Knowing God and Knowing Self

“There is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace, and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him.” – Thomas Merton

Look at who would agree with the above quote. In his introduction to The Institutes, Calvin claims,  “There is no deep knowing of God without a deep knowing of self and no deep knowing of self without a deep knowing of God.”

Moreover, Augustine writes, “I desire to know God and the soul. Nothing more? Nothing whatever.” He prays: “Let me know myself, let me know thee.”

So if the goal of the Christian Life is transformation, then transformation begins with Knowing the Self that God knows. True Knowing of  self demands that we know our self as known by God, and true knowing of God demands that we know God not just as an abstraction or as objective data but in and through our lived experience. Knowledge puffs up, but Experiential Knowledge of God and Self brings Humility. The Christian life involves a transformation of the self that occurs only when God and self are both deeply known.