What Makes Me Human? Exploring Identity and Dignity
This article is a summary of the video, written by pastor, apologist and speaker Sam Allberry, created by OCCA, The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.
I came of age in the 90s, and one of the things that we were preoccupied with in that era was finding ourselves. A lot of the movies at that time, The Matrix, Dances With Wolves, etc. had storylines of people discovering who they really were.
Like many others, I took a gap year after high school, and the guidebook for the country I was visiting promised that we would not only find ourselves, but somehow lose ourselves at the same time. I wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but it captured the mood of the moment. And while I now look back and gently tease that way of thinking, it points to something true for all of us: we don’t naturally have a clear grasp of who we really are. There is often a gap between our identity and our understanding of it.
If you look up ‘self-discovery’ on a website like Amazon, you’ll realise how big the ‘personal growth’ sector is. It’s now seen as a normal part of growth, maturing, and a healthy lifestyle to work on your own identity. But to understand the question what makes me, me? We need to ask a broader question, which is what makes me human.
Are We Fundamentally Minds?
How does that help me think about my identity? Well, there are a number of different ways people have tried to answer that question. There are some who would say, what makes us human is that we are fundamentally minds. Descartes famously said, “I think, therefore I am.” [1] When you boil everything else down, when you strip everything else away, we are minds. And that’s an attractive position to hold. We sense there’s something that sets us apart from the animal kingdom. And so maybe that’s what accounts for it, that we have this capacity for rationality that other creatures don’t have. And certainly, if we’re more of a ‘thinky’ type anyway, it feels like it’s affirming our ‘thinkingness’ to say that it’s our minds that make us human. But actually, if we ponder about that for a moment, it doesn’t quite work. Do we really want to say that someone’s human value is tied to their capacity to think? Do we want to say that those who have less intellectual capacities are less human? That takes us into some dodgy places.
Are We Fundamentally Animals?
Others might say it’s not that we’re fundamentally minds at all. We’re fundamentally animals. And there’s nothing that truly sets us apart from other creatures. We share a vast amount of our DNA with chimpanzees; we have a lot of traits in common with other creatures. We have the same instincts to mate, to eat, to rest. Some for instance, point out that same sex behaviour exists across various species. I saw a sign during Pride Month that said that there are 1500 species that practice some form of homosexuality, so clearly, it’s natural.
But if we think about it, that rationale still doesn’t quite satisfy us. In so many ways, we know we’re meant to be different to the animals around us. We hold ourselves to higher standards. Take sexual ethics. Where would our concept of consent be if we just took our cue from the animal world around us? Think of species like the black widow spider, where the female eats the male after mating? Do we want to say that’s natural? Do we want to say that’s okay just because we see it in the animal world? No, we rightly hold ourselves to higher standards than animals. We are animals. We are creatures. But we’re more than that. Our humanity shows us that we’re distinct.
Are We Fundamentally Resources?
Others would say, we’re fundamentally resources. We don’t like to think of ourselves that way, but for companies we’re consumers, for politicians, we are voters. And even in our own terms, we tend to think of ourselves in terms of what we can achieve, of what we can earn, of what we can do, of what we’ve accomplished. We often ask each other, “what do you do?” and someone’s answer to that question can determine where we put them in our own ranking of importance. We tend to assume that someone with a more specialised, higher earning job is somehow more worthy as a person. And someone with celebrity status has really reached the pinnacle of value and worth!
Deep down we know that’s a shallow way to think. Our dignity can’t be tied simply to what we can do or achieve. When people reach old age and begin to wonder whether they can still contribute anything, we want to say clearly: yes, you do matter. Are we still valuable? We want to say yes, you are. Your worth has never depended on your productivity or usefulness to society. It rests in who you are, not what you do.
The Search for the “Internal” Self
I think the most common way of answering the question of what makes me a human – what makes me, me is to say that I’m a self. I look inside myself and I discover an identity there. I discover yearnings there, and those need to be expressed and fulfilled for me to be truly myself, for me to be authentic, for me to be complete, for me to be fulfilled. Where previous generations may have taken their identity from their community or from their family, we tend to take our identity from looking within ourselves and trying to discern in our own hearts who we really are. We’ve made it a matter of flourishing. We say to people, “you’ve got to figure out who you are. You’ve got to figure out what you want to do. No one else can tell you that. That’s just for you to decide.”
The Conflict of Affirmation
This search for self has increasingly become a matter of justice. Identity is now seen as something to be discovered and expressed, even as a human right. The expectation that follows is that others will affirm and receive that identity, which helps explain why these conversations can feel so fraught.
Christians often struggle here. I’ve often heard Christians say, “I told my gay neighbour that I don’t agree with their lifestyle, but I still respect and value them,” and then feel confused when that causes offence. From the Christian perspective, it can feel like a disagreement about behaviour. But for their neighbour, it may feel very different. If identity and action are tightly bound together, then disagreement doesn’t sound neutral, it can feel like a rejection of who they are.
The unforgivable sin in our day and age today is to not affirm someone’s identity. It’s axiomatic. It’s something we have to do. It’s our responsibility to one another.
The Incoherence of Subjective Identity
It’s easy to see why this way of thinking feels so intuitive. We all sense there’s something deeply personal within us that matters. We sense, rightly, that there are things about our hearts that are unique and special. It feels natural therefore for us to locate our sense of identity there. And yet, the more we reflect on it, the more we realise it doesn’t quite add up or fully satisfy as a way of accounting for who we are.
If identity is simply a matter of looking within your heart and discovering who you are, where do we draw the line? When someone says, “I’ve looked inside my heart and I realise I’m gay, it’s just who I am,” instinctively, people will affirm that. When another says, “I’ve discovered this is my gender identity,” the response is increasingly the same: if that’s who you feel yourself to be, that must be who you are.
But then the same logic becomes uncomfortable if applied to other scenarios. When someone claims a different ethnicity, a different age, or even identifies as non-human, most of us would hesitate and say, “That feels like it’s gone too far.” But on what basis can we say that? Where do we draw the line if we think something is going too far? Where is too far? Where is not too far? If it’s the same rationale, the same methodology, why is it not valid? Unless, of course, it isn’t simply the case of looking inside our hearts to see who we truly are.
The Crushing Weight of Modern Identity
It’s not just incoherent. Whatever it is we make our identity, by definition, we are saying is the most important and core thing about our lives. And therefore, if that particular thing isn’t going well for us, it can feel as though life is over. I’ve seen this in pastoral ministry in a number of ways. I’ve seen people who would have said that they were a Christian, but their functional identity perhaps, was their family. And so, if their kids weren’t doing well, it was as if their life was over. Or I’ve seen people whose identity has really been in their job. And so, if they are made redundant or fired or something goes wrong, they don’t just have the challenges of being unemployed, they also feel as though their life has ended.
Sexuality as Identity
Take the common kind of understanding that you are your sexuality. It sounds very intuitive to feel that your sexual feelings are so personal, so defining. They must be who you are. But to say to someone “you are your sexuality” is also to say that, if your sexuality isn’t going well, then your life isn’t going well either. And that’s troubling news for two types of people.
First, it’s hard news for those who are, frankly, not having the kind of sex they want to have. It quietly suggests that the best of life is passing them by. If we’re not careful, it’s only a few short tragic steps to the belief that a life without sexual fulfilment isn’t really worth living. That way of thinking can have a body count.
But it’s also bad news for those who, are having the kind of sex they want to have. I’ve met many people on university campuses who would say, “I’m having the kind of sex I want with the kind of person I want. Culture tells me this is as good as life gets, and yet even then, it doesn’t always feel that great. It can still feel empty. It can still feel hollow.”
In conclusion
Finding our identity by looking solely within ourselves often proves to be incoherent and deeply crushing, as it places the entire weight of our worth on ever-shifting feelings and circumstances. When we anchor who we are in our sexuality, our careers, or our families, we risk total despair when those areas of life falter. Jesus offers a radical alternative, suggesting that our hearts are actually the source of our confusion rather than the solution.
Jesus invites us to look outward to the God who “thought you up,” offering a dignity that is not achieved by what we do, but received through being loved by Him. He refers to Matthew 15:19-20 [2], noting that evil thoughts come from out of our hearts. He also looks to Psalm 8:3-4[3] to reflect on our smallness in the universe, but our immense dignity because God is “mindful” of us.
So, what makes us human? Not simply our feelings, our desires, or our achievements, but being a creature lovingly made and sustained by God. That kind of identity isn’t fragile or crushing, it’s wonderfully secure.
Expanded References
- Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy (1641). (Allberry references the famous phrase “I think, therefore I am” ).
- The Bible, Matthew 15:19-20. (Allberry cites this to explain that defilement comes from the human heart ).
- The Bible, Psalm 8:3-5. (Allberry uses this to illustrate human smallness and divine dignity ).
Learning More
OCCA The Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics was established in 2004 to raise up the next generation of evangelist-apologists. By 2021, around 350 emerging evangelists from around the world had studied on the OCCA one-year programme. This course equipped each of them to share and defend the gospel message and to come alongside others to help them with their intellectual objections and heartfelt concerns about the Christian faith. Subscribe to our weekly newsletters to see our latest articles from our team of speakers.
Sam Allberry