Who am I? And how might I know?
These questions are as old as humanity, asked in the ancient world just as today. Already in the fourth century BC, the call to “know thyself” was inscribed above the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
Centuries earlier, King David asked a similar question about human significance: “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps. 8:4, ESV throughout). Drawing from Genesis 1, he answered,
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under his feet. (vv. 5–6)
While the Bible has much more to say about what it means to be human, David’s words here alert us to something fundamental: “Who am I?” is inseparable from the questions “What am I?” and “What is my purpose?”
It isn’t possible in this brief article to survey all that Scripture has to say on these questions. My aim here is more modest: to highlight four different approaches to reaching answers—approaches that are competing with one another not only in the world but also in the church.
The traditional approach (sometimes called essentialism) sees identity as something that is given to us to be received and lived accordingly. There’s great wisdom here, for it doesn’t take much reflection to realize that who and what we are is determined by a range of factors over which we have no control, such as where we are born, to whom we are born, what sex we are, or what name we are given.
In fact, identifying people in terms of such features is thoroughly biblical. Recall the moment, recorded in John 1, where Philip says to Nathanael, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (v. 45). Name, place, sex, and relationship are key elements of identity—even for Jesus!
These features are still core to how we self-identify today. My name is X; I was born in the city of Y in the year Z; I’m the child of A and B; I’m married to C and am the father of D. In short, the traditional approach is alive and well.
Yet it stands in marked tension with a more contemporary approach known as constructionism. In this view, identity is something we create; it’s a project we undertake, not a gift we receive. Consequently, many no longer ask, “Who am I?” but rather, “How do I identify?”
There’s a measure of truth here as well, for many things about us are not set in stone. This is why we (rightly) speak of identity development in children. As we grow, we have all kinds of experiences and make all kinds of decisions that help form who we are and how we show up in the world. Identity is thus made up of both primary and secondary elements. The primary pieces are those we can’t choose or change, while the secondary things are more superficial, voluntary, or experiential.
But that kind of distinction rubs against the autonomous spirit of our age, which is determined to displace reception with construction. Many, therefore, claim that givenness can be overridden by choice. “We get the body we get at birth,” argues Juno Dawson, who identifies as transgender, but “changes are within our grasp. We can go against the grain. … None of us are beholden to our bodies.”
Rather than choosing between essentialism and constructionism, some have opted for a middle way that affirms portions of both. The synthesis approach (sometimes called interactionism) recognizes the difference and relationship between the fixed and the flexible elements of identity. The traditional approach never denied that there are things about us that can be changed—our names, for example, or where we live—so the distinction is really one of detail and degree.
In any of these approaches, the challenge for the secularist is the “Sez who?” problem. Who says what can and can’t be changed? Who says what’s primary and what’s secondary? Who says that a person born with a male body can’t be or become a woman (or vice versa)?
The answer to the latter question is straightforward from a biblical standpoint. For if there’s one thing Scripture makes abundantly clear, it is that God takes our bodies very seriously; they are key to who and what we are. (For more details, see The Body God Gives.) But if we abandon that worldview—and particularly if we replace it with a constructionist perspective—the answer may not seem so obvious.
Though in some regards less confused, even traditional and synthesis approaches to identity will run into trouble if they ignore God. Not just by failing to acknowledge his existence but—since we were made by him and for him as Augustine well said—not finding rest (or ourselves) until we find it in him. We will thus never begin to know who we are until we first know whose we are.
Theologian Michael Horton expresses it succinctly: “The ‘self’—understood as an autonomous individual—does not exist.” That’s why the so-called paradox of identity (we don’t find ourselves by looking into ourselves) is not really so paradoxical. We don’t find ourselves by looking inward, because we are not self-derived. We find ourselves only by looking outward to others and, ultimately, upward to our Creator.
And just as we didn’t create ourselves, so we cannot redeem ourselves. This is why we Christians speak of finding our identity in Christ. Is it any wonder Jesus said, “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39)? For only he, the Savior of sinners, can teach us the truth about ourselves, transform us into our true selves, and enable us to fulfill our God-given purpose.
Robert S. Smith is the author of The Body God Gives: A Biblical Response to Transgender Theory, CT’s Book of the Year Award of Merit selection.
