Who Am I? My Authentic Self and the Beauty of Material Truth

I am going to start with a basic claim that the Authentic Self, the goal of “finding myself” is impossible to achieve using just episteme. We cannot plan the path to the Authentic Self. The Authentic Self, if we are to assume it is living out the image and likeness of God, must be transcendent in its fullness. And as the transcendent is beyond the dimensions of time and space, episteme knowledge is not enough in order to “find myself”. There is more. What a horrible trick it seems God is playing on us! What a horrible trap! We are material and limited to time and space, ourselves, yet we desire to “find” that which is beyond our means! God seems to be that teacher who gives a test, and most of the questions on the test were never covered in class. It is impossible to pass that kind of a test. But Christianity assumes a few things to be True about God. First, God is Agapically Loving and desires us to experience that Agapic Love. That Love is what will, ultimately, make us happy. Second, God creates the material world and calls it “good”. There must be something good about material epistemology, and in order for it to be good, it must relate to Truth that is more than any good we could comprehend or imagine. The Truth of this material world must, somehow, relate to the telos of God’s goodness and God’s Love…and our True image and likeness. So, we can assume that material Truth of this world is, first, not an end to itself, but rather, a sign pointing to something greater. The material Truth of this world needs to be seen, not in terms of how it relates to us as humans, but how it reveals the image and likeness of God. This is Sacramentality and Sacramental Vision. In this Pit of the material world, Sacramentality and Sacramental Vision invites us to look at everything around us as ropes or packages revealing God’s desire for us to Trust Him... to be happy through a relationship with Him. The material Truths around us, if we view them rightly, can direct our vision to the One who Created all of it and called it “good.” In time, maybe we can start to look at the people around us as more than just material, too, and we can see all people as Sacramental and “very good”.

(Majestic Puppy)