Authenticity and Identity

If authenticity is to be a guiding moral ideal, we must have some notion of what a self is and how to identify who we really are. Introspection, by all accounts, is inadequate, even misleading. There are three basic approaches:

1. The existential option: We may observe the narratival pattern of our lives thus far and creatively extend it, calling future actions authentic when they help produce a coherent narrative.

2. The revelatory option: We may depend on Scripture to tell us who we are and what is consistent with so being.

3. The dialectical option: We may enact what appears to us to be our values in order to discover whether they are truly our values.

The existential option does not require there to be any pre-existing fact of the matter as to what we are. We create a self from our actions, and so long as they cohere we can call our actions authentic. Only conflicting actions--ones which pull the narrative flow of our lives in different directions--can be called inauthentic. Which action is inauthentic in such a case, moreover, cannot always be determined beforehand. It may be that narratival unity can be preserved by disowning either action, in which case authenticity will not guide one's choice. In other cases, one action stands out against the backdrop of one's life as out of place.

The revelatory option has a major flaw as an account of authenticity for anyone who cares about the usual conception of authenticity. If we look solely to Scripture, then what is revealed about us is not individual. Each of us is shown to be the same so far as Scripture's account of our deep nature goes: sinners in need of redemption, created in the image of God, and so on. Nowhere does it say what I, now, in my particular situation, am to do with my unique self. It provides bounds and principles, of course, but that does not fit with the main point of an ideal of authenticity.

The dialectical option is essentially an experimental approach to authenticity. On this account, we have a deep nature which is revealed in situations. We discover who we are by doing things and seeing how they turn out for us. This is very similar to the existential option, except it presumes that there is some pre-existing fact of the matter about who we are, so that we can be true to ourselves or not. Yet, this fact is concealed from us and only comes to light as we act on what we seem to know about ourselves thus far. There is thus an interpretive spiral regarding ourselves on this view. We start with some view of ourselves, act on it, then alter our view in accordance with what our actions expose about ourselves--our talents, desires, values, abilities, etc. We repeat this over the course of our lives, changing course a little bit with every action. Each account of ourselves being merely a hypothesis to be tried or theory in the works.

It will come as no surprise that I think elements of each of these three views are correct. Scripture does reveal who we truly are, and if we are to be true to ourselves we must, minimally, be true to the nature we share with all humanity. To get a fuller picture of ourselves to be authentic to, however, we must observe ourselves. We must observe what we have shown ourselves to care about and the traditions out of which we live. We should ask how we see someone with this life history going on to live, interpreting our life histories--which extend to before our births, to family histories and traditions of thought--through the lens of Scripture. We should then live into a preliminary picture of who we appear to be, ready to change course as it becomes apparent, whether through our own dissatisfaction or the advice of others, that the course we are on does not fit us.