition of our metaphysical situation, only in awareness of our destiny and our vocation that we can become truly cognizant of ourselves. Only the light of God and His challenge to us can open our eyes to all our shortcomings and deficiencies, impressing upon us the discrepancy between what we ought to be and what we are. Contemplation of one’s own self in this light is animated by a profound earnestness; it is vastly different from all species of a neutral and purely psychological self-analysis.
He who seeks for self-knowledge in that true sense of the word regards his own nature, not as an unchangeable datum or a curiosity to be studied without any implication of responsibility, but as a thing which demands to be changed, and for whose qualities and manifestations he is accountable. Self-knowledge in this sense presupposes the readiness to change. We take an interest in what we are because we are determined to become new men in Christ. Here is no place for idle curiosity, nor for the egoistic fixation on oneself as a paramount theme. It is for the sake of God that we would become better men; and because we would become so we inquire about our present state and condition. That basic attitude of a solemn confrontation with God—the motif which in a unique way pervades the Liturgy of the Church—is fitted, better than any other, to make us sensitive to values and to present us with a picture of our defects stripped of any illusions. It is an attitude which we cannot maintain while playing, at the same time, the part of unconcerned spectators. It presupposes a penitent disposition; and, in its turn, necessarily gives birth to contrition: in the Confiteor it finds its supreme expression.
Readiness to change renders self-knowledge fruitful
Self-knowledge thus understood, as contrasted with its false counterpart, is not destructive but fruitful. Because it is founded in our readiness to change, it implies the discovery of any defect of ours to be the first step towards its elimination. However painfully the revelation of the patches of darkness in our soul may affect us, it will always lack the discouraging and depressing effect which in the context of mere natural self-knowledge would attend disagreeable revelations. For, referring all truth to God Who is the prime source and the epitome of Truth as such, we shall derive happiness from the knowledge of any important truth, however painful its content may be, since by the very fact of its possession we progress one step nearer towards God. Our illusions about ourselves are dispelled. We no longer deceive ourselves with fanciful beliefs concerning our character; we master our proud reluctance to take account of this or that unpleasant feature in our souls, and this means a great gain secured, a new level of freedom attained. This emancipation from our pride, which is always busy imposing upon us, cannot but prove a source of bliss and elevation.
Again, if we are inspired by that unconditional readiness to change, we certainly shall be happy to know where there is work to be done. We shall then experience self-knowledge as a first step towards the goal of our transformation, in that it indicates the foe we must fight most urgently. Many sincere efforts are squandered, many energies are wasted, much time is lost because we fight against windmills, and look for our defects where they do not exist. Many of us suspect that the chief danger threatens from a direction which in fact harbors no such danger, whereas we fail to discern what really is our besetting sin.
We must appreciate it as a great gift of grace from God when He opens our eyes to the actual danger, and shows us where the battle has to be fought. We ought to feel a boundless gratitude to those who rudely destroy our illusions concerning our person. It is good to be enlightened about the fact, for instance, that enthusiasm felt for a virtue is by no means tantamount to the possession of that virtue. Thus, viewed from a distance, obedience appears to us as a great and glorious thing: hence, we may believe ourselves in possession of the real willingness to obey, while in fact we still have to cover a long and laborious road to get there.
Or again, we feel our heart aflame with the splendid and touching beauty of humility, and so we indulge in the fictitious belief that we are actually humble. We mistake our enthusiasm for a virtue for its real presence in us. Undoubtedly, the enthusiasm we have spoken of is good in itself and may mean a beginning of participation in the virtue to which it refers, but it is far remote from the actual possession of that virtue. The shattering of such illusions obviously pains our nature. Yet at the same time, it must fill our hearts with holy joy, for it means that God has freed us from the obnoxious fetters of error, and we have achieved a real step towards the acquisition of those virtues.
Faith protects us from the despair that self-knowledge can sometimes bring
Still, can we avoid becoming a prey to despondency, when we peer into the dark abysses of our failures? Will not our zeal abate, our vigor be paralyzed, when we see how remote we still are from our goal, and how much lower we rank than we have supposed? Can anyone acquire a clear insight into his inner wounds and weaknesses without becoming discouraged? Certainly, self-knowledge—be it even conceived in conspectu Dei—may result in discouragement and despondency, on the supposition that our general attitude still remains a purely natural one.
The true Christian, however, who lives by the Faith, will not be driven to such utter despair by self-knowledge, nor collapse under the weight of his own sins when sensing their import and magnitude. For he knows that God wills his sanctification; that Christ, “in whom we have redemption through His blood, the remission of sins” (Col. 1:14), has called him, and laid His hand upon him.
In defiance of all his sins and all the darkness in him, he will say with St. Thomas Aquinas: “O Loving Pelican, Lord Jesus, wash me clean in Thy blood.” He knows that he can accomplish nothing through his own power but everything in Christ.
Not by his own force shall he span the abyss that yawns between him and God: Christ shall carry him over, if he is willing to follow Him without reserve. By His light, there is no darkness that cannot be dispelled, nay, even changed into radiating brightness. “Darkness shall not be dark to Thee, and night shall be light as the day” (Ps. 138:12).
We must strive continually for self-knowledge
True self-knowledge is an ineluctable necessity for him who desires to be transformed in Christ. He must be filled with a real thirst for securing, in conspectu Dei, an accurate notion of himself, such as he is; he must endeavor to get rid of all illusions of complacency, and to detect his particular vices and weaknesses. He must conform to the summons of St. Catherine of Siena, “Let us enter into the cell of our self-knowledge.” But he must not believe that self-knowledge is easy of attainment, nor that—once he forms the desire for self-knowledge—all his defects will reveal themselves to him in due course. With a healthy distrust of himself, he should continue supposing that he is still entangled in a mesh of illusions, and pray: “Cleanse me of my hidden weaknesses.”
Obedience to his spiritual director or his religious superior, above all, is destined to guide him towards the acquisition of genuine self-knowledge and the freedom implied therein. He must be aware of the fact that in order to obtain a faithful portrait of himself he needs the help of others. He must remember the words of the Lord about the mote in our brother’s eye and the beam in our own; and admit that, trusting his own lights without proper guidance, he will remain a thrall to this blindness of fallen man concerning himself. That is why he cannot dispense with the more objective vision of a spiritual director, of a religious superior, of any friend of great wisdom and piety. Yet, much as he depends—in order to attain a true knowledge of his character—on the help of God and on that of his fellow men, one thing he must contribute himself: the unreserved determination of dying unto himself and becoming a new man in Christ, and the strong desire, proceeding therefrom, to see himself as he really is. That desire will impel him to pray: “Lord, that I may see” (Luke 18:41).