Finding out who you are
Is God so ignorant of things, does he know so little about the human heart, that he can find what a man is only by testing him? Of course not, the testing is so that the man can find himself….
You should recognize that God does not need to test in order to learn something he did not know before; it’s so that by his testing, by his investigating, what is hidden in someone might come out. A person is not as well known to himself as he is to his Creator, an ill person doesn’t know himself as well as his doctor. Someone becomes ill, and he’s the one suffering, not the doctor, but it’s from the one not suffering that the sufferer expects to hear what’s wrong. The Psalmist cries out: “Cleanse me, Lord, from my hidden things” (Ps 18:13). In any person there are things hidden to the very one in whom they exist. They don’t come out, aren’t laid open, aren’t discovered, except by his being tested. If God ceases to test, the teacher ceases to teach…. Why do I say this? Because a person is ignorant of himself until he learns who he is by being tested. But once he has learned who he is, let him not be careless about himself. If he was careless when he lay hidden from himself, let him not be careless now that he knows himself. (Augustine, Sermon 2, 2-3; PL 38-28-29)
Thank you and Augustine. And I was taught Freud ‘discovered’ the unconscious!.. wrong?
This was a wonderful reflectiion! Thank you so much.
I believe that Greek mythology, also, was an early means to learning about the unconscious and one didn’t need an advanced college degree to do so. Simple stories taught even young children important lessons about human motives and what is going on in the mind and soul.
Ed –
There are hints of an unconscious mind which actively influences the conscious one in many earlier writings all the way back to the Vedas, apparently. Before Freud modern psychologists such as Charcot, Janet and others established some of the basic elements in Freud’s theories. Complexity, complexity.
This one touched my heart. Thanks for sharing. It reminded me of Hemingway’s observation that life breaks all of us, but some become stronger in the broken places.
This one goes in my files for much more reflection. I am grateful for the opening. But, how to trust that all testing is for a good reason?
Other questions persist. The people of Japan must be learning well who they are, but at what price? I don’t want to foreclose deeper understanding of this issue, but I think of Ann’s refrain: complexity, complexity.
Perhaps there are no answers to some things.
Carolyn: No one of these answers which we poor humans have offered to explain evil covers all cases, or even fully illumines any single dark instance of evil. But can we ever fully illumine evil? We all know people who have endured un-imaginable evil, physical and moral, and it is hard, as a com-forter, as a sym-pathizer, to offer words without sounding, if not glib, at least too easy, too fast, with our dulcifying words. But one can be blessed to encounter people whose extraordinary character was forged in the very hot furnace of bitter experiences. Elsewhere Augustine talks about the heat of a fire that burns away dross and leaves only gold.
Yes, I believe meeting those left only with gold must be a blessed experience. True, we can never fully illumine evil, but please, some meaningful light around the edges does not seem too much to ask.
I am perhaps much more familiar with those crushed in the process, for whom ashes and brokenness are the residue. And I do not blame them for their lack of strength or endurance.
Glibness is too often the outcome of people’s (and the church’s) efforts to explain or comfort. Presence and silence are better, I think.
And prayer.