On removing "Self" from knowing

Part of the problem with Catholicism is not the truth, but what it means to know that truth.

We speak all the time in Catholic ethics about the need to avoid objectifying things, or using them for our own selfish ends. This is really just a rehashing of Immanuel Kant's philosophy.  We know a moral rule is good, he said, when we ourselves would be willing to submit to it, and we do it unselfishly, or as he put it "for the sake of the good itself."  This finds an echo in a certain caricature of Buddhist philosophy.  I don't ride my bike to get to the store, it says --that is to reach outside of the present moment-- nor do I ride my bike for the enjoyment of it--that is to be ruled by desire--I simply ride my bike to ride my bike.

But Buddhism would go further, and so must Mother Church. Fixing the way we know truth, in my seldom-humble opinion, involves saying that "I don't know what I know" so long as I am still conscious of a self, (however altruistic or enlightened) that does the knowing.  

At best we know who we are.  At worst our selfishness gets in our way.  

What became objectification of things and of others began as objectification of self and God.  All making of graven images, all placing of the creature over the creator, dovetails on this first mistake.  

The technical term for how we know the truth is epistemology. Epistemology is important because a good sense of how we know things is connected to how quickly we can diagnose spiritual materialism, or the ego's tendency to treat spiritual experiences and wisdom as possessions (that make one better or richer than one is.) With a corrected epistemology Catholicism might be able to more quickly slip the trap of egotistically manipulating God.

What we can name, we have power over. When calling on " I am who I am" becomes a power-play, (instead of an act of intimacy with God) we forget what John the Baptist remembered: that he must increase and we must decrease.  Not pitting the knower against God is as important in knowing as not treating creation like the creator.

Spiritual materialism is a danger because we question everything except the self that is doing the questioning.  We end up, by not allowing ourselves to decrease so that God can increase, committing idolatry.

If our knowing is truly to reflect intimacy with God, we in the western world need the intellectual means to detach from our concepts of the knower and the known.  One western tool that does that work is "phenomenology."

Edith Stein aka Theresa Benedicta of the Cross

Phenomenology is held as true by such figures as Hegel, Heidegger and the philosopher formally known as Edith Stein. (Stein became "Teresa Benedicta of the cross" before dying in the concentration camp for her Jewish beginnings and becoming a saint.) In any case, phenomenology is a brand of epistemology that allows us to perceive and question our network of concepts, an assumption about what we perceive. Again there is Buddhist resonance here: our meanings are simply a network of concepts, an interweaving of what Buddhism calls the second and third nen.  Buddhism would say we are not truly perceiving something until we remain at the first nen, or pure perception.

If boiling perception down to its purest, uninterpreted form is the goal, then with all due respect to Catholic ethics, not using things for my own pleasure is only half of what it takes to actually know something.  The other half has to do with the self. Modern Catholicism can speak of my having 3 selves. 

I have my false self, projected by the corporate workings of the eight evil thoughts. This is what Freud called the Ego, although it's more aptly called the "unhealthy ego."  The Unhealthy Ego not only grasps at fulfillment of the basic human needs of Power and Control, Sex and Affection, Affirmation and Security; it manipulates others to accomplish this goal.  But it also leads to isolation, because the Unhealthy Ego doesn't know how to acknowledge vulnerability, only to cover it up.  The Sacraments are the key to the Unhealthy Ego's death, which is the key to spiritual progress.  A bit about the Egoic death: Christ took flesh, the body became "the hinge of salvation"  in order to help me "go out of my mind."  In the sacraments, Christ gave the mantra of the senses to distance me from compulsive thinking.  Taste, hearing and feeling present sensations as a unity.  The mind, on the other hand, presents sensation as a phenomena with a multitude of aspects and interpretations, in the midst of which I have to grasp for unity.  

As I gradually shed the ego compulsive thinking creates, I find my true self which, as Saint Paul says, is hidden with Christ in God. This is analogous to the Buddhist concept of the Mahatman, the "Great Self."  This is the "self" which struggles to know and to choose the good.  It's the Ego in its healthiest sense.  This is an appropriate defense mechanism: it draws circles around our 'Self' and acknowledges the insatiable nature of desire, keeping its satisfaction from tyrannically ruling our lives.  Aristotle spoke of Habituation and the 4 character types.  He said that if our acts are good or bad, we become a good or bad person as we repeatedly do them. He ranked our ability to know and do the good, called a person's character either virtuous, continent, incontinent or vicious. He was speaking about the moral life on the level of the conscious, egoic mind.  The truth here is that, without a deep meditative experience to deepen the self and heal unconscious wounds, morality that remains on the level of the ego will always be short circuited by my unconscious.  To the extent that I don't deal with myself, I will always immoderately grasp at the satisfaction of desire, either overindulging or abstaining out of self-will.  I try to deny or overcome the basic human needs.

When I deal with myself on the level of the unconscious, I acknowledge the basic needs as "a part of who I am."  I don't deny or seek to overcome them.  I acknowledge them, hope that they manifest moderately, but otherwise keep my focus on the honest life of a psychonaut--a delicious term that means "one who explores their psyche".  In the European traditions this is done through contemplation.  The "honest life of a psychonaut" manages to explore the self on all of its levels, and heal unconscious wounds by acknowledging them.  This is the best work of which a healthy ego is capable.

Even underneath my unconscious, I find my divinized self, which has been totally taken up in the life of the Trinity (the perichoresis or divine dance) an anonymous part of which it is our destiny to become.  Whether or not the divinized self actually has substance is an open question and it totally doesn't matter--because if I arrive there I won't be conscious of my separateness from God anymore anyway.  This divinized self is analogous to the Buddhist concept of "non self."  Buddhists talk about the self dissolving into nirvana after many lifetimes, though, and Catholics talk about the self residing in heaven after one, well spent lifetime.  The differences are semantic, and insofar as our responsibility lies in the present moment, they're essentially not worth asking.

So ultimately, even at best, I wouldn't be able to tell you what "knowing" is, because the self doing the reporting would cease to exist.  In light of St. Paul's claim that all knowledge will pass away, all concepts are temporary at best.  All intent is contingent on God's will too.  Again, St. Paul says "If the Lord wills I will go here and do this or that."  The Quran rightly adds "inshallah" to any statement of intent.  Knowing is progressive, if it's anything.

So even with empirical observations--statements based on sensory data--saying "I know the truth" is to admit that the truth and I share a common destiny.  We are both destined to become a part of God.  We are expressions of God's logos: once spoken we can't be taken back.  But the other side of it is true too: no spoken word remains audible eternally.  We were created in a silence of which the spheres' most sublime music is but an embellishment.  Like it or not, All God's loud creation will return to silence.  Only then will we know God.  We'll be part of him, after all, only because he is what is, and only because he knows himself.