Who and what are we, really?

In Crossroads of Twilight, the character Egwene thinks the following observation:

The thing was filth, the theft of another person's will, of their whole being. Someone who was Compelled did anything you ordered. Anything. And believed it was their own choice. [1]

Note the assertion (or assumption) that a person's "whole being" consists of her will. Or, perhaps more subtly, a person's "whole being" seems to be tied up in her beliefs about her choice-making capacity. Is that who we are? Are we gloriously, staunchly, victoriously, and merely the results of our choices? Or the capacity for choice itself?

There are many signs that Choice is deified in our culture. Here are a couple of easy examples:

1. The debate over abortion is between those who see themselves as valuing Life, and those who see themselves as valuing Choice.
2. The debate over physician-assisted suicide is at least largely concerned with a person's right to choose death over life.

The deification of Choice in our culture (in many more spheres than those two examples) is a regression. Consider pre-Christian philosophy for a moment. M. T. Owens, Jr. summarizes Aristotle's view of freedom as follows:

Aristotle seems to reason in this way: to allow ourselves to be driven by passion is easy. But to be totally driven by passions is slave-like, or even beastly. To be a man one must act as a man. He must fulfill his nature. [2]

Of course, we don't really believe that whatever any consenting adult chooses is OK; there are limits. For example: at present, even though recreational drug use doesn't obviously limit anyone else's liberty, in the U.S. we still do not allow just anyone who so wishes to indulge. And even if we assume that in the future, recreational drug use will be increasingly legalized, surely there are other choices that will still be outlawed.

"To be totally driven by passions is slave-like." The Apostle Paul was aware of this phenomenon, and connected our fleshly passions with sin:

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. (Rom. 6:12) 

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Gal. 5:24)

My two easy examples above are just that -- easy examples of the deification of the idol of Choice in our culture. And yes, those are two examples of sin problems in our culture. And yet the underlying sin -- worshipping the idol of Choice, indulging our passions without subjecting them to the lordship of Christ -- is more serious and far-reaching than either of those easy examples.

Unlike Aristotle, we moderns don't like to think that there is any such thing as human nature, a way, established externally, that we are supposed to be. We want, instead, to create our own identities through self-definition, by choosing whom we will be. What springs to mind first, and most forcefully, if you ask yourself "who am I?" Here are some potential common answers:

• a nationality
• an ethnicity
• a parent who wants perfect children, or a child who craves parental approval
• a political position (Libertarian, Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, progressive, traditionalist, pro-Life, pro-Choice, feminist, etc.)
• a sexual orientation (or opposition to one)
• your gender
• a church grouping (R.C., S.B., PCA, ELCA, etc., etc., etc.)
• a geographical location (a Bostonian, a Texan, etc.)
• other...

All of us forge our identities in the image of one or more categories like these, and all too often those categories override the one, most important category, the category of those who need the Gospel: sinners offered eternal salvation by Christ's death and resurrection, and renewal and refining by his Holy Spirit. None of those other categories can truly compete with the Gospel category. When we spend more of our time and energy on some of those other categories than we do on our identity in Christ, we necessarily suffer, because we're not fulfilling God's purpose for us. (See Colossians 3:1-3.)

I have to work every day on the object of worship at the center of my life. Each day -- am I primarily concerned with the work of the Holy Spirit and what he may be calling me to do, so that God's purposes for me become the desire of my heart? All of us are prone to self-worship, and we all need the Holy Spirit to work in us to redirect us continually to God-worship. Each day -- am I a person centered on my own capacity for self-definition, or am I an adopted child of God, centered on my identity in him?

[1] Jordan, Robert. Crossroads of Twilight. New York: Tor, 2003. p. 811. Print.
[2] Owens, M. T., Jr. "ARISTOTLE'S POLIS: NATURE, HAPPINESS, AND FREEDOM." Reason Papers 6.Spring (1980): 69-77. www.reasonpapers.com. Web. 2 Sept. 2013. <http://www.reasonpapers.com/pdf/06/rp_6_7.pdf>.