Why is there only one person in each of our bodies? Or why, at least, do we account multiple-personality scenarios (such as we might believe them to exist) as abnormal—being convinced that one person per body is somehow ordained? Surely we have neurons to spare to construct more than one person.
I am not talking about the Christian notion of the supposed creation of the New Man with belief or with baptism. Jesus spoke of being born again, but it is the same old person being born. Rather, I am talking about the perception of an unchanging self-identity that we identify with our selves, no matter how that self might change. Why do we imagine that the single particularly-identified self that we see peering from the inside out of our bodies is necessarily and unalterably the one and only person of which we are comprised?
In the country of the Gadarenes Jesus encounters a man possessed by many devils, the infamous “Legion.” Jesus drives them out, and the affliction leaves the man. But he is subsequently described as having regained his sanity. Is not the assumption here that the man’s self—his perception of one identity localized to his body—has been as fractured as the multi-personality horde of demons that tormented him?
A similar notion exists in the story of the Prodigal Son. The boy takes his inheritance, squanders it, and is reduced to a state worse than beggary. He then comes to his senses, as some translations would have it, but it is classically stated that “he came to himself” (KJV), and the Greek indeed has implications of identity. The young man has indeed cause to be thankful to his father for forgiving him, but he has as much cause to thank the God who gave him himself back.
And then there is the enigmatic story of the Good Thief. In Luke’s gospel the “malefactor” (KJV) says to the other (unrepentant) malefactor: “Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss” (23:40-41). We have no idea how much the good thief knew of the teachings of Jesus, and if he had a notion of Jesus as a perfect sin offering we have no indication of it here.
Indeed, if it be held that the good thief was saved by his faith (in the conventional Christian formulation) then the situation is still more puzzling. The thief speaks only of Jesus’ innocence, not of Jesus completing a perfect work of expiation (which was at any rate not completed). He speaks of Jesus only as an innocent man, and asks that Jesus remember him “when thou comest into thy kingdom.” Remembering, as we must, that Jesus promised heavenly rule to his apostles, it is perfectly logical to contend that an equally good and deserving thief, in some subsequent decade and perhaps in some far-flung locale, might have, in sharing the experience of another crucifixion, looked at a suffering apostle and said “Lord (Master), remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”
The point I am making is that it is not the good thief’s perception of Jesus that is at issue here—other than in the negative, in that Jesus has done nothing wrong. Rather, it is the good thief’s perception of himself that saves him. The good thief comes to himself—a single, focused, and honestly repentant self-identification—as much a miracle as the incredible business of our bundles of neurons comprising a single self-aware mental entity.
A more important point is the fact that we cannot rely on focused self-awareness at every moment—we tend to go sliding off in unintended directions at virtually any moment. We can easily lose our sense of proportion—as Jesus often reminded his listeners. We must add this caution to our remembrance—intended by the previous post—that causes in the universe of our experience have effects of similar disproportion—as Jesus often reminded his listeners.
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