Quite Beyond Us
Patrick Henry Reardon on the Unfathomable Self-Consciousness of Jesus
Jesus, as he appears in the Gospels, resists man’s efforts to comprehend him. There is a sense in which this is true of all human beings, I concede, but in the singular case of Jesus this resistance to interpretation is marked in a unique and special way. The “who” of Jesus, which he pointedly put in question form, remains utterly elusive apart from a special revelation (Matt. 16:15–17).
We have at least some chance of understanding other men “from within,” by recourse to the principle of intersubjectivity, the assumption of the common structure of self-awareness in all human souls. Each of us goes inside and finds a “self,” nor does the experience differ essentially from person to person.
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Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor emeritus of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Out of Step with God: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Numbers (Ancient Faith Publishing, 2019).
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