‘My drive in life comes from a fear of being mediocre. That is always pushing me. I push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being but then I feel I am still mediocre and uninteresting unless I do something else. Because even though I have become somebody, I still have to prove that I am somebody. My struggle has never ended and I guess it never will.’
-Interview with Madonna, Vogue–
Mentioning this interview, Keller discusses four main traits of the modern self. First off, the modern self is empty, so it has to fill it up with something. Just as Madonna has to keep doing so. Also secondly, it experiences pain. The reason that our own self experiences pain is that there is something wrong with it. Just as our body parts which are sick constantly draws our attention to them, our self constantly draws attention from others, for it is sick, Keller says. Otherwise, it feels painful, which Madonna’s interview shows convincingly. Thirdly, the modern self is busy. It has to move around constantly to draw others’ attention and affection. So Madonna is unceasingly busy. And it keeps comparing to others. As C.S. Lewis has said, selfish ego is not satisfied with having something, but having something more than those next to you. This is why our selves keep comparing them to others’, and no matter how many times they repeat such comparing their desire will never be gratified. Fourthly, our modern self is fragile. Keller likens such self of ours to be something distended and about to explode. We keep filling in to our selves, yet those things are neither solid nor conclusive, so they are likely to break and burst.
Paul’s Secret of Identity-Formation from the Gospel
Now that the problem has been diagnosed, it is now turn to provide a solution for it. Keller offers the secret of Apostle Paul on this issue, and it is in 1 Corinthians 3:21-4:7. What Keller engages with more attention and energy are 4:3-4.
3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. I do not even judge myself. 4 I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.
The unique characteristics of the modern self is that it is empty, and it has to make effort in filling it in, which in turn keeps comparing itself to others’. This cycle of effort and emptiness never ends, and this is what Keller means by the tragedy of the modern self. Keller’s response to this tragedy is not that we need to work even harder, but that we stop such effort. Getting out of that vicious cycle. However, we see no way out. Even so, Keller says that Paul shows a model of a person who is walking toward the way out. According to Keller, Paul is not interested in how others see him, nor is he interested in how he sees himself. Paul says that “it is a very small thing.” He does not judge who he is neither by his clear conscience, for Keller says, “Hitler had a clear conscience too.” While Paul is neither interested in others’ evaluation of him, nor his own evaluation of himself, he is only interested in God’s evaluation of who he is! The good news is, that God’s evaluation has been out, and it is that God has accepted him just as who he is! If Paul is paying attention to this and this only, while not being swayed neither by others nor by himself, Paul is on the journey of the freedom of self-forgetfulness. Whereas the world’s way of building self-identity is moving from performance to verdict, that is, from how much I work to who I am, the identity of the Christian-self moves inversely, from verdict to performance. Namely, we build our identity around God’s verdict of who we are, that is, God’s beloved, and then after that we move to perform everything we do based on who we are. If we keep doing so, then our modern self will be less empty, less painful, less busy, and less fragile. We will not work for others’ approval, nor do we condemn ourselves out of our own judgment of who we are. This is how the gospel of Jesus Christ builds and forms the self.