“Who am I?” It’s a question that has perplexed philosophers, poets and every introspective teenager. Our sense of identity shapes everything from our friendships to our career paths. But finding true self-understanding can be a winding road full of twists, turns and unexpected detours. Will looking inward provide the answers? Or by gazing upward to God?
Today, we expect individuals to seek out new experiences and express themselves in many different ways so that they might discover who they are—what makes them feel that they are the best version of themselves. Is this unrestrained exploration the best path for self-discovery? Can Christians look to their hearts or the world around them to find their identity and purpose in life? Or since we have one life from God is it better to live in view of his purpose for our lives?
Self-Determination: Looking Inward and Outward
For many people self-discovery begins by looking inward to themselves and outward to new experiences. Especially as we go to school—especially college, and as we discover opportunities to explore ourselves and the world around us. These times can be helpful, fun, and enlightening. In this interesting time of self-discovery by exploration, it is vital—the world says—that there can be no infringement upon our self-discovery and actualization. No “liberty” can be infringed in the individual’s pursuit of becoming whatever identity might seem most attractive.
This model sounds normal to us doesn’t it? It is only when we reach the method’s inescapable end of complete self-determination that the results become uncomfortable. Carl Trueman in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self as well the abbreviated version Strange New World. Dr. Trueman has provided an excellent study of the world’s view of self and of self discovery. Dr. Trueman built on the work of Charles Taylor, in his book Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity where he noted the modern view of what it means to be a self. One of these key factors is “a focus on inwardness, or the inner psychological life, as decisive for who we think we are.”[1] With this method you can become anyone or anything with any gender, purpose, or role you choose.
Divine Determination: Looking Upward
Have you considered that God, as your Creator, has already shaped your identity? If this is true, then we must look to him to discover who we are. You may feel this robs you of some freedom. As you yield to God—rather than yourself—as your sovereign his will and purpose will take precedence over your own. But if there is a God and he has made you especially for himself and for his purposes, shouldn’t we look to him to discover who we are?
Notice the implications of Paul’s speech in Acts 17:26-27, “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.” God made each of us in a particular time and place so that we can fulfill his purpose—to find him, enjoy him, and worship him. In this model of self-discovery, the quest is to fulfill God’s purpose for our lives rather than our own self-expression or self-determination. Adam and Eve enjoyed Edenic perfection as they rested in God’s design and purpose for their lives and identities. When Satan offered the illusion of “being like God” and determining good and evil for themselves, they suffered the consequences of self-discovery without God and self-determination instead of God.
This biblical view offers us two great realities upon which to build our view of ourselves: 1) there is a God, and 2) we are not God. We could summarize it this way: God has made us for himself, and we cannot be God for ourselves. In this way we can discover who we are and who we should be. We also are blessed to find God as the unending fountain of good and perfect gifts (Js. 1:17). He blesses and gives when we trust and obey. He knows the weaknesses his people suffer and then glorifies his people.
Self-Discovery Through the Discovery of God
The Institutes of the Christian Religion begin intriguingly with a definition of wisdom. Calvin said:
The whole sum of our wisdom which is worth calling true and certain is practically comprised of two parts: that is, the knowledge of God and of ourselves. Of these, the first ought to show us not only that there is only one God whom all must worship and honor, but also that the same One is the fountain of all truth, wisdom, goodness, righteousness, judgment, mercy, power, and holiness, so that we may learn to expect and ask everything from Him, and also to acknowledge with praise and thanksgiving that all these things come from Him. The second part, by showing us our weakness, wretchedness, futility, and greed, leads us to feel cast down about and to distrust and hate ourselves; and then kindles in us a desire to seek for God, since in Him lies all the good of which we are empty and naked.[2]
Wisdom is to know yourself by knowing God. Foolishness is to know yourself as your own personal god. Do you know yourself? Do you determine who you are—your identity? Can you rest in God’s purpose and design of your life?
[1] Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, 22.
[2] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1541 French Edition, trans. Elsie Anne McKee (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009), 23.
Donnie's Dogmatics 