The True Self and the False Self

Although Merton wrestled with his understanding of the self his whole life, his writings give a well-formed description of the true self and false self.[1]  The true self is who a person was created to be in union with God: “the man who is free and upright, in the image and likeness of God” (The Silent Life, p.22).  The life of the true self is the life lived in Paradise, before the Fall, when there was truly no separation between God and man.  A constant communion and contemplation of God was the essence of the true self. 

Being made like God, humans are created as free agents who act and will.  Unlike other creatures, whose nature is determined for them, we are made with the freedom to be whatever we like (Seeds of Contemplation, pp.26-30).  God’s intent is that we would be like Him by choosing to accept, love and do His will.  Human freedom is the ability to love God, to do his will as one’s own will.  To be one’s true self is to live in the liberty God gives so that one may consciously and willfully accept the fullness of his existence, which is to reflect back in his freedom the God who made him.  Freedom is given to man so that he may find himself by choosing to love God.

One’s true self is hidden in God, and it is only found by seeking Him.  To become one’s true self, he must find it in God, as Merton explains: “Therefore there is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God.  If I find Him, I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him” (p.29).  This one, chief problem of human existence is complicated by the presence of sin and man’s depravity since Adam.  In fact, Merton emphasizes that to find oneself in finding God is immensely difficult, so that no man can do it alone, and neither can “all the men and all the created things in the universe help him in this work” (p.30).  The only one, he says, who can teach us to find God and our true self is God and Him alone. 

copyright 2010

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[1] Merton was always reformulating his ideas, and in part the mutation of his thought is due to his theological method.  He did not try to systematize his theology so much as plumb its depths.  He was dealing with a subject that was very personal to him, and as he changed, his understanding changed, too.  Because of his relentless penetration into these ideas, there exists a substantial theology of the self in Merton’s writings.  As Anne Carr says, “The problem of the self remained an intense concern for Merton, and he understood it as a central issue […] In a very broad sense, he sketched the outlines of what may be called a symbolic theology of the self (Carr 1988, p. 3).