Sometimes I think that of all the things we try to understand in the world, the understanding of ourselves may be as challenging as anything. Why did I respond in that way to him? Why do I find it so hard to get motivated to work on that assignment? What do I want to be when I grow up? As I approach the end of my sixth decade, I’ve come to conclude that, at least in this life, I’ll never be done with asking these questions.

I’ve been reading Ron Highfield’s God, Freedom and Human Dignity: Embracing a God-Centered Identity in a Me-Centered Culture. In the section I read today, Highfield talked about three levels of knowing. The first is the sensual level, where we learn about ourselves by our responses to sensory experiences–for example, I really like Buckeye Blitz ice cream. What we learn about our likes and dislikes and how we respond to various things can show us quite a bit but he argues can also become boring. The second level he proposes is the interpersonal. We learn quite a bit about ourselves as we relate to other human beings, who help us clarify things about our own identities in relationship to what we see of them. Yet the challenge here is that every person is finite and different from us. He contends for a third level of knowing, which is knowing ourselves in relationship to God.

The contention of this book is that the being of God does not threaten or diminish our sense of our dignity and identity. Many fear that the idea of God’s power or presence diminishes our sense of self-hood.  All this, Highfield argues, is based in a “competitive” view of God–kind of like a zero sum game where everything granted to God is a loss to us. Instead, Highfield proposes an eternally self-giving God who gives us existence not because of his need for us but his love for us, to exalt us with him. And, when it comes to self-knowledge, we most deeply find ourselves in the one who is our source, who knows us more deeply than ourselves, who loves us, and who has drawn us to himself in Christ.

This reminds me of the opening to Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion where he writes:

“Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.”

Calvin thought these two inextricably bound together, and it seems this author is proposing something similar. One of the things I’m wondering, and it is a serious question, is what an atheist account of self-understanding would look like–would it consist only of Highfield’s first two levels, or is there something else that would be added?