A great thinker of the 20th century, Francis A. Schaeffer, summed up man’s situation thus: “The dilemma of modern man is simple: he simply doesn’t know why man has any meaning. He is lost. Man remains a zero. It is the damnation of our generation. If a man cannot find any meaning for himself, that is his problem”.
This difficulty was compounded by Jean-Paul Sartre’s insistence that we have to create our own meaning, which has contributed to the whole mess and confusion of the search for self-understanding and the supposed possibility of inventing one’s identity today. The problem with that is, we are simply not able to invent ourselves; rather, from the very moment of our birth, we exist as “given”; wisdom dictates that we accept what cannot be changed, as the serenity prayer puts it.
In our reality today, we have to reckon that we come from somewhere; we have a back story. We cannot start out from scratch, neither can we abolish the past – our past. We are caught in existence at this moment in history.
What to do therefore? Re-invent ourselves? But we drag our past with us and we can never be dissociated from it. Rather, as we grow, we need light to guide us, truth to correct us, wisdom to instruct us on how to understand ourselves properly. “Know thyself” is not a banal piece of advice: it is the essence of our happiness and our survival. But that means we have to assess ourselves as we are, as objectively as we can (which is not easy when we are the subject). We have to assess judiciously how other people consider us: we all know how their opinions can do much harm in damaging our self-esteem, and how sometimes their assessment does us much good, boosting our morale. In fact, unknown to our own hearts, what we really need is for someone who knows us truly and who loves us dearly, to tell us who we are, why we are here and what the meaning is to our existence. That person exists! We must listen to him!
How to assess rightly our human reality?
The omniscient Creator who made humankind “in his image” is the one – the only one – capable of telling us who we really are as human beings. Of course, there are billions of different versions of humans throughout the globe; yet there is a commonality to our humanity that our Creator knows well. His kind wisdom gives us the vital indications we need in order to understand ourselves truly.
These indications were well grasped by the great French thinker Blaise Pascal, and his “thoughts” are very illuminating on this theme. He calls people to “know… what a paradox you are to yourself. Be humble, impotent reason! Be silent, feeble nature! Learn that man infinitely transcends man, hear from your master your true condition, which is unknown to you. Listen to God. Is it not clear that man’s condition is dual?”
Pascal calls us to be humble. What is humility? Its essence is to consider ourselves according to truth. Pride is considering ourselves as better than we are. Discouragement comes from considering ourselves as worse than we are. Humility strikes the balance, seeking both to assess and to accept the true reality of who we are. And Pascal’s profound insight is to recognise that this is “dual”. There are two essential sides to our human nature.
Pascal continues to explain that “there are two equally constant truths: One is that man in the state of his creation, or in the state of grace, is exalted above the whole of nature, made like God and sharing in his divinity. The other is that in the state of corruption and sin he has fallen from that first state and has become like the beasts. These two propositions,” he concludes, “are equally firm and certain” (Pensée §131/434).
Realising how our self-image impacts our mental health Pascal comments further, “It is dangerous to explain to man how like he is to the animals without pointing out his greatness. It is also dangerous to make too much of his greatness without his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both, but it is most valuable to represent both to him” (Pensée §121/418). So we really need to take on board both aspects of our reality – our nobleness and our vileness. We are great – the greatest of God’s creation; yet we are perverted, twisted, fallen from our pristine glory. And that is as true of you as it is true of me.
A final more amusing thought from this great French author: “Man is neither angel nor beast, and it is unfortunately the case that anyone trying to act the angel acts the beast”! (Pensée 678/358) He would thus pinprick the bubble of our pride. We are both wonderful, yet wicked; both marvellous and malevolent; both glorious in humanity’s origin and yet tragically fallen from such grace.
Clive Every-Clayton
Authentic Hope for Answers 
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