So long as a man is ignorant of his defects and of their real nature, all his endeavor (be it ever so laudable) to overcome those defects will end in failure. Not infrequently we meet persons who, while sincerely bent on reforming, direct all their attention to merely imaginary faults of theirs, thus fighting against windmills and leaving their real defects untouched. In monastic life this danger is prevented by the discipline specific to a religious order. By his superior to whom he owes obedience, the monk’s attention is directed to his real shortcomings and imperfections (including potential dangers) even before he is clearly aware of them himself. The monk or nun begins the struggle with his or her nature in a spirit of obedience, fighting this or that defect according to the superior’s instructions, though perhaps at first unaware of its actual presence. Herein lies one of the great means for the process of transformation with which monastic life provides the individual. Nevertheless, the final accomplishment of our transformation—the total uprooting of our vices, the levelling of hills and filling up of valleys—requires a thorough knowledge of our defects. We must beware of neglecting the basic part played by intelligence in our psychic life. For all volitional acts are conditioned by cognitive apprehension. The radical extirpation of a defect of character requires an interior knowledge of that defect. To be sure, we are not likely to attain true self-knowledge unless we are already engaged in combatting our bad qualities, though it be from obedience only to extrinsic authority. Still, in order to bring that fight to a successful close, from a certain stage onwards we must be equipped with an interior knowledge of our faults: for not otherwise can we overcome them in a radical and comprehensive sense.

Neutral self-knowledge does not help moral progress

However, the term self-knowledge may refer to rather different things. While true self-knowledge is an important instrument of sanctification, there is also such a thing as a spurious and sterile kind of self-knowledge which is apt to ensnare us into an attitude of egotism far worse than the natural one.

Whenever we take a purely psychological interest in ourselves and thus analyze our character in the manner of mere spectators, we pursue a false and sterile self-knowledge. We then envisage our character not by any standard of good and evil, but in entire neutrality as though we were analyzing some phenomenon of exterior nature. We leave our solidarity with our character to one side, and look upon ourselves as though we were observing some odd stranger. The fact that the person in question happens to be ourselves merely intensifies our curiosity, without changing its quality. We experience ourselves as we would a character in a novel, without in any way feeling responsible for his defects. Nay, as it will presently be shown, such an attitude prevents us altogether from comprehending those defects in their specific moral meaning and import. For, given an essentially amoral frame of reference (as implied by the pursuit of neutral self-knowledge), we are of necessity precluded from consideration of the true significance of our person. First, we are denied the capacity to understand completely a person as such. So far as a person is concerned—that is, a free being capable of rational behavior for which its relationship with God and the world of values is basic and constitutive—appropriate presentation itself is inseparable from appreciation. Secondly, we are even less able to take an adequate view of our own person in regard to the fact that it is our own, since our method of analysis debars us from experiencing responsibility for that person’s conduct. This method involves a fundamental falsification of the perspective in which to place our object of research. It is an arbitrary mutilation of our pattern of comprehension which is sure to warp our vision and to distort our picture.