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

by Alan Noble

belonging to yourself is no real comfort. If the choices are between a Christian anthropology and the contemporary anthropology, then at the very least we are no worse off by believing that we are not our own. Autonomy sounds comforting and freedom is valorized by society as one of the highest goods, but in practice freedom without limits is a kind of hell, as John Milton knew. It’s a hell that we carry within us. This hell may take the form of infinite disappointment in the face of unquenchable desire for wealth or experiences or sex. This is Durkheim’s “malady of the infinite.” Or it may take the form of choice paralysis—Esther Greenwood starving to death at the base of the fig tree because each fig is too lovely to neglect. Or it may feel like the endless project of inventing and optimizing and expressing yourself. Quite often it appears as the need for approval and affirmation, which is always just a bit too uncertain to be satisfying. If belonging to Christ makes you uncomfortable, consider whether you are actually comfortable belonging to yourself, or whether the Responsibilities of Self-Belonging demand more and more of you, leading you to rely on ever more coping mechanisms to make life tolerable.