Can We Know (Or Express) Identity?

[St_Aloysius]

A while back I read about this amazing man, a stigmatic priest, who said that the most important thing we can ever ask ourselves is, “Who am I?” He went on to say that certain Christians often felt compelled to retort that “Who is Christ?” takes priority, but that who he is would not matter if we hadn’t some fleeting idea of who we were. If we do not know we are sinners in need of grace, or beings created in the very image and likeness of God, then he is (seemingly) irrelevant.

I thought about this and it made sense: A student in History will ask, “Why do I have to learn this?” The teacher will reply, “Because history repeats itself.” In other words, it has a bearing on him. *Now *it may matter to him.

He (the priest) continues by telling an old story in which a man dies and goes to heaven. God asks him to tell him who he is. He says his name. God replies, “No, not your name. Who ARE you?” The man says he was the husband of So-and-so. God says, “I did not ask whose husband you were. I asked who you ARE.” After many attempts, finally, exhausted, the man realizes he cannot do it. God, therefore, sends him back to earth–as a man who doesn’t even know himself cannot be worthy of, or ready for, heaven.

The moral of the story is to teach us to think of identity as something internal–and perhaps inexpressable. As something profound and unique and beyond the superficialities we too often associate it with.

It made me think: Can we ever know our identity in the sense of being able to articulate it? Or do we have to simply experience it? To KNOW it, and never be able to verbalize what exactly our identity consists in?

 

[mathematician]

A while back I read about this amazing man, a stigmatic priest, who said that the most important thing we can ever ask ourselves is, “Who am I?” He went on to say that certain Christians often felt compelled to retort that “Who is Christ?” takes priority, but that who he is would not matter if we hadn’t some fleeting idea of who we were. If we do not know we are sinners in need of grace, or beings created in the very image and likeness of God, then he is (seemingly) irrelevant.

I thought about this and it made sense: A student in History will ask, “Why do I have to learn this?” The teacher will reply, “Because history repeats itself.” In other words, it has a bearing on him. *Now *it may matter to him.

He (the priest) continues by telling an old story in which a man dies and goes to heaven. God asks him to tell him who he is. He says his name. God replies, “No, not your name. Who ARE you?” The man says he was the husband of So-and-so. God says, “I did not ask whose husband you were. I asked who you ARE.” After many attempts, finally, exhausted, the man realizes he cannot do it. God, therefore, sends him back to earth–as a man who doesn’t even know himself cannot be worthy of, or ready for, heaven.

The moral of the story is to teach us to think of identity as something internal–and perhaps inexpressable. As something profound and unique and beyond the superficialities we too often associate it with.

It made me think: Can we ever know our identity in the sense of being able to articulate it? Or do we have to simply experience it? To KNOW it, and never be able to verbalize what exactly our identity consists in?

I would say you find out who you are by observing the things that inspire you, anger you, make you fell good. Aassuming that it is more than a cultural thing, ask yourself why you are a Catholic. Not the intellectual and superficial reasons the Church hands out, but deep down.

 

[mschrank]

Wow, fascinating question.

I think the dilemma here is the subject/object opposition. When we use language to describe something, even if it is ourselves, it becomes the object of the sentence. I (subject) am (verb) X (object).

So, how do you describe what “you” are in human language? To me, this sounds like a koan, i.e., what is the sound of one hand clapping? “Know thyself” seems to be just that- a koan in purely human terms.

Of course the Easterners have no God (per say) to reveal the answer to that. I am what God says I am would be the proper answer, and I suppose we have to ask Him to reveal that to us.