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.
[in the]..curious way that my idealism has been mixed with my fatalism, so that I can possess the soul of a dreamer and that of a cynic at the same time......I possess a power of magic...[to] destroy the balance of a well-designed destiny with my diabolical mind.
I saw a man clothed with rags . . . a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back.
It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.
To become a spectator of one's own life is to escape the suffering of life.
If imperialism is not banished from the country, China will perish as a nation. If China does not perish, then imperialism cannot remain.
How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.
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