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02 Nov 2008 11:47 am

Known-Unknowns

Aaron Kheriaty contemplates God and the unconscious:

Just as the psychiatrist can never discover all that is contained within the patient, so the patient himself can never express all that he is. This is, in fact, a sign of his creaturehood—of his lack of complete (Godlike) self-possession. Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover, in his infinite self-possession, could eternally and fully contemplate his own depths and perfections. According to Trinitarian theology, God the Father not only completely knows himself, but also in this knowing expresses all that he is in his Word, his Son. But he can do this precisely because he is God—because his essence is identical with his existence and operations. The human person’s expressions and self-explorations are, by contrast, like our nature itself, always limited and incomplete. If, with God’s assistance, we do come to deeper self-knowledge that transcends our natural capacities, we do so through “sighs too deep for words”—with groans that gesture beyond what can be expressed.

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