You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World

by Alan Noble

If some of this sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve heard it in the form of self-help, pop-psychology, or positive self-esteem advice. You may have been told by an earnest high school teacher that you don’t have to try so hard, or you don’t need the approval of others. Maybe your favorite pop star or actor encouraged you (along with the rest of their fans) to love yourself just the way you are. But as we saw with existential justification, secular assurances that we are “all right” always turn out to be based on our own will, our own effort, and our ability to assure ourselves that we are all right because we believe we are all right. Your identity is secure only insofar as you feel it to be secure. No one outside of you can truly affirm your identity. Really the best we can do is remind one another that we each individually have the power to declare that our identity is good. In other words, your identity is a creation of pure subjectivity, sustained and affirmed by subjectivity. But identity always calls for external affirmation, a witness, which is one very good reason why modern people are perpetually in an identity crisis.