There is something precious in our being mysteries to ourselves, in our being unable ever to see through even the person who is closest to our heart and to reckon with him as though he were a logical proposition or a problem in accounting.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the inherent mystery of human relationships and the complexities of understanding ourselves and others.
Rudolf Bultmann emphasizes that a significant aspect of human existence lies in the mysteries that we embody. No matter how close we are to someone or how much we think we understand ourselves, there are always layers of depth and complexity that elude our comprehension. This invites a sense of humility and wonder in our relationships, as we encounter the unpredictable nature of human connection and the limitations of our rationality.
In practice
In a discussion on the nature of love, this quote can illustrate how relationships are deeper than mere logic.
It may be said that myths give to the transcendent reality an immanent, this-worldly objectivity. Myths speak about gods and demons as powers on which man knows himself to be dependent, powers whose favors he needs, powers whose wrath he fears. Myths express the knowledge that man is not master of the world and his life, that the world within which he lives is full of riddles and mysteries and that human life also is full of riddles and mysteries.
I believe we create our own lives. And we create it by our thinking, feeling patterns in our belief system. I think we're all born with this huge canvas in front of us and the paintbrushes and the paint, and we choose what to put on this canvas.
All the fish needs is to get lost in the water. All man needs is to get lost in Tao.
Certainty is the mark of the commonsense life-gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life.
Why not, when it can be done without exposure or expense, let me rescue some of America's miserable children from vice and guilt?
PILGRIM, n. A traveler that is taken seriously. A Pilgrim Father was one who [was] not permitted to sing psalms through his nose [in Europe], followed it to Massachusetts, where he could personate God according to the dictates of his conscience.
A man who lives unrelated to other human beings dies. But a man who lives unrelated to himself also dies.
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