1.0 Introduction (Preamble)
Human thought has been shaped by the quest for self-knowledge which is rooted in self-discovery. This quest, began from antiquity to the Christian era. Philosophers, like Socrates, regarded it as the foundation of wisdom, while theologians, like Augustine, saw it as the gateway to God. Thus, man in knowing his environment, has ventured into discovering Himself. Therefore, the quest for knowing “the True Self” occupies a central place in philosophical anthropology, spirituality and theology. Here, man has dedicated himself in understanding the deeper meaning of whom he is, the constituents of his identity, and how this inner truth shapes inner life, morality and relationship with God.
Blending philosophical understanding of self-understanding as the foundation of wisdom and the biblical understanding of wisdom as the “Fear of God”(Proverbs 9:10) suggest that to despise wisdom is to be foolish (Proverbs I:7). It means therefore, that not understanding the True Self leads to foolishness. Hence, “Getting in touch with your true self must be your first priority.” (Tom Hopkins). The journey to understanding the true Self is the most difficult task one can engage into. This is because it involves deeper introspection, and an ongoing commitment to self-awareness and personal growth. The best is to learn from a model who serves as a guide to understanding the True Self. A perfect model is the Blessed Virgin Mary, since the foundation of True Self is found in Wisdom and wisdom is God (1 Cor. 1:24), she gave herself to God and thus found herself in God.
2.0 Philosophical Foundation of Self-knowledge
Here, philosophers try to lay foundation on how crucial the knowledge of the True Self is and how it can be attained .
1. The Socratic Assertion of “Know thy Self”and Plato’s Notion of the Soul
For Socratic, ignorant of the “Self” leads to a life without direction whereas the knowledge of the Self leads to and opens a way for moral clarity coupled with virteous living. This, he asserts, “ Man know thy Self and thy Self Alone.” For him, the first call to knowing or knowledge is the knowledge of the Self. He argues that without introspection, moral excellence cannot be attained (Plato, Apology 38a). The true self for him is the Soul. Recall that whatever we know of Socrates is known through the mouth of Plato. Therefore, to understand Socrates notion of the Soul, is to look at Plato’s association of the Soul with the world of Form which is the eternal World and in Christian understanding; Heaven, against the world of Senses or Reality which is the physical world or in Christian understanding, the Earth.
Again, a better understanding of Socrates Soul is the understanding of Plato’s division of the soul into tripartite—reason, spirit, and appetite (Plato, Republic 436a–441c). Thus, the Soul belongs to the rational dimension. Hence, the knowledge of the True Self or the True Self belong to the Rational dimension which is attained through the lower faculty. True Self for him is acquired through participation in eternal Forms, particularly Truth, Goodness, and Beauty which belong to the Actus Purus (Pure Act)
2. Aristotle and the Self through Virtous Living
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle opines that through the observation of one’s character, habits and action, the true self is understood and that repeated choices of one, forms his true character (II.1) Through arete, that is virtue, true self is realized. Virtue for him therefore, harmonizes Reason and Desire. The implication of this is that to know oneself is to know one’s action and habits. In this view, Thomas Aquinas, who blended Aristotle’s thought with Christian teaching asserts that, Humans know themselves indirectly through their actions, operations, and intellectual powers (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.87).
3.0 The Theological and Medieval Philosophical Development
1. Augustine of Hippo: The Inner Self and God
In Augustine’s thought, the true self can only be realized or understood in God. For this reason, he says, “You have made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” (Confession, Book 1, Chapter 1) The reason is that in his understanding of the human person, God is not outside the human person but dwells within human heart. The understanding of the self therefore, is to look within oneself and to find God. To find the Self, is to find God meaning that Self-knowledge and God-knowledge are mutually dependent (Augustine, De Trinitate XV.12).
2. Thomas Aquinas
For him, understanding the True Self lies in recognizing one’s dependent on God as a creature of him. Aquinas’ understanding of the human person as a unity of the body and soul made him to see the knowledge of the Self in the Soul, which is elevated by Grace directly towards God as it’s finality. Again, re-echoring Aristotle’s thought, through one’s actions, operations, and intellectual powers, one comes to know himself.
4.0 Other Insights on the Knowledge of the Self
Descartes:The knowledge of the self is the foundation of indubitable truth. He therefore, made a shift of the knowledge of self by locating it in the consciousness: cogito ergo sum—“I think, therefore I am” (Descartes, Meditations II). He first began the quest through “Doubt.” He doubted the existence of everything but could not deny the existence of the thinking Self. Nonetheless, he finally, reduced the Self to mental operations but the self does a lot of things other than only thinking.
David Hume: David Hume denied the existence of the True Self saying that the Self is a Bundle of Perceptions (Hume, Treatise of Human Nature I.IV.6). The implication of this is that the Self is an illusion and not fixed: This involves a dynamic self (It can be this today and that tomorrow) thereby making the self unpredictable. If this is so, the quest for understanding the true self is futile and an Utopic mission; there is no fixed identity. The self is an aggregate of experiences held together by memory and imagination.
4.0 Christian Theology of the True Self
Christian thought always channel the understanding of the true self back to the beginning of man himself. Thus, the trust self in this sense is rooted deeply in creation: man being created in the image and likeness of God – Imago Dei (Genesis 1:27). Since man is created by God and was breathed the breath of life, man can only find himself in his Creator. That is to say, the true self is realized in God. In this light, the book of Acts of the Apostles avers, “In him we live and move and have our being” (17:28). Nonetheless, the knowledge of the self is also rooted in the purpose why man was created by God. The penny Catechism of the Catholic Church answers this question by saying that reason God made man was to know Him, love Him, worship him in this world, so as to be with him in the world to come. The True Self is, from this perspective, fundamentally relational—created to love and be loved by God.
It is therefore, not possible to understand the self away from God since man is created by him and as Gaudium et Spes would suggest, “Christ is the perfect revelation of humanity’s true identity” (no. 22). This is a deviation that the True Self is rooted in introspection to the fact that it is Christocentric; to know Christ is to know oneself and vice versa. This understanding shows the intertwined nature of the knowledge of the self with the knowledge of God. In this regard, John Calvin writes, “Without knowledge of self, there is no knowledge of God. Without knowledge of God, there is no knowledge of self” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, I:1).This leads us back to the “Fear of God”(Proverbs 9:10) as the beginning of wisdom as already expounded in the preamble.
5.0 Mary, a Model of Self-knowledge
Mary by the council fathers of Second Vatican Council is the “mirror of the Church” (Lumen Gentium, 65). She is one who understood herself in relation to God’s plan: Through her corporation with God’s plan, she discovered herself. And so, she reveals what every Christian is called to do. From here, one can aver that she is the perfect example of Self-knowledge perfected by Grace. Her declaration, Ecce ancilla Domini –Behold the handmaid of the Lord (Luke 1:38), is a clear manifestation of a profound Self-knowledge –an awareness of her mission, identity and play before God. This is chiefly crowned with her Fiat (fiat nihil secundum verbum tuum) –Be it done unto me according to thy word. A sign of total submission of herself to God’s plan.
In her magnificat (Luke 1:46), Mary acknowledged her “Lowliness” and God’s greatness, manifesting a clear sign that Self-knowledge includes acknowledging one’s gift without pride or one’s limitations without despair. Finally, through her obedience, Mary becomes the Christian model of what it means to truly understand One’s Self.
6.0 What is Expected of Us
From the afore-discussed, you are:
1. Encouraged to venture into the adventure of understanding yourself first since the knowledge of the Self, is invariably the knowledge of God
2. To know that to understand the self is to give yourself totally to God’s plan
3. To introspect especially about one’s action and character
4. To understand that the True Self is revealed in obedience, humility and love
5. The knowledge of the Self cannot be attained away from God but in God
7.0 Conclusion
It is through the knowledge of the self that we come to the knowledge of every other thing. Take for instance, Descartes who in his methodic doubt , doubted everything but was not able to denial his existence and from there, he was able to prove the existence of other things like the existence of the “External World.” Most times, one fails in things because of lack of the knowledge of the self. To know thyself is to know who you are, what you can do, etc. Bear in mind that we can only understand the self only in God. Remember, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” (Plato, Apology 38a) To know oneself is to know ones limitations, to be humble before God and to avoid being arrogance, having pride, and acting like a god.
References
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Benziger Brothers, 1911–1925.
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by W. D. Ross, Oxford UP, 2009.
Augustine. Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick, Oxford UP, 1991.
Augustine. The Trinity. Translated by Edmund Hill, New City Press, 1991.
Brain Quote, “True Self Quotes.” https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/tom_hopkins_183083?src=t_true_self Accessed 16/22/2025
Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by John Cottingham, Cambridge UP, 1996.
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton, Oxford UP, 2000.
Second Vatican Council. Gaudium et Spes: Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. Vatican Publishing, 1965.
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