RS1:
Going back to my earlier question about where does God end and where do we begin…I realize that I am asking the wrong question. The problem with the question is that the relationship is dynamic and therefore ever changing between God and ourselves so you cannot have a fixed static point of responsibility. It is like when trying to come up with a definition of God inevitably one is limited by the definitions of the words that you use.
Dear RS1,
God is without end, and is within us. We are made in His image, and the indwelling Spirit is within us, all the time speaking with groanings difficult to perceive in a busy life. Many Catholics are unaware or underinformed on the fact that we are part human and part divine. It is our divine self, or true self, that was made in the image of God and seeks to be in union with Him while our false self seeks to be in union with the world.
As far as responsibility, if you actively seek to be transformed in heart and mind, the issue of responsibility becomes less important. Your flesh will take less precedence and your spirit more as it gets stronger, so you will automatically be moved to do better things. When you spoke of “responsibility” in an earlier post, it sounded like you might be talking about the constant sin-awareness that our cultural shaping has brought; not that we should be unaware of sin, but IMO it could cause an undue focus on avoiding what’s wrong, almost like the superstitious “step on a crack break your mother’s back” where we are so busy looking down at where we are walking we don’t even see where we’re going. Seek Him with an open heart and open mind, and these things will go away.
As far as the “self” and identity, there can be no notion of “self” without a contrasting notion of “other.” When babies are born, (and you must be like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven) they are believed by some to have an “oceanic” feeling where they do not truly distinguish what is a part of them and what is a part of their environment. Further, if one tries to definitively describe where the “self” leaves off and “other” begins, one finds the argument to be relative, and a matter of rhetorical convenience. You cannot be described without your environment, and probably can’t absolutely answer the question of “how many ‘things’ are you?” Are you many things and even many species, as a physicist of biologist might view you, or are you one of a group, as a sociologist might view you? Is the air inside your lungs part of you or part of your environment? Do you breathe or are you “breathed?” The answers are relative and depend on the reason for asking.
Therefore the whole notion of “self,” implying an “other,” came to be formed in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve separated themselves from all that is good. We are separated from that which is “not self” including that which we call “God” and that which we call “each other.” That is why we must die to our very selves in order to inherit the kingdom of God. That way we will be united and can “re-member” the dismembered Body of Christ as we do in spirit in the Eucharist.
Incidentally, I once heard a secular (used to be Anglican priest, then Buddhist guru, then neither) philosopher talk about the “real person.” The word “person” comes from “persona” or “per-sona” meaning with sound. The persona of actors in a play referred to the mask they put on, through which the sound carried. Therefore the “real person” is an oxymoron because the persona is based on the outside appearance.
Alan
