“Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be; embrace who you are.” – Brené Brown
Foreword
Have you ever wondered, “What if?”
I have.
Had my father not stopped me from pursuing ballet school, singing for the Drakensberg Boys Choir, or other artistic paths — would I have become the me I am?
If my tuition fees for tertiary education hadn’t been stolen and I’d studied textile design, who would I have been?
If addiction hadn’t found me, what might time, resources, and difference have created in me instead?
Bigger still: if Jesus had not encountered me, would I even be alive?
The unbearable impossibility of “what if” is more than hindsight or missed opportunity. It raises a deeper question: how much of ourselves is self-created at all?
Today’s blog explores what some great thinkers have to say about that.
Introduction
We are constantly told: “Be whoever you want to be.” Identity today is seen as a project of self-invention, as if the self were a blank canvas, unbound by history, biology, community, or even nature. From social media bios to gender fluidity to consumer branding, the modern self is imagined as self-made, accountable to nothing but choice, preference, and inner desire.
But what if this is a myth?
This blog explores the tension between that modern assumption, that we are our own origin, and the theological, philosophical, and even sociological accounts that challenge it. To say we can’t be our own origin is not a denial of freedom, but a recognition of truth: that the self is always formed in relation to others, to the past, and to the transcendent.
Across this piece, we’ll draw from thinkers like Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Jean Vanier, Stanley Hauerwas, and John Milbank. They each show, in their own way, that identity is not invented, but received; not conjured from within, but discovered in relation to the world and to God.
What follows is not merely a critique of postmodern identity politics or expressive individualism. It is an invitation: to recover the dignity of being shaped, not by our whims, but by something older, deeper, and more human than we’ve been told.
The Modern Illusion: Identity as Invention
We live in a culture where the self is understood as a kind of fiction we are free, even expected, to write. Identity is no longer inherited; it is performed, expressed, or assembled. From the curated social media persona to the language of “self-made” success, the modern subject is imagined as an autonomous author of their own meaning.
Philosopher Charles Taylor describes this phenomenon as the rise of the “buffered self,” a self that sees itself as invulnerable to anything external, no longer defined by community, tradition, or transcendence.¹ What emerges from this condition is a form of expressivism, the idea that to be true to oneself, one must look inward and project outward. Identity, then, becomes a performance of internal feeling, not the reception of external meaning.
This illusion, however, is neither neutral nor harmless. As Alasdair MacIntyre argued, when we detach identity from its embeddedness in tradition and narrative, we are left with what he called emotivism: a moral landscape where preferences replace virtues, and meaning becomes little more than individual assertion.² In such a world, the self is no longer a character in a shared story, it is simply a set of reactions in search of applause.
Yet this vision of self-creation contains a deeper contradiction. It imagines freedom as beginning from nowhere, as if identity could be conjured without context, formed without formation. But even our most “authentic” expressions are only made possible by the language, categories, and relationships we did not choose. There is, in other words, no self without an origin, and no origin that is self-authored.
Narrative Identity and the Gift of Origin
To be human is not to invent oneself, but to inherit a story. We arrive in the world already named, already spoken to, already embedded in meanings we did not choose. Our lives begin not with authorship, but with reception, and this reception is deeply narrative. We are born into families, cultures, histories, and traditions that shape the very grammar of our identity.
This is the vision Alasdair MacIntyre offers when he insists that “man is in his actions and practice, as well as in his fictions, essentially a story-telling animal.”³ Identity, in this light, is not a blank canvas but a plotline. We become intelligible to ourselves only within a story that precedes us, one that gives structure to our desires, obligations, and hopes. Without this story, the self becomes a fragment, a disconnected moment with no reference to beginning or end.
This emphasis on narrative is not a retreat from freedom but its proper grounding. As John Milbank argues, modern attempts to isolate the individual as a pure, self-creating subject lead not to liberation, but to a loss of meaning.⁴ When the self is severed from the shared history and tradition that form it, what remains is not freedom but incoherence. “Narration,” Milbank writes, “is the final mode of comprehension of human society.”⁵ In other words, to know who we are is to know the story we are in.
The Christian tradition affirms this. The human being is not a solitary agent but a creature made in the imago Dei, the image of a relational, narrative God who speaks creation into being.⁶ Identity, then, is not a personal invention but a divine gift. It is received in relationship, to God, to others, and to the world. And it is sustained not through performance, but through participation in a story that precedes us and carries us toward our true end.
The Crisis of the Self: Expressivism, Emotivism, and the Loss of Telos
When identity is uprooted from tradition and origin, the self becomes both the project and the problem. With no narrative horizon, no telos beyond the self, modern identity collapses inward, burdened with the impossible task of self-definition. The expressive individual must constantly project their authenticity, but with no reference point beyond feeling, this authenticity becomes arbitrary. As a result, identity becomes fragile, easily threatened, easily offended, and increasingly performative.
This condition is what Charles Taylor refers to as the “malaise of modernity,” the disorientation that results when the individual becomes their own moral source.⁷ Having rejected external frameworks of the good, the modern self finds itself with only the internal voice of preference and desire. But this voice, cut off from any transcendent referent, grows uncertain, anxious, and fragile.
Alasdair MacIntyre describes this moral collapse as the rise of “emotivism,” a culture in which moral judgments are merely expressions of personal feeling, and not rational evaluations of shared goods.⁸ In such a world, moral disagreement becomes unresolvable, because no common framework remains. What matters is not whether something is good or true, but whether it aligns with one’s self-defined narrative. Conflict becomes not a contest of ideas, but a clash of identities; a crisis of meaning.
At the cultural level, this condition produces what Francis Fukuyama calls “identity politics,” a politics grounded not in shared vision, but in the recognition of wounded selves.⁹ While originally a response to real injustices, this politics of identity can devolve into a zero-sum struggle for visibility and affirmation. The problem is not recognition itself, but the assumption that the self is best known apart from, rather than within, a shared moral horizon.¹⁰ The result is a self so sovereign it cannot be questioned, yet so vulnerable it must be constantly affirmed.
This is not freedom. It is exhaustion.
Theological Anthropology: We Receive Before We Achieve
Against the modern myth of self-creation stands the older truth of theological anthropology: that the self is not a solitary invention but a received gift. From a Christian perspective, identity is not something we author, but something we discover, not in isolation, but in relation to God, others, and the world. The self is not a project of assertion, but a vocation of response.
Stanley Hauerwas argues that we do not get to make up our lives, we are “drafted” into them.¹¹ To be human, in this view, is not to express one’s autonomy, but to learn how to live faithfully within a story that was already in motion before we arrived. This story is not abstract; it is embodied in communities, practices, and traditions that shape and sustain identity over time.
This is why, as Jean Vanier emphasised, human identity is always relational before it is individual.¹² We come to know who we are through belonging, through shared vulnerability, and through the recognition that our deepest identity is not achieved through performance, but received in love. In Vanier’s work with the intellectually disabled, the illusion of self-sufficiency is dismantled, and in its place emerges a vision of humanity that is humble, dependent, and holy.
Naming is a sacred act in Scripture. From the creative speech of Genesis (“Let there be…”) to the renaming of Abram, Jacob, and Simon, names in the biblical imagination are not arbitrary labels, but divine callings. They reveal identity and confer purpose.¹³ The act of naming, like creation itself, is relational, spoken into being by Another. In this way, Christian anthropology begins not with autonomy, but with gift: we are created, named, and called before we ever choose or speak.
Our culture may preach the gospel of self-creation, but Christianity invites us into a different freedom; not the burden of making ourselves, but the grace of being made.
The Triumph of Inner Authority: Trueman and the Psychologised Self
Carl Trueman argues that the modern West is experiencing not merely a shift in moral standards but a deeper revolution in the very structure of identity.¹⁴ Drawing from thinkers like Philip Rieff and Charles Taylor, he shows how the self has become increasingly “psychologised,” with inward feeling elevated as the ultimate source of truth, value, and purpose.
This transformation, Trueman explains, did not happen overnight. It follows a long arc from Rousseau’s romantic individualism, through the sexual theories of Freud, to the expressive activism of the New Left. In this genealogy, identity becomes detached from biology, tradition, and transcendence — no longer something received, but something felt, declared, and imposed.¹⁵ The result is a culture where disagreement with one’s self-expression is no longer seen as moral discourse, but as a denial of personhood itself.
What is especially insightful in Trueman’s work is how he connects this shift to institutions. In earlier societies, identity was shaped and stabilised by institutions like the church, the family, or the state. But today, these same structures are expected to affirm identity, not form it.¹⁶ The institution becomes therapeutic: its purpose is not discipline, but affirmation. And with that, authority becomes inverted, it no longer flows from tradition or office, but from inner sincerity.
Trueman’s warning is subtle but profound: when the self becomes sovereign, every external structure must bow. And when that happens, truth becomes negotiated, meaning becomes manufactured, and the burden of identity becomes unbearably personal.
Why Jesus Defeats All Identity Expressions
In a world where identity is self-authored, self-performed, and self-protected, the gospel introduces an unthinkable claim: you are not your own (1 Cor. 6:19). Christian identity begins not in self-expression but in self-surrender, and more radically, in death. “For you died,” Paul writes, “and your life is now hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). This is not the loss of identity, but its transfiguration.
The Bible does not deny the uniqueness of the individual; it re-roots it. Throughout Scripture, human worth is never based on performance, heritage, race, or role, but on the imago Dei, the image of God (Gen. 1:27). But this image is fractured by sin, and no identity, sexual, political, cultural, or moral, can restore what has been lost. Only the true Image of God, Jesus Christ (Col. 1:15), can do that.
Jesus doesn’t merely offer a better version of ourselves; He offers Himself as the foundation of a new self. In Him, we are “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17), “no longer strangers… but fellow citizens” (Eph. 2:19), and given “the right to become children of God” (John 1:12). These are not subjective identity markers, they are objective realities, spoken and secured by divine authority.
Even more paradoxically, the gospel affirms that to truly find ourselves, we must lose ourselves (Matt. 16:25). In a culture obsessed with “finding your truth,” Jesus offers something scandalous: the truth (John 14:6). This truth is not flexible, not fluid, and not curated, it is a Person who is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8).
Thus, Christ does not compete with our identity expressions; He crucifies them and resurrects them. Where modern identity fractures and exhausts, Jesus restores and completes. Where postmodernism offers many “selves,” Jesus offers one: beloved, forgiven, redeemed, and known.
Conclusion: From Self-Made to God-Given
The modern myth of self-creation offers freedom but delivers fragility. It promises meaning without origin, identity without inheritance, and purpose without transcendence. Yet as we have seen, this vision collapses under its own weight. The idea of a self-made self is not only philosophically incoherent, it is existentially exhausting.
From MacIntyre’s critique of emotivism, to Taylor’s warning about the buffered self, to Trueman’s analysis of expressive individualism, the story is clear: when we unmoor the self from tradition, community, and metaphysical grounding, we are left with identity as performance, and meaning as assertion. The result is not liberation, but loneliness, a generation grasping for authenticity in a world where nothing is given, and everything must be constructed.
Against this backdrop, Christianity tells a different story. A story where identity is received, not invented. A story where meaning is discovered, not manufactured. A story where freedom comes not from self-assertion, but from self-surrender to the One who created us, knows us, and calls us by name.
In Jesus Christ, we are not undefined fragments floating in postmodern chaos.
We are beloved.
We are known.
We are not our own.
And that is the best news of all.
TRACK TO ENJOY:
Prayer
Lord Jesus,
Looking around at the boxes, labels, definitions, expectations, and social incentives that other everything, it is scary to step, like Peter, onto the water of uncertainty. Especially when certain physics theories so persuasively say nothing binds as distinctive. It is difficult to imagine the possibility of nothing when what we have, better or worse, is all that we have.
Help us, Holy Spirit, to let go. To take a leap of faith that an ordered universe comes from an ordered mind, and by proxy of this great earth, that such a mind is brilliant, good and kind.
Where influence has painted neurological pictures of who we are, help us take the adventurous road of discovery so that we may truly become.
Lord Jesus, bring heaven to earth in each of us, and help us to stretch out that gracious hand of love to others too.
In Your magnificently Holy and mighty name, Messiah, Lord, King Jesus,
Amen.
Footnotes
¹ Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 111–113.
² Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 11–18.
³ Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 216.
⁴ John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 260–261.
⁵ Ibid., 268.
⁶ See Genesis 1:26–27; John 1:1–3; and Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/1: The Doctrine of Creation, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (London: T&T Clark, 1958), 183–185.
⁷ Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 3–5.
⁸ Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007), 11–12.
⁹ Francis Fukuyama, Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition (London: Profile Books, 2018), 6–7.
¹⁰ Ibid., 35–36.
¹¹ Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), 55.
¹² Jean Vanier, Becoming Human (Toronto: House of Anansi, 1998), 45.
¹³ See Genesis 1:3, 17:5, 32:28; Matthew 16:18.
¹⁴ Carl Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2020), 36–38.
¹⁵ Ibid., 104–106.
¹⁶ Ibid., 158–162.
¹⁷ 1 Corinthians 6:19, Colossians 3:3.
¹⁸ Genesis 1:27, Colossians 1:15.
¹⁹ 2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 2:19, John 1:12.
²⁰ Matthew 16:25, John 14:6, Hebrews 13:8.
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