The ideal of authenticity is very strong in western culture. That is to say, people feel they ought to live a life that is authentic to who they really are. They want to live according to the truth of themselves as beings. This longing is partly in response to a sense that cultural conditions - technology, urbanisation, mass immigration - have made discovery of authenticity in life much harder, because our freedom has been so restricted.
It looks pretty selfish, and it has had some nasty outworkings. If you think that the authentic me is only discoverable internally to myself, from some intuitive sense of who I am without the constraints of what others say or the influences of others, then you can see what would result. If the ideal of authenticity is coupled with self-defining freedom, then what we are left with is a mess.
Interestingly, our great heroes are the artists who create (not copy or imitate). Rock musicians, for example, need to write AND perform the songs, because we value originality as a sign of authenticity. These heroes are above the constraints of ordinary relationships and boring morality. They can do what the heck they want - they do it almost on our behalf, because the rest of us can't.
But is the ideal of authenticity itself the problem? Charles Taylor (a Canadian philosopher) thinks most definitely not. Seeking to fulfil ones sense of self is surely one of the most basic drives of any human being. However, if the MEANS to fulfil myself is cut off from factors that are external to me - friends, family, morality, even God - then authenticity lapses into incoherence as a human ideal.
But authenticity isn't necessarily defeated by this. Authenticity as an ideal to strive for at least acknowledges that we human beings at least begin as strangers to ourselves. We do not start as people at one with who we are and what we are here to do, but rather feel we need to seek it. We are 'fallen', 'in the dark'.
For me, the question is: can this discussion of authenticity as an ideal be appropriated for theological discussion of what human selves are about?
I think that we should not be surprised to discover human beings longing to discover who they really are: one of the effects of the fall has been to hide even our true selves from view, to obscure us from ourselves. What do I mean? We seem to be at odds with those things that are essential to our identity formation: God, friends, family, others, world. We also aware of our own possibilty, and our own falling short of that self we imagine ourselves to be.
That the answer to the quest for the self is not found within the self is no surprise either for a theological world-view. The self is never posited as an enclosed independent system in a world-view that begins with a creator.
But is following another, namely Jesus Christ, in tune with this ideal of self-discovery? Can we say that becoming a follower of Jesus is finding your true self?
4 comments:
G'day Michael.
I would say that becoming a follower of Jesus means that we discover a lot about our old self, and that we are made into a new creation.
I think becoming a follower of Jesus causes us to seek out who we are called to be, and if our identity is truly in Christ then we don't have to worry so much about who we are as an individual, because we know who we are in our family.
craig
I think that we can say that becoming a follower of Jesus is finding your true self.
Michael, do you think you can explain a little more about what Charles Taylor means?
Seeking to fulfil ones sense of self is surely one of the most basic drives of any human being. However, if the MEANS to fulfil myself is cut off from factors that are external to me - friends, family, morality, even God - then authenticity lapses into incoherence as a human ideal.
Is he saying that our goal as humans is to seek fulfillment? And I wonder what that fulfillment entails?
I think that Christ is our only fulfillment. Having a relationship with God is God's intention for us since creation, thus a relationship with Christ, being a follower of Christ is fulfillment, it is what it means to find one's true self.
Hi Michael. I think we do "find ourselves", but only (as it were) by accident. As Jesus said, the one who tries to keep his or her own life will lose it, whereas the one who loses his or her life will find it. So I don't discover myself by seeking myself; rather, it's only as I am taken "outside myself" by the gospel that I am also authentically brought to myself. In the event of losing myself, I also find my true self, i.e., the self that is constituted "outside myself" in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Eberhard Jüngel places great emphasis on human "authenticity" and on the realisation of true humanness. But he also makes this witty remark, which I reckon is right on target: “The person who in everything seeks his own self will lose himself. The person who is always in pursuit of his own identity runs the risk of finding neither himself nor anything else for that matter.... In the endeavour to realise himself, man loses those possibilities which make human existence human” (Eberhard Jüngel, Death: The Riddle and the Mystery, p. 130).
It depends what is meant by "finding one's true self", "the self" and "authenticity".
(1) If what is meant is that we do not hide behind masks, we eschew all learned behaviour (including courtesy and manners) and the perceived artificiality of societal norms or the social contract, and we let it all "hang loose" then in finding ourselves, we will find that we won't like the real us at all (not to say the chaotic world that would arise from such "hang loose"-ness). Assuredly, we will find self-indulgence, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, folly, hypocrisy, murder, strife, sexual immorality, swindling, impurity, evil desires etc ad nauseum in our "authentic" selves.
(2) If we think it's about being "original" as in, a unique individual different from everyone else, then following Jesus isn't about finding yourself. It is not about originality. It is about all sorts of words that would give intellectual watchdogs heart attacks. It is about conforming; conforming to the likeness of God's Son (Rom 8:29). It is also about imitation: imitating the faith of faithful leaders (2 Thess 3, Heb 13:7) as they themselves imitated Christ.
(3) If what is meant is becoming an ideal person, fulfilling our potential as a wonderful human, then this assumes that there are some objective standards out there as to what a person and a human should be. And there they are in God's word, the Bible. For who would know better the potential of humans than the person who designed them, created them, sustains them and redeemed them?
Actually, knowing God gives a human all these three types of "finding one's true self" and "authenticity". For (1) through the gospel, we know our real selves, and we are dreadful sinners and despicable creatures and (2) through the gospel, we know that being individualistic and living our own unique way doesn't give us just gives us suffering and pain. But ironically, (3) it is by following and conforming and imitating that we set off in the right direction to becoming the ideal human; just as God created us, in relationship with him and our fellowmen.
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