On ‘The Source Of True Self’

“In 1989 eminent McGill University philosopher Charles Taylor, published a book entitled Sources of the Self. Taylor’s book is a history of western philosophy that, as its title suggests, seeks to explain the origin of the western mind.

While this book is instructive and explains much about the way we now think, a theologian would want to argue that it misses the primary origin of the western self, the person of Jesus. In this we must make a distinction between the contribution to the self made by philosophical ideas and that made by one whose significance cannot be explained in terms of philosophical ideas or in codes of morality, and certainly not as a founder of a great religion, but in his very being as the one true human being.

This is why the New Testament is so puzzling to the modern mind which looks for ideas or even great actions. Here we have a person whom John the Evangelist describes as the Word made flesh, that Word that was with God and was God, the eternal truth of all things. The Christian proclamation is not of a set of ideas but of the perfection of a person, the source of true self” – Peter Sellick, ‘The source of true self’ (On Line Opinion).

Normally I would have refrained from posting this, but it is Easter and I get the feeling that there are certain Contributors who will make fools of themselves misinterpreting this. And there are some who are just going to scoff. But, before your do, make sure you read the entire piece because it gets somewhat better from there.

The only thing missing is the requisite reference to Foucault …